


A Thing Of Vikings

by athingofvikings



Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings in Author’s Note, All other HTTYD Properties are a Buffet Table of Ideas, Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 1 (ch. 1-31) is Rated Teen, Book 2 (ch. 32-ongoing) is Rated Mature, Depictions of Norse Culture, Depictions of Polyamory & Polygamy, First HTTYD movie is Canon, Mature Rating is for Violence And Related Content, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, References to Norse Religion & Lore, The Past Isn’t A Friendly Place
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2018-10-09 09:21:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 64
Words: 688,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10408971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athingofvikings/pseuds/athingofvikings
Summary: Take History.  Add Dragons.  Stir until a Genius makes friends with them and things explode.  Take the resulting stock of Hiccup and tamed dragons and set it to simmering in 1040 AD, in the Scottish Hebrides.  Add more Kings, Emperors, Romans, Vikings, Conquerors, Spies, Warriors, Thieves, Knights and Nobles, to taste.  Take cover, and sit back to watch the fireworks.In Real Life, 1040 was the tail end of the Viking Age; Europe was 50 years from the First Crusade; the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches have not yet formally split, William the Conqueror is a frightened teenager in Normandy, the Byzantine Empire is collapsing after a revival under one of their great emperors, and the great Viking Harald Hardrada is a Varangian mercenary there, while the Caliphates are having a rough time from the new Seljuk Empire and their own internal tensions. The most corrupt Pope in history holds Rome, the Reconquista of Spain is underway after the collapse of the Caliphate of Cordoba, and the Norse religion is a pale shadow of what it once was, hanging on around the Baltic Sea, Iceland, Greenland... and the Hebrides.And into that heady mix, there is now Hiccup and Berk.Yeah, history won't know what hit it.





	1. On Approach

Autumn, 1040 CE

~~~~~~

**Chapter 1: On Approach**

**_Dragon War, The_ ** _—Popular name for the low-level raiding conflict between the Green Death Nest and the Viking settlements of the Hebrides islands; specifically in reference to Berk, in the Inner Hebrides, ranging from circa 750 Common Era until 16 September, 1040 Common Era (Julian reckoning).  While just one of many human-dragon conflicts in recorded history, The Dragon War is commonly referred to as the singular and eponymous conflict due to its resolution—specifically, the taming and subsequent domestication of dragons by the Norse of Berk, with the resulting impact on history._

_Cross-references: Berk (Island); Green Death (Dragon); Haddock, Astrid, I; Haddock, Hiccup Horrendous, III; Haddock, Stoick, I…_

_—Encyclopedia Norlandia, 7th Edition, 1642, Edinburgh, Scotland_

"Land ho!"

"That there is Berk," one of the sailors said to the other as the lookout pointed to a distant peak above the water; more tall spires of rock were coming into view as they sailed closer.  "Raven Point, the locals call the peak.  Bunch of real charmers.  Viking Hooligan tribe."

"Vikings, eh?  They have such _delightful_ attitudes," the other sailor said with a sarcastic roll of the eyes.

"Aye, that they do.  And don't laugh at their names, either.  It's tradition for them to give stupid ones—frighten off gnomes and trolls, supposedly."

"How stupid are we talking?" the new sailor on the crew said, hauling on a line in the sails.  This was his first time at sea, and he'd learned quickly—in many ways—on the long voyage up from the ports of Iberia in the last few months since he'd signed on.

"Pretty stupid," the old salt replied with a smile. "Last year's visit, I got a boast from a boy named Snotlout that he would have plenty to sell me this year."  He laughed.  "From the way he was chasing after the girls, I'd say that his parents picked the right name.  Chief, at least, has a good one.  Stoick the Vast.  But his boy is named Hiccup," he said with a chuckle.

"Snotlout.  Hiccup."  The newcomer looked at the old salt.  "Is this one of those tall tales told to the new guy to see how much he'll swallow whole?"

"Nah, we did that already.  It was fun watching you believe that sea sirens were waiting for you a week offshore and go 'round with wax in your ears for two days."

"Hi. La. Ri. Ous," was the dry reply. 

"Aye.  It was," came the beaming reply.

"So why does Johann come here in the first place?  If not for the _charming_ Vikings and their names?  Since you get enough comedy from telling me sea tales, apparently."

"Well, me boy, Berk there is special in one way."

"Oh, do tell," he said with a grunt, tying off a knot of rope as a spray of seawater washed over the gunwales. 

"Dragons, me boy, dragons."

The recent landlubber looked at the old salt and said, in a tone that spoke of tested patience, "I thought we was done with the sea tales."

"No, no, you'll see.  Berk is one of the few places where there are still dragons.  Well, not _on_ Berk, at least.  But they've been fighting them for, oh, a few hundred years or so.  Dragons come, steal some sheep, just like they used to back in Europa before the hunters got them all, and the Hooligans fight back."  He chuckled.  "Dem Vikings, too damn stubborn to leave."  With a grunt, he levered up a chest onto a stack of crates, as the brightly dressed Norseman merchant, Johann, wandered around examining the cargo.  "And that's why we come.  From Berk we trade iron to get dragon hide, dragon claws, dragon teeth, dragon meat."  He swung around an iron barstock from the chest, a shape that any half-competent blacksmith could make into just about anything, flipping the rough rod through his fingers before setting it down. 

"And in London, Lisbon, Barcelona, Pisa, Rome… for dragon hide, dragon claws, dragon hearts, dragon teeth, dragon blood, dragon eyes, dragon bones… we get _gold._ "  He grinned and whistled.  "And that is why Johann comes here, because every year, they have a whole summer's worth of slaughter ready for us to buy, and their new class will have graduated—and the head of the class will be ready to sell the prize."  He smirked.  "And that's what that Snot of a lout was promising me last year—that he'd get to kill the dragon, and sell the carcass."

As they had been speaking, the tall spire of rock that marked the island of Berk had been moving closer and closer.  One of the harbor statues was just visible now as they approached, and the lookout was calling out the positions of the sea stacks and shoals for the tillerman to avoid. 

Then the lookout called out again, his voice much higher, "Dragons ho!  _Many_ dragons ho!"

"What!?"

The lookout pointed, up into the sky. 

The trader squinted and gasped as the rest of the crew tried to split their attention between not caving the hull in on a rock and staring at the flying doom rapidly approaching.

"Bows!  Now!" the seamaster shouted as the crew scrambled. 

"I see two dragons coming at us, and a flock near the island!  Looks like the dragons are raiding—there's a whole mess of them, flying together!"

The jovial atmosphere of the small trading fleet had shattered; instead of a welcoming harbor, they had sailed into a death-trap.  Nervous fingers frantically strung bows, while the lookout strained to see any details of the two approaching monsters that could set their ships aflame.

"One black, one blue!  Can't tell the breeds!"  There was a pause.  "Blue's a Nadder!" 

"Christ preserve us," swore the old salt as he frantically bent the bow to accept the oiled string.  "That one's breath will burn this ship from stem to stern."

"Can't tell what the other one is!" called the lookout.  Another pause.  "It's diving!" 

A shrill whistle sounded a moment later, one that made half the crew pale and dive for cover.  " _Night Fury_!  GET DOWN!" the old salt cried, echoed by many of the crew.

The lookout, sticking to his post, blinked, and called out incredulously, "It's got a rider!"  Ignoring the cries of "What!?" from his crewmates, he called out a moment later, "It's slowing!  There's a boy on the dragon's back!"

"Poor soul," someone muttered.  "Can't get off without getting eaten, probably," offered another voice.  "Aye, and we're next!"

"No, look!" shouted the lookout, "It's got a _saddle!_ "

The incredulous shouts a moment later were swallowed by a sound of a boy's cracking voice shouting across the water from the dragon's back, "Ahoy the ship!"

The old salt jerked up and looked across the water at the circling black monster. 

"HICCUP?!" he shouted, and, from the back of the beast, a scrawny figure waved.

"Trader Johann!  Sailor Beorn!  Hi!  Come right in!" he called, and then noticed the bows and arrows that many of the crew were nervously pointing in his direction, as the Deadly Nadder approached, also with a rider on its back.  "Oh.  Sorry.  Did Toothless scare you?"

The normally unflappable trader, standing at the stern of the ship, called back, "Just a bit, yes."  He paused, clearly trying to compose his next words.  "Hiccup… Hiccup, are you _riding_ that dragon!?"

"Uh… yes," came the shouted reply, as the Nadder drew up alongside and then landed on top of one of the nearby sea stacks, a top of blond hair visible behind its fire-breathing jaws.  "Come in!  It's safe!  Things have changed!  I'll tell you all about it!"

The trader pointed to the cloud of nearby dragons.  "What about that!?"

"Oh, uh, that's a project I'm working on.  Right!  I saw your ships coming in and came by to greet you, but I have to get back to supervising!  See you in the mead hall!  Astrid, you coming?" he called out to the other rider.  The answer was apparently yes; the boy on the back of the unholy offspring of lightning and death made a sharp movement with his leg and flew off, as the other dragon and its rider dropped off of the top of the sea stack and flew over the tops of the trade fleet.  The two of them flew side by side back to the oncoming island.

The old salt, Beorn, stared at them as they went, eyes wide, as did most of the crew. 

Then the moment shattered as the newcomer burst out in laughter.

"Dragons!  Sea sirens!  Dragon riders!  We're going to tell people, and nobody is going to believe us!"

###

Trader Johann stepped gingerly ashore, fighting to keep his eyes in his head. 

Dragons. 

Dragons _everywhere._

A Deadly Nadder was just standing nearby on the docks near some fishing boats, its snout in a bucket of fish; the breed's liver was worth its weight in silver to the alchemists of Barcelona.  Careless of the wealth in front of him, there was a Hooligan Viking giving it a loving rubdown on its purple scales as the giant beast made cooing noises around the sides of the bucket.

A Hideous Zippleback, whose spark-throats he had sold four of to the Navy of La Serenissima in exchange for his third ship, was flying overhead, a pair of bickering teenagers mounted behind its two heads. 

A Monstrous Nightmare, whose spittle was sold by the pint in good coin and whose hide was prized by the blacksmiths of Damascus for its fireproof qualities, was curled up at the crest of the wooden pathway leading up to the town square, a group of young children climbing over it as though it were a friendly sleeping dog as opposed to a beast known for setting itself on fire. 

A multi-colored flock of Terrible Terrors flew by overhead, and Johann tried to avoid recalling how he had once sold a single one of the beasts to the Frankish King's menagerie, out of fear that he might start to salivate. 

Then the cloud of Gronckles (whose hide he had sold to be made into royal armor in the Holy Roman Empire) and Nadders that his lookout had spied from miles out drifted overhead, and he whimpered at the sight.  Each of the dragons above had a rider, and the flock was straining together, the three dozen beasts harnessed to a single object, a studded ball of bone and scales as big as a house.

He heard his crew exclaiming at the sight behind him, as he walked up the path from the docks, feeling dazed and unprepared for how the world had just shifted without having the courtesy to tell him first.

A moment later, the earth did actually shudder, or at least the wooden docks around them did, as if something unimaginably heavy had just come to rest, and a cheer rose from the village above.

He and his men paused for a moment, uncertain as to whether to take another step, the ground suddenly seeming… unstable.  A few cascades of pebbles and loose dirt showered downward from the cliff face, seeming proof that the shudder hadn't been Johann's imagination. 

Then, suddenly, with a gust of wind from its wings, the black beast and its rider were hovering in mid-air next to where he was standing on the wooden ramp.  "Trader Johann!" the youth called out to him.  "All right, that's taken care of!  Come on up!  I'll let Dad know that you're here!"

And with that, the beast flew onwards and upwards.  Johann noted numbly that the beast's tail was half-black and half-red, with a white skull apparently painted onto the fin.

His senior sailor, Beorn, came up behind him and spoke quietly.  "Sir, look!"

"I'm looking," he retorted.  "What do you see?"

"I see impossible things," the old salt said.  "I see a fortune on the wing.  I see a beast that was the stuff of nightmares being ridden like a horse by the son of the chief.  I see demons broken to the saddle and stirrup."  His tone quieted, "I see the future patrician of a great trading house, whose crest will be dragons and coin."

Johann laughed a bit at that, the spell broken, although it stirred again a moment later as three Gronckles, drifted overhead, their harnesses trailing long lines of chain and leather, their riders laughing jovially with each other.

"Stoick must have discovered something, some secret, some hold over the beasts," Johann mused as they walked up the wooden path to the main village.  "How else can you explain his son riding the rarest one, other than spoils of conquest?"

A burly boy came running up to them as they mused.  "Trader Johann!  Sailor Beorn!  Welcome back!"

The old salt smiled gamely.  "Ahoy there, Snotlout.  Do you have the dragon bits that you promised me last year?"

"Uh…  sorta?"  A Monstrous Nightmare poked its head over the side of the cliff, its scales black and red.  "Hookfang here is still using them, though."

"'Hookfang'?" 

The dragon, clearly hearing that the three of them were talking about it, hopped off the side of the rocks above and landed on the wooden boardwalk behind the young man, who then reached back and patted it on the nose. 

"Yep.  He's my dragon!"  He turned back to the beast, his hand resting just below the horn on its snout.  "Say 'hello,' Hookfang."

Johann and Beorn were just staring at the demonic beast and Beorn swallowed hard. The beast, for its part, was just looking at the pair of them somewhat inscrutably with its yellow-and-black eyes, perhaps wondering how they would taste.  It was making some sort of thrumming noise, and then Beorn spoke up, almost incredulously, "Is it… _purring?"_ for the sound was as if one of the ship's cats had fallen asleep on a drumhead.

"Oh, Hookfang's a big softie, aren't you boy," the clearly demented Viking boy said in that tone of voice usually reserved for the owners of dogs with oversized teeth.  In this case, the dragon's fangs were perilously close to the boy's hands—and many of the fangs were longer than those hands, Johann observed somewhat numbly. 

Johann was also aware of the rest of the crew crowding behind him, and hoped that the seamaster had had the presence of mind to assign a watch over their ships.  Vikings could be light-fingered at the best of times, and while he generally _liked_ the Hooligans, that didn't mean that he _trusted_ them. 

Another voice called out from above.  "Snotlout, you're blocking the path!  Let them get by!" 

Johann and his crew all looked up, to see a young woman riding the Nadder that had overflown them before.  It was perched on the side of the cliff, looking down at them, and someone in the crew whimpered when he realized that he was boxed in by two fire-breathing dragons with no place to run other than into the cold sea.

"Oh, right," Snotlout said.  "You need to see the chief, right?"

"In the fullness of time," Johann said gamely, feeling a bit more like himself as the shock wore off. 

"Snotlout!"

"Oh, all _right_ Astrid, I'm moving, I'm moving!" he said and hopped onto a simple saddle behind the monster's head.  Suddenly with nothing between himself and those sharp fangs, Johann felt a bolt of fear, wondering if this was going to be his last moment.  But the youth grasped the beast by the horns and they flew off the side of the walkway, over the open water, before turning and flying back up to the village. 

They watched him fly, eyes wide, a few of the sailors pointing in varying degrees of awe and fear, and then the young woman's voice said dryly, "Now _you're_ all blocking the path.  Are you coming up or down?"

That broke the spell, and Beorn called out to the crew.  "Right.  You lot," he pointed to the back half of the salty crowd, "back to the boats, keep watch and unload our goods.  And you lot," he pointed to the closer half, "you're with me and Johann."  He craned his neck up to look at the young woman.  "Young lady, where might your chief be?"

"By the mead hall.  We just brought in his victory trophy," she said dryly, "and he's admiring it." 

"That giant ball?"

"Exactly," she said.  "You know the way, right?" 

"Aye, that we do," Johann said, and started walking, his crew following behind.

The young woman's dragon took flight overhead, and she flew by.  At least one of the sailors gave a low whistle behind Johann, which was cut off by what sounded like an elbow to the ribs. 

"What was that for?  I was 'miring the view!"

"Save it for the ports that _don't_ have Viking lasses riding dragons.  I don't want to get burned down to me bones or the ship's keel because you couldn't keep your trousers on or your hands to yourself," the other sailor said gruffly as they walked in a tight knot up the rough planks.

Johann and his crew reached the main hill of the village, cautiously walking past the sleeping Nightmare at the top, the children playing on it giggling as they walked past.  Then they had another moment of shock as even _more_ dragons came into view.  A large bowl, which looked like it had started life as one of the village signal fires, was crowded with feeding dragons; based on the smell from here, it was filled with fish.  A bluish Terrible Terror flew over the crowd of sailors and then landed on Beorn's head at their front with nary a care and a satisfied squawk. 

The old salt froze, acutely aware of how close the beast's sharp claws were to his eyes, ears, and throat, while the animal gave a short bark before flying off once more.

Other people were calling out greetings to the sailors, many of them with dragons of their own.  A pack of Nadders standing on a nearby rooftop perked up as the people called out, and seemed to join in, giving a series of trills, as if they were oversized birds. 

Walking as if in a daze, Johann and his men mounted the hill to the mead hall.  Standing near the carved stone steps was a tall figure whom Johann could easily identify as Stoick the Vast.  He was standing in front of the giant studded ball that Johann had seen before, which was now visibly settling into the earth as another pair of figures climbed over the ball, likely untying ropes that were running over its surface.  Next to the red-haired chieftain was the black dragon, the pair of them clearly appraising the giant… thing.

A Gronckle flew by, a beardless but husky boy on its back, who waved.  "Trader Johann!  Hi!  Do you have any books this visit?"

Johann, still in a bit of shock, reacted with the sort of reflex that long-time traders develop by necessity, instantly recalling the boy's name and interests from a meeting a year prior.  "Aye, Fishlegs, we have some new books, fresh from the quills of the scribes of Pisa!  I am sure that you will be interested!" he called back, as if this had been just another discussion with just any long-time customer, and not one mounted on dragon-back—and a dragon that was more or less a flying boulder, on top of that. 

The boy cheered and flew on, and, as his dragon moved across their field of view, its tail stood between them and the giant ball at the peak of the village for a brief moment.  Johann felt his eyes widen as _what_ the giant thing was became apparent. 

The tail club of a dragon. 

There _was_ the little fact, though, that the club dwarfed the black dragon next to it, and its rider, who had climbed down off of it, _and_ the chieftain who was aptly described by his title of "The Vast."  Together. 

Johann's mind boggled at the size of the dragon that the… _thing_ suggested, and he blinked as another dragon flew down onto the hilltop. 

The girl with the Nadder landed lightly next to the chief and his son as Johann and his men trudged up the hill.  Johann had a moment of surprise when she dismounted and walked over to the boy, whom Johann remembered as being the village pariah, and embraced him. 

He turned to Beorn and shared a significant look, before turning back to the rest of his men.  "Boys, that up there is the tribe's chief.  That black dragon is apparently his son's.  So's the girl that was being 'appreciated' before, unless I miss my read.  I hear _any_ complaints from them about how you treat her, I'm going to start with docking your pay and move up to lashes, am I understood?"

There was a murmur of emphatic assent, and someone roughly cuffed the whistler, who yelped.

He turned back and kept walking up the hill, keeping an eye on the view before him.  Now the boy and the girl were climbing over the giant tail club, apparently loosening straps and chains that had been laid out over its surface.  Another Viking, one with a missing hand and foot, who Johann remembered as being the village blacksmith and steward, named Gabber—no, Gobber—was standing nearby and coiling the cast-off lines as they were tossed to him.  The two dragons were stretched out nearby, much like a pair of giant scaly hounds. 

Passing the chief's hut at the top of the hill, he summoned his courage and self-confidence.  He was here to negotiate with Vikings.  The fact that they had dragons didn't make them any more deadly than they had been when they had just had axes, hammers and swords.  He had made this journey many times, and had come away each time richer and more trusted, because, as far as the Hooligans knew, he dealt with them fairly.  While the situation had clearly changed, the people had not, and it was the people that he was here to see and trade with. 

"Stoick!" he called out as he mounted the stairs up to the mead hall, the small gathering of Vikings standing around the bone club next to it.  "Stoick!  Look at you!  Your village is prospering!"

Stoick the Vast, chief of the tribe of Hooligans of Berk, accomplished warrior, and leader this past score of years, turned away from examination of his trophy and looked at the trader who turned up each year with the falling of the leaves.  "Johann!  What do you think of it?  Bit big to mount over the door to the mead hall, do you not think?"

"It's a touch bigger than Grendel's arm," Johann allowed, having reached the top of the stairs.  "Ah, Stoick, it is good to see you," he said, extending out his hands to grasp the other man's, who shook them with enthusiasm. 

"Good to see you as well, you old thief," Stoick said with a friendly rumble.

Johann put on a theatrical affronted look.  "Me?  A thief?  That is vicious slander, my old friend, and unbecoming of you.  Everything I leave Berk with is on my ship because you sold it to me," he said with a grin.  "But impugning my reputation aside, you must tell me of your victory.  Three hundred years, is it not, since your people came here and fought dragons?  And now you have conquered them and taken them as spoils of war.  Simply astounding."

Stoick suddenly looked embarrassed, an expression that Johann had only seen before when his son had caused trouble.  "Was not my victory, Johann."  He turned and pointed to the boy on the side of the dragon tail, who was prying at a buckle that had bent under stress and now would not open.  Johann could see that the boy's left leg was gone, replaced with metal and wood, and that the girl was attempting to hold down the piece to allow the boy greater leverage. 

"Twas my son's victory," the Viking chief said, his voice soft. 

Johann blinked. 

Before he could regain his bearings, Stoick gave a heave of a sigh, and said, "And I could not be more proud to call him my son."  He patted Johann on the shoulder and said, "Come, come in, bring your crew to have something that isn't cured with salt or dried to a stick, and some ale, and you will hear all about it."  He turned and called to his steward.  "Gobber!  How goes it?"

"Almost done, Stoick, just as we said a few minutes ago!" was the comment back.  "It'll get done when it's done.  Hi Johann!  Can you take away our chief and distract him a bit while we finish up on this?"

Johann gave a short laugh.  "That I can do, Gobber.  Come, Stoick, tell me about your son's great victory over some ale," he said, as the two of them walked to the mead hall's great doors.  The trader waved to his men to come up the stairs as they entered.  At first glance, the hall was much the same as it had been on Johann's last visit—a great open chamber carved from the stone of the mountain, with a vast firepit in the center, kitchens to the back, Stoick's throne along the wall, tables and benches crowding the open space, carved pillars holding up the roof and woven tapestries on the walls to ward off the chill of the rock. 

The eight-foot-long tooth mounted over the door was new, though.  

His sailors fell quiet as they filed past it and into the hall. 

Stoick, without even a glance at the giant fang, nonchalantly walked over to one of the great barrels along the wall and twisted the tap, pouring a measure of ale into a wooden flagon and handing it to Johann.  "Welcome, my old friend, to my hall," he said as Johann took a swallow.  The brew was passable, if a touch rough and bitter, but completely drinkable. 

"And I thank you for your hospitality, old friend," the trader said, and waved to his men, who quickly took flagons and seats of their own.  A moment passed as the sailors quenched their thirst, and one of Stoick's people came out with bowls of slow-simmered stew, thick with meat, onions, mushrooms, and cabbage, which were quickly passed around.  Stoick himself personally served Johann with his own hands, a high honor for a valued guest.  Several others of the tribe entered the hall, with their dragons sometimes at their sides, which made the sailors shrink back into their seats as the beasts passed nearby.  One of them, an adolescent Nadder, sniffed at them as it passed and made a slight squawking noise as its human led it onwards by a thin leather leash. 

As the sailors ate, Johann leaned over to Beorn and spoke in a low voice, "Once we are done eating, send a runner back to the ships to tell the seamaster to rotate the men for liberty on the island, with the same rules as we already spoke about."  The old salt nodded.

As Johann finished his bowl and flagon, he looked up at Stoick, who was across the hall speaking with one of his tribesmen about something.  At that moment, the doors opened again, and a step- _click_ footfall pattern sounded, which made Johann turn back to the door. 

The young Hiccup, whom Johann remembered as having a sharp mind and enough clumsiness and enthusiasm for any ten young boys, had entered his father's mead hall, speaking with a young woman who was half a hands-breadth taller than him.  A closer and longer glance at the boy's metal foot showed that it was no simple peg like that of the steward standing by the doors behind him, but a contraption of wood and sprung metal.  Behind the pair, their dragons followed in, Gobber holding the door for them.  The two young adults waved to their chieftain, who waved back and walked towards them, having apparently finished his business with the other man. 

Johann watched with covert interest as the young pair approached the chief, wondering how Stoick would treat the boy.  In previous years, the relationship between father and son had been strained, and the boy had spent much of Johann's visits talking with the sailors about faraway lands and faraway ideas.  Now, he saw respect, which was saying much from a man of Stoick's stature.  While Stoick certainly honored Johann, provider of iron and coin and treats from lands far from these snowy shores, their relationship's respect had always hinged on knowing that each of them was taking advantage of the other.  That was not what he saw in Stoick's eyes as the boy approached them, but respect and love. 

"Well?" Stoick said to the boy and girl.

"Well, Dad, the thagomizer isn't going to move anytime soon.  It's not going to roll downhill, or into the mead hall, or somehow end up atop Raven's Point unless the twins' pranks get really really ambitious," the boy said.  "It settled into the hole we dug first just right, and probably by next week, it'll be lying on the rock underneath as it settles more and crushes the dirt.  It's not going anywhere, and thank goodness, because we were running out of time before winter."

The girl standing next to him said, in a completely innocent tone of voice, "Yep.  Tail end of the season for sure." 

Hiccup did a double-take before she broke into a grin.  The boy groaned, and Stoick chuckled.  "Aye, good one, Astrid," he said, giving her an affectionate pat on the head.  The girl just put her arm around Hiccup's shoulder and gave him a peck on the cheek, which made the boy give the sort of smile Johann usually saw from the truly—and mutually—infatuated. 

The black dragon, sitting behind its master, simply chuffed as if it could understand the humor of the wordplay. 

Stoick looked at the beast and gave a little laugh.  "Aye, right, Toothless.  Who is in the lead today?"  The dragon looked at the dragon-slaying chief and just pointed at the girl with its nose. 

Hiccup muttered, "Traitor," as Gobber walked up.  The dragon just gave what was unmistakably a barking laugh, and the young woman smirked. 

Johann kept his face schooled in friendly impassivity, but, inside, he was shocked.  A year ago, the boy had been ineptly trying to subtly ask for romance tips from the sailors, and had been the subject of a drunken complaint from Stoick over how his son was not a Viking, and deeply unlike his father. 

And now he was apparently a war veteran, with a war wound and peg leg, the respect of his sire, a mutual infatuation with the subject of his puppy love, if Johann recalled correctly,  and last but most certainly _not_ least, a pet dragon. 

Named, of all things, _Toothless._  

Johann had again the sort of feeling that the gods were playing pranks on him.  Probably Loki. 

The young couple walked off to get food from the mead hall's kitchen.  Johann watched them walk off.  He hadn't really interacted with the girl on his previous visits and now he made a strong effort to etch her name into memory with his other clients as he watched her catch Hiccup occasionally as the peg leg tripped him.  Astrid.  He'd have to find out what clan she belonged to, but given the name, he'd bet that she was Hofferson.  They had more normal names simply as a show of confidence or bravado—that they were simply so potent that they did not fear gnomes and trolls, as the rest of the tribe did with their silly names. 

Johann's eyes then narrowed as he caught sight of the Night Fury's tail as the two dragons trailed behind their people.  It was not paint on the left fin, as he had originally surmised, but actually a complex contrivance of cloth and metal instead.

Stoick sat down across from him at the table, his wrist-guards thunking against the wood, bringing Johann out of his reverie. Embarrassed at having been caught staring, he looked at his host with all of the decorum he could muster.

The chieftain just looked at him with an understanding gleam.  "Aye, there have been some changes around here, yeh might say," he said in his thickest drawl. 

Johann glanced at the young pair, currently waiting to get their own bowls of stew, and then at their dragons, who had lain down by a table near the fire, near a pillar decorated with a carved relief of a dragon breathing fire at a longboat filled with armed Vikings.  After a long glance at this last, especially taking in the tapestry with the heroic Viking stabbing a dragon in the head on the wall behind them, he looked back at Stoick, and said, in his dryest tone possible, "I hadn't noticed, old friend."

Stoick laughed and leaned in.  "Aye.  Seven generations of Vikings, and my son there, the least Viking Viking Berk has ever made, has turned the place upside-down."  He slapped the tabletop with his meaty hands.  "It's been less than two months, and, well," he waved around to indicate the hall, "things have changed."

Johann leaned in conspiratorially.  "Stoick, what happened?"

The big man grinned.  "I'm no skald.  I couldn't give it justice."

"Pheh.  Bards lie to make their patrons sound good.  You can tell me just the facts, Stoick, and leave the sagas for the tale-weavers."

"Just the facts?"

"Just the facts."

"All right then," Stoick said, leaning back with his hands folded in front of him.  "Just the facts."  He grinned evilly.  "Hiccup shot down a Night Fury, healed it, tamed it, placed first in dragon fighting, found the dragon nest, found the dragon queen, and when I was too stubborn to listen to him, flew in on dragonback to save his father and the rest of his tribe, killed the dragon queen with his Night Fury, lost his leg, ended the dragon war, and tamed the rest of the dragons in the nest, who now follow us around like pups."  He took a draught from his ale flagon, as someone audibly dropped theirs behind Johann. 

Johann became aware that his jaw was hanging open and shut it with a click. 

Stoick looked at him innocently.  "Those were the facts.  Oh, and he also managed to build that contraption that helps the Night Fury fly after he accidentally tore off its tail, _and_ caught the eye of the best shieldmaiden within five years of his age."  He took another draught.  "Ah, tale-spinning raises a mighty thirst, does it not?  Aye, Johann, he does his father proud.  And, yes, before you ask, that's one of the dragon queen's fangs up there," he waved his flagon towards the eight-foot tooth mounted over the door, spilling a little ale, "and, well, you saw the tail."

Another click as his jaw swung shut, Johann looked at Stoick, who was looking back with bemusement. 

"A bard, you most certainly are not," he managed to say in a level tone, knowing that he had already lost the fight to appear unflappable and worldly. 

"Never pretended to be," Stoick said.  "And I have no patron to lie for, Johann.  I told you the truth.  My son and his dragon killed a beast that was the size of Berk from the docks to those doors, and in front of every man and woman who could lift a blade.  He out-fought it, and out-thought it, and saved all our lives."  Another draught.  "And I walked the entire tribe into the thing's nest because I couldn't listen to him," he said, much more pensively.  He looked up at Johann, a smile returning to his face.  "So, old friend, that's what's happened." Johann managed a weak smile in return, as Stoick continued.  "As for what's changed… well, we have dragon parts to sell, from the fighting over the last few months, but," he waved his arms wide, as if to encompass the whole island, "I think the supply is going to drop off just a bit from now on."

Johann stamped on the impulse to swear, imagining angry alchemists, blacksmiths and royals across the continent demanding to know what had happened to his supply. 

Stoick just continued, his flagon weaving a pattern in the air.  "Live dragons, on the other hand, well.  That's a different story."  He thumped his flagon down on the table.  "I've claimed the main wild flock on the island as my family's, as is my right as chief, and because they belong to Hiccup.  Because I don't want to have to feed the whole damn flock, I've let my people take ones that they've adopted as their own.  If they want to sell to you, that's their business, but don't expect much luck," he said, his hands describing a wide mass as he gestured.  "The wild flock, at least for now, is not for sale, nor are their eggs.  So don't ask."

Johann nodded. 

"Hiccup wants to study them and get them used to people first."  He picked back up his flagon and took a draught.  "We'll see where _that_ leads, but I think it'll be interesting for you in a few years."  The chieftain smirked.  "Beyond that, we do have a few, small things that you might be interested in," he said, leaning back on the bench as Gobber walked up with a woven basket. Reaching back, he took the package from his steward and set it on the bench beside him.  Flipping open the lid, he reached in and tossed a blue-green scale the size of a dinner platter onto the table.

The trader blinked, and his sailors all craned to look at what had just landed in front of him.

"That there is one of the dragon queen's scales," Stoick said.  "We're still picking bits of her off of the beach.  While most of it got ashed when my son killed the monster," he shrugged, "as you know, dragon hide is fireproof—and from both sides, it seems."

Johann had picked up the scale as Stoick spoke.  The scale, blackened with fire and melted a touch around the edges, was easily twice the width of the span of Johann's spread fingers and more.  He looked up at Stoick, eyes wide. 

"Aye.  That devil was a big one," he said.  "That one's yours, as are the rest in here."  He lifted the basket and pushed it across the table.  "Consider it a gift.  I know that you don't come up here out of the goodness of your heart, Johann.  I know what a sea voyage costs.  And I know that you're not happy with what I just told you.  So, aye, that's yours.  And," he smiled, "I know that if you're half as good at trading as you think you are, you'll be able to get your patrons to bid wildly over the last dragon parts to come from the barbarians for a long while."  He leaned back on the bench.  "I think you'll do well."

Johann just looked at him. 

"How much of that did you have planned out before I even arrived?" he asked, trying to keep from sounding petulant. 

"Oh, me and Gobber talked it out the other day."  He winked.  "Johann, I've known you for nearly as long as I've been chief.  Give me _some_ credit for realizing that a dragon tooth is worth more than a quarter bar of iron or a half skein of linen."  He folded his arms and extended his right at the elbow.  "Besides, if not for you and yours, we'd be long wiped off this island, stubborn or no.  You've brought food that we could not have grown for ourselves, iron that we could not have mined, and goods that we could not have made, and gave our spoils of fighting that much value.  We rebuilt burned homes with saws made with your iron, burned trees for warmth that were chopped with axes made from the same, and fed those whose food had been stolen with your wares."  He extended his hand to the other man, who took it and shook.  "Thank you."

Johann looked at the chieftain; tall, broad, with a thick accent, wearing a pelt and the remains of a set of scale armor that Johann had sold him a decade before, with a helmet decorated with dragon horns atop his head, he was the very image of the dull barbarian chief. 

And he had just run rings around the sophisticated trader.

It wasn't _fair._

Johann surprised himself by bursting out laughing.

"Stoick, Stoick, my old friend.  You are wise, and I accept your gift in the spirit in which it was intended."  He raised his own flagon.  "To the end of one era, and the beginning of a new one, where we shall grow fat on peace, instead of lean on war!"

"I'll drink to that!" Stoick said, knocking his flagon against Johann's, and they drank.

* * *

 

**A/N:**  And so it begins...

More information at this fic's Tumblr: athingofvikings.tumblr.com


	2. The Hero Of Berk

**Chapter 2: The Hero Of Berk**

_In the popular imagination, the end of the Viking Era is inevitably tied together with the Hero of Berk, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.  Despite the hagiographic efforts of both contemporary and subsequent biographers, according to both his own accounts and those of his associates, he was an extremely humble individual throughout his entire life, his journals revealing a man honestly bewildered and disturbed by the adulation.  However, his accomplishments do speak for themselves, as a polymath and inventor whose name has become synonymous with both genius and altruism in the subsequent centuries…_

_—The Second Flowering Of Yggdrasil: An Analysis Of The Norse Resurgence, 1710_

~~~~~~

"…and the thralls having abandoned their Queen,

The rock and air split asunder with her rage.

Looming up from the chasm came a head of green…"

Hiccup moaned and slid down in his seat a bit, his cheeks flushing, as Chestnut the Witty declaimed his new saga, "The Hero Of Berk," to the assembled tribe, plus Johann's sailors.  And the whole audience was listening, rapt, to the new verse. 

Astrid just looked at him, a giant grin on her face.  "What's wrong, Hiccup?" she whispered.  "You wanted to be a good Viking, and you've got your own saga now.  It's hard to be more Viking than that." 

He squirmed as Chestnut continued singing and beating his drum.

The worst part was that people kept _looking_ at him.  Even the people who had _been_ there, and whose primary actions had been standing on the beach—or, more popular, running _away_ on the beach—were stealing glances at him.  The sailors were worse, though.  He wasn't sure which ones were worst—the ones whose expressions were awestruck, disbelieving, worshipful, or some combination of all of the above. 

"Sacrifice promised, the shield brothers stood, heroic

Bellowing like a forge, smiting blows at the beast,

The smith, Gobber, the Chief, Stoick,

Against the foe that they had released,"

Leaning on Astrid, he murmured, "I just… everyone keeps _looking_ at me.  I'm not used to it.  I feel… exposed."

She smirked and kissed his cheek.  Whispering into his ear, she said, "Hiccup, you're the first dragon rider.  You're just going to have to get used to the attention.  But, if you want, I could ignore you for the rest of the poem while I listen to them talk about my boyfriend's heroism.  In verse."  Her smirk grew.  "The last Viking to get that treatment only wounded his dragon, even if he did beat Grendel in an arm-wrestling contest."

He sighed.  "Ha ha.  But all right, I'll be quiet."  Another put-upon teenaged sigh, and he leaned up against Astrid's shoulder, wondering how much embellishment Chestnut had packed into those frantic few minutes. 

Quite a bit, it turned out.  He keep squirming as the skald continued.  

Gerta Ingerman, who had once tried to keep Fishlegs away from him on the grounds that Fishlegs still had a hope of being respected by the village, was giving both him and her nephew approving looks as the skald described their entry into the battlefield.

"The Hero leapt to his friend's aid,

braving flaming fire and drowning water,

His companions, astride their own loyal mounts,

fighting to stem the tide of slaughter,

To keep the Green Death from settling accounts,

The unfortunate end to the Dragon War's final raid"

Unable to keep focused on Chestnut, Hiccup continued to look around the room, trying to keep from being _too_ obvious about it… even as he could feel the stares at his back.

Toothless just gave him an odd look with a cock of the head from where he was leaning up against the firepit nearby.  Then, after a moment, the dragon rolled his eyes and went back to listening to the skald.  With a blink, Hiccup wondered how much the dragon could understand of what Chestnut was saying…

As he looked around, he spotted people stealing glances at Toothless as well.  And those looks were filled with awe and respect… and more than a little fear, which saddened him.  Most of the village had their own dragons by now—many of which were sitting on high shelves up in the mead hall's room—but the Night Fury was still… scary. 

He found himself staring straight into the face of Phlegma the Fierce, who was looking at him with hero worship on her face.  He cowered a bit, remembering how she had treated him before Toothless had come into his life, which usually involved yelling at him and threatening to beat him.

"The sea swallowed the black beast, dark waters surrounding,

Chains an anchor to one that would be truly home in the sky,

His rider and friend fighting to free him, the restrains not budging,

But the cold sea took its due, and the Hero could nay free his ally.

All hope was lost, the Hero and Beast's strength failing,

The Vast Chieftain, Stoick, seeing the Hero, his son, flailing.

Into the water the Chief dove into the sea's grasping cold,

Then the father pulled away his son to the water's threshold."

Hiccup grimaced at the memory.  He hadn't known if his father was going to kill or free Toothless in those terrifying moments.  He gripped Astrid's hand like a lifeline, and her own fingers tightened on his.  Still looking around anxiously, he tried to avoid meeting anyone's eyes…

And failed again. 

Hoark the Haggard, who before had suggested to Stoick that Hiccup be kept chained up inside the chief's house or smithy to keep him out of trouble, was looking at him with so much awe and approval that it was giving Hiccup vertigo.

"Back into the grasping waters dove the Chief,

Eye to eye with the Black Beast, bound in chain.

Reaching forward, the Chief believed, and strained,

For by his choices had the men come to grief.

Shackles broke and cast off, the Dragon took flight,

Bursting forth from the cold dark sea's trove,

The Hero's father carried with, contrite,

Partners in battle, into the sky they drove."

Hiccup listened with half an ear as Chestnut continued, describing their catch of Astrid, which made her tense up as well. 

It was excruciating.  The skald stretched each moment out into its own stanza.  The chase by the Green Death down the length of the beach got _four._   He remembered when his milk teeth had started falling out three or four years ago, and how they had felt like they had taken _forever_ to work loose. 

At the moment, Hiccup was pretty sure that, given a choice, he would have picked going through losing his baby teeth again over this.  People kept _looking_ at him expectantly, and he wanted to cry, or run away, or scream, or something.  It was worse than waking up from those nightmares where you weren't wearing clothes, because this was _real._

At least he had Astrid next to him.  They had settled into a wonderful, _ecstatic_ relationship since he had woken up from the coma after the battle.  He could _talk_ to her, and she understood what he was saying, and they spent _hours_ every day, just… talking.  Talking about dragons.  Talking about his inventions.  Talking about ideas for the village.  Talking about nothing in particular. 

They would race up and down the island, from the beach to the peaks, on their dragons, and neither of them gave the other an inch, and it was everything that he could have dreamed of.  More. 

And her brain… he was certain that Freyja, Frigga and Odin had collaborated on her mind.  They would banter, have pun competitions, or ask each other questions to try to stump the other, or just bounce ideas off of each other. 

He was aware that they were being extremely mushy-sweet, and didn't care, not one bit, nope, not one single little bit, even if their chaperons were starting to make sarcastic sighs around them.  She was more than his girlfriend.  Next to Toothless, she was becoming his _best_ friend, and, as much as his friendship with the dragon was something he couldn't imagine living without anymore, Toothless wasn't much of a conversationalist, although there was no doubt that the Night Fury could express himself _eloquently._  

He had his dragon, and he had his girl, and… honestly, right now, he would have been perfectly happy if they were the only people within a league of him. 

Instead, they were listening intently to the saga.

Not that he could blame them.  He loved sagas. 

Just, it turned out, not ones that he was the central character in. 

With everyone staring at him… he retreated inward instead, just to get away from the looks.  At least he had a place to go, so to speak—his imagination, where he could play with his ideas and inspirations.  It had been the place he'd gone to, where he had thought and imagined, back when the only person who talked with him had been Gobber.  He had many ideas in this place that he fiddled with in idle moments, of oddball little concepts that got committed to paper when he was satisfied with them.  And if they were workable, maybe then to wood, leather and steel.  But that was a big If.

War machines, the products of many idle hours of boredom and thought and childhood yearning to be a proper Viking, dominated many of the metaphorical "shelves" in his little mental space.  There were catapults and various odd cousins of the rock slingers, giant mounted ballista warbows inspired by tales of the ancient Romans (including one capable of firing multiple bolts in a minute; he had promised himself that he could make that one work), net launchers, and the bola thrower that he had used on Toothless, as well as spear-throwers, ax-launchers, and one idea that he simply couldn't get rid of for a sword-slinger.

Lately, though, he'd been thinking of more peaceful applications and ideas.  The giant web-net that they'd used to carry the thagomizer over from the Dragon Nest was here as a first visualization, along with the straw-padded and -insulated carry-stack for the dragon-eggs they'd found in the Nest. 

He was also visualizing Berk, the island itself, and how things would be built and where to put things.  The dragons themselves were tunneling out space under the village and in the two surrounding peaks for them to roost in, and he'd put several Gronckles and Whispering Deaths to work at carving out a place for the eggs to be brooded and hatched, under the mead hall. 

He had such plans…

Right now, he was just trying to get the dragons to follow the directions.  Whispering Deaths were… touchy, much more so than Gronckles, and getting either of them to dig where he wanted them to dig was… well, he was just glad that he had started his experiments on the main part of the island.  It's not like anyone had _needed_ that hill. 

But now he had a general if tricky system of painting the rock with fish juice, and training the dragons to dig for a few feet in a straight line. 

And he didn't want the village to collapse into a sinkhole if they dug too much, like that hill had, so he was being _very_ careful with the size of the chambers they were digging out. 

The world fully tuned out, he started fiddling around in his mind-space with a new idea.  A brittle and thin ball with vent holes… a hot coal mounted there in the middle…

Astrid suddenly poked at him.

"What!?" he yelped, then realized that everyone was looking at him expectantly, and his face suddenly _burned_ as a thousand eyes all focused on him at once.

She hissed in his ear, "Chestnut finished and everyone's waiting for you to accept it!"

Leaping to his feet, he would have overbalanced if not for Astrid's steadying arm on his shoulder.

Heart hammering, he looked at Chestnut, who was looking a little hurt at his lack of attention to the climax of his verse.  "So, uh, Chestnut, thank you so much for composing all of that, especially in just a few months.  It was just like being back there, great eye for detail, you really caught the feel of the moment," he babbled out.  "Uh, so, yes, I accept your saga," he swallowed hard, "with all of my heart, and I much appreciate your effects in commemorating what happened.  So, yeah, thank you so much and, oh, yeah, I think it's time for that feast!"  He pointed at the buffet being set out by the cooks, who were _also_ giving him approving looks. 

People applauded and got up from their benches to start in on the food. At least half of them were still staring, though, but that was okay as a forest of tall Vikings rose up around him, which blocked lines of sight.

Attention successfully diverted, he hopped over to Toothless, cheeks still flushed at the humiliation of being stared at.  As people began to clamor over the food, he quickly fled the hall, trying to sneak out as stealthily as someone with a big black dragon and a peg leg that clicked against the stone with every other step could manage.  Or, in other words, not very stealthily. 

He was getting a variety of looks; some of the adults were skeptical, and others were more understanding.  Ruffnut, standing near her uncle Chestnut, seemed surprised and disgruntled, while Chestnut himself was still a bit hurt.  His father's face also showed bafflement that turned into understanding as he and Toothless walked to the doors to leave the feast being held in their honor.  And then they were out of the doors and outside. 

He hopped onto Toothless's saddle, and muttered, "Let's go, bud."  A rush of Toothless's wings ensued and he and his friend took flight away from the mead hall.  Even as the wind rushed by, Hiccup could feel his ears still burning from embarrassment despite the cool nighttime air. 

No matter how fast or how far they flew as they circled around the island, Hiccup felt like the stares were still digging into his back. 

_Hero…_

_Pride of Berk…_

_Dragon Lord…_

_Dragon Conqueror…_

Gah!

On their second lap, Astrid and Stormfly came flying up next to them. 

"You feeling okay?" she called out, concern evident in her voice.

"Yeah, never better!  I always flee feasts being held in my honor!"

"Hiccup…"

"What?  It's true!  That's the first one, and I've run for it!"

"So what's wrong?  Was it the saga?"

He tried to shrug off her gaze, and she continued to look at him with deep concern… and patience. 

He bit his lip as she kept looking at him, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, and then nodded in admission.  "It… just… it seems so silly.  Promise you won't laugh?"

She nodded solemnly.

He nodded.  "Yeah… it was the saga.  Well, not just that.  I feel like a giant fake, and like everyone can see it."

She sighed and edged Stormfly in closer.  "You're going to have to run that by me again, Hiccup," she said gently.  Then, with a very slight smirk, she continued, "I don't speak the mirror-heim language."

He blinked at that and then picked it apart.  "Oh.  Where up is down, right is left…"

"And a hero is a fake?"

"It's just…" he waved his arms aimlessly, "They're all looking at _me_ like I'm the Hero, and Toothless is the monster, but, without him, we wouldn't have managed at all!"

"Hiccup!  You _are_ the one that's the hero in this whole thing, don't you see that?"

"How can I be?  I'm still just the same person I was.  The only thing that's changed is Toothless… and they refuse to see him as anything other than a threat."

She just gave him a level look, and called out to the two dragons, "Toothless, Stormfly, let's land.  I need to knock some sense into my boyfriend."

Toothless gave an affirmative bark.  The Night Fury banked and went to land by the lower slopes of the village, near the ruined catapults, as Hiccup just squirmed in the saddle.  He could have taken control… but even in his current funk, he could tell that _that_ wouldn't end well.

Hopping off of Toothless, he tried to hide behind his friend's bulk as Astrid slid off of Stormfly.  Toothless just gave him a reproachful look, and, with a flap of his wings, jumped over to the other side of the pasture.  As he landed, the sheep gave the two dragons an odd look, but when the two of them just continued to sit there, the sheep went back to chewing grass.

Now exposed, he cringed a bit, and she walked over, arm pulled back, he flinched…

And she hugged him.

And didn't let go of him, either, locking her arms around him, her hands holding onto her own elbows.

"Now, you listen, and you listen good," she said fiercely into his ear.  "If not for you, Toothless would still be doing overwatch and cover fire for raids, we'd be eaten out of house and home, and the Green Death would still be holding the dragons in thrall.  You let a dragon live, _you_ learned to ride them, _you_ were the one that led _us_ to save everyone from the Green Death, and _you_ probably could have done it entirely on your own.  The only thing that the five of us managed was to keep it distracted while _you_ rescued Toothless, and he would have just gotten _eaten_ if not for your guidance, isn't that right Toothless?" she said towards the dragon, who gave an affirmative bark.  "See?  Sorry, Hiccup, but you deserve the bulk of the credit.  We may have _helped,_ but you _led."_

He sagged into her embrace and said, "But… I was just… I… well…"

She patted him on the back.  "Uh huh.  You don't say."

"I just… the only looks that people gave me for years—including you!—was annoyance, or anger, or 'Oh, Odin, what did he do _now?_ ' or just…" He waved his arms helplessly around the two of them.  "Being Hiccup the Useless… _That,_ I know how to handle.  People would look at me like I was a pox or something, but I knew how to handle it.  But attention?  Respect?  _Hero worship?_ "  He sighed into her shoulder.  "Nope, no idea, brain no worky."

She laughed and then sobered.  "I'm sorry that you don't know how to handle the attention.  And I'm sorry that I made it worse."  She kissed his forehead.  "I really, really am."

"But we're okay now," he said with a wane smile.  "That's the one thing I can count on.  _You_ don't look at me like I'm some hero out of the sagas.  I know that you'll treat me like… _me._ "

"Except for the part where you flinched because you thought that I was going to hurt you just now, just like you used to get hurt back… before."  She let him go a bit and then held him at arm-length by his shoulders.

"Well, yeah.  You tend to communicate that way.  I get that."

She grimaced.  "So it's okay that I can hurt you, just because you think that's how I am?"  She gave a pained sigh.  "Hiccup, no.  I shouldn't get to _hurt_ you because you expect me to."  She gave a pained smile.  "There's a difference between a playful punch and an ass-kicking.  I give you the first, sure, because, yeah, that _is_ how I am… but I gave you the second when I ambushed you at the cove…" 

She took in a deep breath, grimaced, and said in a rush, "And I understand what you're going through.  As much as I can."

"Huh?"

Speaking carefully and in a tone of worried, no, _terrified,_ soul-baring confession, two months of built-up self-recrimination finally bursting forth, she said, "Hiccup, you have _every_ right to hate me.  To look at me like you look at Snotlout.  I treated you… poorly.  For years." 

He made an inarticulate sound of protest, but let her continue.

She paused, swallowed hard, and continued, "Sure, I didn't taunt you like Snotlout and the others did, but I _never_ tried to stop them either.  Not _once._   And then…" She winced at the memory, "I showed up to _bully_ the secret of how you were doing so well out of you.  Because I knew that that would _work._   That I could just scare and _beat_ it out of you and then I'd be 'better' than you, that you were somehow cheating.  And now… I'm _really_ angry with myself about that." 

She paused and screwed up her courage for the next admission, because she felt that it would be important for him to hear,  and said, "And I've had a few nightmares over the last few weeks that you'd realize that, that the only time I noticed you before was when you were in my way or screwing up, and that I don't deserve you."

"But—" he started, and she just put her hand over his mouth, gently. 

"I dream that I'm back in that cove… and you stop Toothless from attacking me… and then you say that I'm not worth it and just… fly away.  Like you were already _planning_ to when I showed up.  So the fact that you can look at me like _that,"_ she said, indicating with her chin his incredulous expression, "makes me feel like I somehow cheated.  Like you forgave me too easily.  Like the only reason you didn't run _away_ was because you ran after _me_ , the person who was running to tell on you, the one who had just given you a _beating,_ the one that didn't _trust_ you… and I have to ask myself…" she looked at him dead in the eye, "Why didn't you?"  She grimaced and forced herself to ask in a firm tone, "Why didn't you?  You already were going to.  Why did a beating from _me_ change your mind?"

His mouth was hanging open by this point.  "But… I could… no, how could you _say_ that…"

"Because you're a better person than I am!" she said hotly.  "Look at _us!_   You're moping because people are giving you the respect you _deserve,_ and you're feeling all confused, because people never treat you that way _,_ and the closest I can come to showing that I understand that is telling you that _I'm_ feeling all confused because I'm _not_ being treated how _I_ deserve to be, by _you_!"

"But…"

She squeezed him in her arms. 

"But… you're important to me… how can you even think that I'd just… throw you away because you didn't know better…?"

She smiled weakly at him.  "I could ask the same thing.  How can you think that we'd just throw _you_ away because now we know better?"

He looked up at her after a few moments with a confused look.  "I… anything I say to _you_ to make you feel better, you're going to turn around on me, aren't you?"

"Yep," she sniffed into his shoulder.

"You're making me argue with myself."

"Yep," she repeated, her eyes a bit wet.

He gave her a look of humorous consternation, his own eyes a bit watery, as that sank in.  "…Cheater."

"Yep.  I needed high-powered help to get it through your thick head," she said fondly, with a bit of a sniffle as he snorted and then gave her a wane, teary smile of his own.  She sniffed again.  "Plus I've been thinking about it a bunch for the last week when I wake up in the middle of the night.  I just… couldn't bring it up because I was scared.  Because I was worried that you'd just go, 'yeah, you're right,' and walk away…"  She gave him a pained smile.  "But you needed to hear it."

He just hugged her, and she leaned up against his shoulder. 

"Hiccup, do you forgive me for being an ass to you for all of those years?"

"How could I not?  I was trying to impress _you._ Now that I have… oh."

She looked up at the cloudy sky.  "Thank you, Thor, for that little bolt of understanding."

"Ha. Ha."

"If it helps, I promise to not give you the hero worship," she said.  "I'll respect you, I'll be your friend, I'll be your girlfriend, even, but I won't treat you as the return of Beowulf.  Does that help?"

"…oddly, yeah, that does help," he said. 

"Partners?"

"Partners."

"Awesome.  And thank you for forgiving me," she said, leaning in for another kiss, which lasted for a good long moment.

A little while later, as they were sitting on the grass, Toothless's head turned.  A few moments after that, they heard footsteps, and saw Trader Johann walking towards them, a tray laden with food in his hands. 

"You both left before you could eat."  He set the tray on a nearby rock.  "Come, eat, both of you."

They moved over to the rock, and Hiccup found that he was famished, and started industriously eating the bread and meat that Johann had carried out for the two of them.

He looked at them fondly, taking his own seat on the grass. 

"I came by before, but you two were talking and I didn't wish to interrupt you.  Are things going well?"

Hiccup nodded and took Astrid's hand, and she squeezed back. 

"Glad to hear it," the trader said.  "Now, I know that you're expecting me to ask about buying dragons, so I'm not.  I would rather be able to come _back_ next year."

Hiccup nodded and gave the trader a smirk.  "Good instinct."

"Thank you," he said with a nod.  "Instead, I will just say this, Hiccup, for you to consider.  You now possess, as far as I know, the only tamed dragons in the entire world.  Others will hear of this.  Even if I kept my own lips sealed, which I will not, my crew will not be so silent.  You now possess the wealth of kingdoms.  Figure out how to _protect_ it."

Astrid just looked at him with a skeptical expression.  "So, if the dragons are so valuable, why are you telling _us?_ " she asked, arms crossed in front of her.  "Doesn't that mean that you'll have to pay us _more_ for the dragons?  Why tell us how much they're worth?"

"Simple, my lady.  Because if your man here manages to maintain his hold, his _exclusivity,_ thanks to my warning, then I hope to be able to find favor with you in the future.  And being one of the few traders who do business with Berk…" he chuckled gamely, "well, that has every possibility to make _me_ a very, very wealthy man.  If you somehow _lost_ control of the dragons, if others managed to do what you have done, well, then my position would not be as strong, and I would not be able to command nearly as high a price, now would I?"

Astrid cocked her head, trying to find a hole in the logic. 

"Aye, I suppose," she said grudgingly after a few moments. 

"Splendid," he said.  "Now, I haven't managed to get people to part with _any_ of their beasts, and, out of respect, I won't try beyond the basic interest questions that I've already done.  This year, at least.  I hope you understand that."

Hiccup nodded. 

"Excellent.  We shall be setting sail tomorrow on the afternoon tide.  I have quite a few people to talk with before then, so, if you'll excuse me…" he stood, patting off his pants. 

As he walked away, he turned back to the two teens. 

"Oh, and Hiccup, my boy?"

"Yes?"

"Keep her _close._   You won't find someone who can fence that well with you twice in a single lifetime without Frigga's and Odin's blessings.  And, you, Miss, that goes for you as well.  You've got him, don't let him get away.  He'll be going down in the histories next to the natural philosophers of old, at the very least, and that's not even counting how well you're matched with him personally."

He gave a wide smile and walked up the path, leaving them to their privacy and tray of food. 

Glancing around, Hiccup realized that they were alone on the small piece of pasture.  Astrid just smirked as she came to the same thought.  For the first time in… well, quite a while, they had a few moments of privacy, without a chaperon.  That would probably change quickly once someone realized that they were unattended, but…

Astrid just rolled her eyes and grinned at him.  "I don't always like him, but he gives good advice," she said, giving her boyfriend another kiss with a great more enthusiasm than she'd normally feel safe doing in front of one of the ever-watchful adults.  The food could wait, and they'd go back into the mead hall soon enough for more.

###

Ruffnut poked at her plate, as she scowled at the empty seats next to Stoick.

"You going to eat that?" her twin asked, looking at the cut of mutton on the plate with hungry eyes.

"Go get your own," she said, irritated. "There's enough by the kitchens."

"But yours is right here. And you're not eating it," he said, inching his knife over to try to spear the meat.

With a grunt, she stabbed the roast, and carved off a piece, which she then stuffed in her mouth and started chewing vigorously.

Her uncle Chestnut looked over at her. "Something wrong?"

She scowled at him and chewed resolutely. "No."

"Want to try that again? Because you'll be a terrible skald if you can't have your tone match the words that you're saying," he said, waving the point of his knife at her for emphasis, the grease from the chicken breast speared on the end dripping onto the table as he waved it.

Rolling her eyes, she reached out and grabbed the chicken off of the tip of the blade. Tossing it onto Tuffnut's plate, she smiled insincerely at her uncle. "Better?"

He rolled his eyes at her and laughed. "Right. So, Ruff, what's eating you?"

She cocked her head at her brother. "Nothing. I've managed to placate the troll here before he got too hungry."

He snorted and continued, undeterred. "Was it Hiccup?"

"No… maybe… yes," she said, looking down at her plate and mutton. With a sigh, she looked back up at her uncle. "You're not offended? We… _you_ worked on that saga for over a month."

"And you helped, so you're feeling offended too?" he asked wryly. "Tuffnut helped too, and he's fine."

Tuffnut looked up from where he was chewing on the chicken. "Hmm?"

"That's because Tuffnut only has enough brains to feel one thing at a time," she said. "Right now, it's on Hungry. Wait until later for it to change."

Tuffnut made a sound of protest through the mouthful of chicken.

Chestnut pushed over his plate of whipped turnips. "Here, boy, have some more."

Tuffnut gleefully spooned the mashed vegetables onto his plate and kept chewing. As he did so, their uncle looked at them and smirked. "So, Ruff, what, you think that it was a deathly insult?  That he started a feud with us and we shall have to call him to account for such a dire and deep dismissal?"

She stuck her tongue out at him as he waggled his eyebrows.  "Haha, Uncle.  Very droll."

"But you _are_ feeling insulted.  So maybe while you're not going to challenge him to a duel for your pride and honor, you _are_ angry with him."  He leaned in.  "Aren't you?"

"I… yeah," she said, drooping a bit. "He just ignored most of the saga, and then ignored you, and then left! And w— _you_ worked so hard on it!" She stabbed hard at the slab of mutton and carved off another piece angrily.

Before Chestnut could say anything in response to that, Snotlout suddenly appeared at his shoulder. "Hey, so what gives with giving me such a small mention in the saga? I'm the only one that actually smacked that monster! Everyone else kept away!"

Chestnut just turned and looked at the pint-sized Viking with a raised eyebrow. "Snotlout. I was telling _Hiccup's_ saga. Not yours. And while that deed was impressive, it was an act of desperation, and then you spent the rest of the time trying not to fall off. If you want me to mention one, I will mention the other. Is that acceptable?"

"Um…" Snotlout seemed to actually pause and consider. "Uh… no, it's fine as is, then." He then turned to Ruffnut and… well, while she was certain that he was _trying_ to smile, it still came out as a leer. "So, Ruff… um… I know that you're practicing to be a skald. Think that you could compose something for _me_?"

She started to tell him to get lost… and then had another idea. Holding up her hand for a moment's thought, she cleared her throat while Snotlout looked on in anticipation.

_"Little pup with little paws, lout yap from loud jaws,_

_Look at me, look at me! The pup slobbers snot—"_

And that was as far as she got before Snotlout walked off in a huff.

Uncle Chestnut just watched him go with an amused expression, and then turned back to her. "Oh, he's not going to forgive you for _that_ one."

She snorted and gave an irked look at Snotlout's retreating back. "Don't get my hopes up, Uncle. With Astrid off of the market, I'm practically the only girl in the village near his age that's still available."

Chestnut opened his mouth to reply and then closed it slowly. He was clearly running names through his head. His kids, her cousins, were either older or younger than her, and he apparently hadn't thought too much on it. She just took another bite of her mutton. Tuffnut, having finished eating his own chicken _and_ the whipped turnips, popped the entirety of Chestnut's stolen chicken breast into his mouth and started chewing.

Loudly.

She rolled her eyes and shifted over a bit on the bench, away from him.

A sigh from across the table made her look back at her uncle. Chestnut had a sheepish look on his face and then gave a pained shrug. "All right, point taken." He glanced in Snotlout's direction and then back at her.

Before he could say anything, though, Hiccup and Astrid reentered the mead hall, holding hands and looking sickeningly sweet; it was the sort of look that made it _very_ clear that they were not really seeing anyone else in the mead hall aside from each other. Ruffnut just sighed as the pair of them walked over to the food, saccharine grins on their faces, and carved off another piece of her roast with perhaps a _touch_ more force than was strictly needed.

Her uncle paused and then a slow smile crossed his face. "Oh ho. I see."

She just looked up at him with a glare. "See what?"

"Feeling a touch jealous, dear niece?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. He just kept looking at her expectantly. Next to her, Tuffnut audibly tried to swallow the chicken, and then started choking.

She sighed and, without breaking the stare with her uncle, reached out to her left and made a fist. As she thumped her idiot brother on the back to try to dislodge it, Chestnut just kept looking at her with a level stare and a knowing smirk.

_Thump._

After three or four solid thumps, Chestnut just put his elbows on the table and then his chin onto his hands and said, conversationally, "Well, let's see. Outside of the clan, how many boys your age are there?"

She just glared at him and gave Tuffnut an even more solid _thwack!_ on the back.

He pitched forward, and hacked up a mass of chewed chicken about the size of her fist onto his plate and started coughing.

Chestnut, completely unperturbed, just said, "There's Hiccup. Snotlout. And Fishlegs. At least in your cohort." He ticked off fingers in thought. "There are some boys in the year after you…"

She shook her head. "Thanks, but they're both Jorgensons. So no thanks." She just kept thumping Tuffnut on the back—it was a great excuse to hit him, even if he didn't need it anymore.

He nodded ruefully. "And older than you…"

"Either in the clan, or married already," she said bluntly. "Unless we want to get _much_ older than me." Tuffnut was turning bright red, and then hacked up another gob of chewed meat before falling backwards off of the bench.

She glanced at him, and then at her uncle, with an expression of long-suffering torment.

He snorted.

On the floor next to her, Tuffnut was moaning.

"Uhhh…"

"If you die, I get the room to myself," she said nastily.

"Uh uh," he managed to get out, and heaved himself to a sitting position again… with a little too much speed, and whacked his face into his plate.

Chewed chicken covering his face, he slumped back onto the floor, groaning, but he was breathing again. Chestnut was trying to hold back a laugh, as were several other people.

"I hurt. I very much hurt," her brother groaned.

She applauded and he just gave her a look of irritation from where he was lying on the ground.

"That'll teach you to eat like you're a pig at the trough. Of course, given that you stink like one—"

"Did you just call yourself a pig's sister?" he said, grunting as he hauled himself back to a sitting position.

"I can't help if you were switched at birth," she said caustically.

Sticking his tongue out at her, he picked up his plate and walked off to the kitchens to get more.

Chestnut snorted. "So, where were we?"

"I don't know where you were, Uncle, but _I_ was eating," she said, and started to carve another piece of her roast.

He made another bark of laughter. "Despite the table manners of your brother, even. So, dear niece, what's your issue with Hiccup? That he wasn't listening to the saga? Or that he isn't interested in you?"

She glared at him. Yes, when Hiccup had gone to the dragon pens to fly after the rest of the tribe, she'd called him crazy, and she liked that… but he'd made his preference _very_ clear.  He and Astrid were being disgustingly cute… and, well, yeah, she was jealous.  Not of her… but of _them._

So she deflected, and shook her head.  "He just blew off your saga entirely, Uncle."

He quirked an eyebrow at her, and giving her the distinct impression that he could see _right_ through her, and then shook his head. "Oh, I'm still a bit irked at him, but I understand why he acted that way."

"Huh? Why?"

He shrugged and said, "Well, since _someone_ cleaned off my plate, I'm going to go get more, but I'll ask you this much, Ruff…" He picked up his plate just as Tuffnut came back with a plate loaded with a mound of food.  "When has Hiccup ever had any practice with having the entire village looking at him in awe instead of irritation?"

She paused for a moment… and then started to think. 

After stealing a piece of roast mutton from her brother's plate.

He glared at her, and she shrugged and cut herself another piece of roast. Chewing, she looked around the room. Johann had come back in from wherever he'd gone, and Mildew had cornered him. They were talking intently, Mildew waving his arms around angrily, his face all tight and more wrinkly from his peeled-back lips, and then the old hermit stalked off in a huff.

She wondered what that was all about, and then dismissed it.

And thought as she ate.  If nothing else, it gave her a distraction from watching the food vanish from her brother's plate.  She had an appetite too, and had 'enjoyed' her own growth spurt over the last few months, but this was absurd.  And given the way that Tuffnut moaned and groaned, she was sure that he was overstuffing himself for some stupid boy reason.

So she thought on her uncle's question. 

And didn't like too much on the answers that she was finding.  It was so much easier to be irked at Hiccup.

She was just remembering how uncomfortable he'd been after dragon training when her uncle sat back down.

"Any thought on my question?  Or are you not blind enough in your left eye to be able to ignore that?" he asked, cocking his head towards her brother.  

She rolled her eyes.  "Yeah… I did.  It's no fair for you to shoot questions like that and then run, Uncle."

He snorted and smirked.  "On the contrary, it's a wonderful tool for a skald.  Let people beat themselves up rather than doing it yourself."  He shrugged. "Look, Ruffnut, if you're going to be a skald, you have to recognize that some people, as weird as it sounds, don't know how to deal with being a hero." He spooned up some mashed turnips and ate them, and then shrugged again before picking up a drumstick. "When you were a baby, we had a terrible series of raids on the village, and Stoick went out there and fought and killed many dragons. I composed a saga to immortalize it… and I found him weeping outside of the hall when I was done reciting it."

Ruffnut blinked and leaned in. "Huh? _Why?_ "

"Because, as he told me, I had seen all of the great victories and defeated enemies at his feet… but I had missed the ones that he had failed to protect." He grimaced. "Including his wife. So all he could hear me sing about was how he _wasn't good enough._ " He took a bite out of the drumstick and pointed it at her for emphasis. "I should have known that his son would be cut from the same cloth."

She cocked her head at him. "But we _didn't_ lose anyone," she said.

"Oh, I know. But do you think that Hiccup's not having the same kind of self-judgment running through his head? We've all been looking down at him for years." He took another bite from the drumstick. As he chewed thoughtfully, he said through the mouthful, "I wonder what it was that set him off. Because, yes, we didn't lose anyone… but he's hardly battle-hardened." He shrugged and swallowed his mouthful.

Ruffnut just looked at her uncle. "So you're… not angry?"

"Irritated, yes, but no, not angry.  Like I said, I should have known that he'd react like that." He looked at her thoughtfully and then smirked.  "So you can admit that you're jealous of them without worrying about _me_ being offended." 

She looked down at her plate and cut a large piece of the roast to buy herself some time. 

"So… _do_ you like him, Ruff?" Chestnut asked bluntly. 

Ruffnut grimaced. "Well, yeah. He's crazy, but in a good way. He might not have thews, but he's got a brain that thinks all sideways.  I mean… he could look better, but he could bulk up working on the iron at the smithy.  Plus he's got nifty scars and the peg to show off.  What's not to like?"

"Except that you're not actually that interested, are you?"

She rolled her eyes.  "But… really, I… well… his mind is the only thing he's really got going for him.  He's all thin and scrawny and thinks about making stuff.  I'm just…"

"Just what?"

She sighed and then gave a sidelong look around the room, trying to avoid her uncle's eyes.  She adored him, but he liked to meddle too much.  Usually, that was cool—he'd saved her and Tuffnut from a few thrashings when they were younger—but when he thought that you were being an idiot… well…  She sighed again, making him smirk.  After a few more heartbeats of glaring at him, she said, "Just… well… choice between him and Snotlout, I'll take him, thank you." 

"So you don't really like _him,_ he's just the better option?"

There were days when Ruffnut really, really hated that ancient philosopher's book that Chestnut had from somewhere.  She gave a harsh sigh of exasperation.  "Yeah, _maybe_ there might have been something there, but being honest, I'm just not liking him that much in that way—and definitely not like how Astrid likes him.  I'm just…" She gave a deep shrug.  "Well, like I said.  I'd rather pick him over Snotlout."  _Besides,_ she thought to herself, glancing at her brother, currently chewing with his cheeks bulging out on either side and eyes glazed like a sheep chewing cud, _Hiccup probably wouldn't be interested in having Tuffnut as a brother-in-law. And… I can't really blame him for that._   She just sighed. 

Chestnut laughed. "What about the Ingerman boy, Fishlegs?"

"What about him?  If Hiccup's too scrawny, he's too fat for me." she said with a shrug. She liked Fishlegs a bit as a former playmate, and someone that you could always snag a bit of parchment and ink from.  His one good thing in her view was that he had a good ear for meter and rhyme. But then he had to go and ruin it by writing it down, and she _knew_ that he was keeping his best stuff hidden away instead of singing it for everyone to enjoy. And that was just selfish. Bragi shared his music and poetry for the world to hear. Fishlegs… just shut it away behind the covers of a book.

Still… if it came down to it… better him than Snotlout.  At least he respected her. 

Her uncle snorted. "Aye, he's an odd duck." 

She blinked and then pouted and scowled at her uncle, who just gave her a sunny smile in response.  It was no fair when he did that ' _I know what you're thinking_ ' trick of his.

He nodded his head back and forth.  "Then again, you're not exactly spoiled for choice.  Unless you want to duel Astrid for Hiccup, there aren't many other young men near your age."

She shrugged. "Eh, well, there's always the other tribes in the area, right?" _Right? Someone that doesn't know Tuffnut exists?  Or at least hasn't heard how gross he is?_

He shrugged back. "Maybe.  Eh, well, either way, it's a bit off in the future. You've still got until next Thawfest before you've seen enough winters to even start considering."

Ruffnut sighed. She didn't really want to get married, honestly, although that was more because the local guys around her age were… well, maybe she'd find someone from another village that could look at her like Hiccup looked at Astrid.

She just remembered walking in on the two of them at the old training pit the week before. She'd been half-hoping that she could have interrupted them doing something naughty… but instead, she'd walked into the middle of a pun war. _Astrid. Punning._ Ruffnut had been shocked that the other girl had even had it in her. It had been so unlike the blunt and aggressive shieldmaiden that she knew that she'd dropped the roll of leather she'd been carrying in in shock. And then, when they had both looked at the noise, it had been like a door closing on Astrid's face, and she was back to… normal? And she'd given them the leather and left, and snuck around the top of the pit, eavesdropping, and, a few minutes later, they were back at bantering.

It was like there were two Astrids… the one that she knew, the blunt, perfectionist, and, well, rather nasty shieldmaiden… and the one that only came out around Hiccup. Who was apparently much nicer and much wittier.

And now… having heard them banter like that, as friends, Ruffnut just… wanted that for herself. Maybe not with Hiccup, or Fishlegs, but with _someone._

Tuffnut swallowed loudly and then belched. 

She gave him a sidelong look and sighed slightly. Yeah. Sure. She'd get a cute boyfriend that looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the world and could banter with her. Suuuure. They'd just have to be blind in the right eye so that they couldn't see her twin's table manners.

Carving off another piece of mutton, she popped it into her mouth and chewed resolutely. Swallowing, she looked at her uncle. "Well, I think I'll have an easier time finding someone than trough-mouth here." She elbowed her brother just as he was stuffing more food into his mouth.

He choked again and she gave him a solid thump on the back to dislodge it, smiling cheerfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the first draft for this chapter back in November 2016 for NaNoWriMo. Back then, I thought, “Oh, yeah, I can write this story in 100k words.”
> 
> Scrivener’s current compiled word count as of this posting? 398,228... _and counting._
> 
> Like Tuffnut, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. :D
> 
> Unlike him, I have better table manners. New chapters will post weekly on Sundays. *smirk* I think I have enough of a buffer... ;)
> 
> Read and review, please!


	3. Idle Hands...

**Winter 1040-1041 CE**

~~~~~~

**Chapter 3: Idle Hands** **…**

_What is often forgotten by many, being focused on Hiccup Haddock and his accomplishments, is that he had an extensive support network in the form of his friends and family.  In particular, The Dragon Archivist, Fishlegs Ingerman, is often forgotten by popular histories or relegated to secondary consideration at best, despite the fact that his educational efforts allowed his friend's innovations to be retained as time passed…_

_…without Ingerman, Haddock would have been universally seen as a wizard or other arcanist within a generation of his passing.  Instead, their joint legacy resulted in the establishment of some of the modern world's greatest educational and intellectual institutions…_

_—A History Of The Isles, Oxford, England, 1591_

As the first truly _heavy_ snows of the season swirled around on the sea breezes outside of the chieftain's house, Stoick sighed and looked at Gobber, who had a noteboard clipped to his arm and a charcoal stick in the other. 

"How bad is it?" he asked, fearing the answer; in past years, they had needed to institute rationing.  Five years ago, during the worst winter, they had needed to take the excess food stores from the Ingerman clan in order for there to be enough to go around.  _That_ had _not_ made him popular with them, even after they had been compensated for their loss; they still grumbled about it when they had a point to make.  Twelve years ago had been their best winter… when the pox had come and killed nearly a tenth of the village after the harvest had been brought in. 

"Eh, not bad," his right hand man said, examining the figures on his notes.  "With no risk of a raid over the winter, and the dragons helping with the fishing, we're looking just fine.  Might get a little tight if more strays show up, at the rate they eat, and we're all going to get mighty tired of fish by the time the snow melts.  Our biggest worry is clean water, with the spray off the sea during the winter storms, and Hiccup is on that."

"Oh?"

"Aye.  Ever since the snow started flying, he's been doing some experiments.  So long as we have dragons, we'll have all the salt and water we'll ever need," Gobber said with a grin. 

"Oh, Odin," Stoick facepalmed.  "What has he done now?"

Gobber shrugged.  "He took a copper ale brewing vat and, uh, _modified_ it a bit.  Dump in water or snow, close it up, let some Terrors or Nadders breath fire at it for a bit.  Water disappears from the vat, leaving behind salt, and the steam cools as it hits the next side, and drips out, clean, like rain.  Chip out the salt, start over."  He shrugged.  "It doesn't do _much,_ but a little dribble of water is a damn sight better than salt panning, that's for sure."  He shrugged again.  "Keeps the house warm too."

Stoick just looked at Gobber and sighed. 

Gobber just looked at him, a smirk on his face.  "Alright there, Stoick?"

"I'm just remembering that rock my father had me bang my head against," Stoick said.  "And I am suddenly wondering what would happen if I told Hiccup that I wanted a rock split in two."

Gobber smirked.  "What about the crushing mountains, leveling forests and taming of seas that a Viking could do?"

"Aye.  Hiccup may not be that boy that I was was, but he is only a boy now, and look what he's done.  What will he do as he becomes a man?"

"Build Mjolnir a larger handle?" Gobber joked.

"Aye.  Probably.  Heimdall has best keep watch.  You've seen Hiccup eying the Bifrost when it appears.  He might try to build one of his own."

Gobber laughed.  "I did say that you could only prepare him.  Maybe I should have told you to prepare the world instead!"

Stoick laughed a bit at that.  "Aye, you should have.  Him and Toothless… the world is not ready for them."  He leaned back on the bench.  "Aye.  So, food is looking good.  What about firewood?"

"Well, since that Timberjack, Felling, showed up, our primary problem has turned from chopping down trees to leaving parts of the forest intact.  Dagny has been explaining to him the fine points of shaping wood in between scratching his back, and we've got rough planks and cords of firewood coming out of our ears now, even with the fuel demands for the hatchery.  Plus, also, y'know… _dragons._   They breathe _fire,_ and just about everyone has one now.  Hiccup made this little hearth designed for Gronckle spit; I'll try to have more of them made for next year."

Stoick just sighed, his heart bursting with pride at how his boy had turned his world upside-down, and the two of them continued discussing the details of getting the tribe through the harsh winter.

###

Snotlout soared through the clear night sky, shivering uncontrollably.  When he, Tuffnut, Dogsbreath and a bunch of their friends had first come up with the idea in the warm mead hall, it had seemed like a genius way to get some respect, good old Viking style. 

Now, here, a few hours on dragonback from home, the full moon shining in the cloudless sky onto the snow below and having lost the feeling in his nose at least an hour ago, he was thinking that a nice old-fashioned cattle raid in the middle of winter maybe wasn't the best idea. 

He could see the others flying nearby, and they all looked fine and warm in their furs, so he just gritted his teeth and flew onwards.

Even if it was tempting to tell Hookfang to light up just for the warmth, he wasn't going to be the one that showed weakness in front of the others, not when they were all doing just fine.

One of the others waved and pointed down.  Below and a few miles beyond, lights glowed in the small highland village, obvious in the darkness.  Snotlout grinned, trying to keep from showing teeth, as he had learned that his spit could freeze in the wind.  They were here.  The raiding party began banking and drifting down as quietly as they could. 

As they grew closer, it became obvious that the village had put its sheep and hairy cows into barns, and Snotlout could see a few guards walking the village with torches, two or three at most.  Silently, they drifted down into the barnyard that was furthest out, the light from the moon on the snow giving them all they needed to see by.

Putting a finger up in front of his lips, Snotlout walked over to the barn doors with the others.  Immediately, it became obvious that there was a lock on the door, holding down a door bar.  Snotlout grimaced.  Hiccup probably would have just taken a single look at the thing and been able to pick it.  Ah, well.  Hiccup wasn't here, and for damn good reason.  He and the others were here to earn some respect, in the proper Viking way. 

And that wasn't Hiccup's way.

He and Dogsbreath looked at each other; Snotlout pointed to the other side of the beam and mimed a yanking motion.  Dogsbreath looked at him for a moment and then nodded. 

Spacing themselves out on the door bar, the five raiding boys pulled and _heaved_ at the bar, which cracked and gave way after a few moments, the sound echoing briefly before being swallowed by the snow.

The bleary bleating and mooing of the livestock inside the barn, however, wasn't as easily muffled, and the animals started panicking quickly. 

Which was perfect, as far as Snotlout was concerned.

"Back to the dragons!" he called, trying to keep his voice as low as he could.  "We take off, grab what we can, and fly home!  Just like Bjorn Ironside!"

Ten minutes later, they were flying back to Berk, in as direct a line as Snotlout could remember.  Hookfang was carrying a whole cow, which was bleating in his grip loudly, while Barf and Belch had two sheep, and the other dragons were carrying still more in the nets that they'd brought.  Below them, Snotlout could see the guards moving to investigate the sounds, while the panicked animals were fleeing into the hills through the snow. 

Snotlout smirked.  As far as he could tell, the animals would have completely destroyed the dragon tracks in their rush to escape the barn, and their own footprints would have suffered the same fate—and, beyond that, the barnyard had already been well tracked over.  A few more footprints weren't going to be exceptional.  By the time the villagers had rounded up the sheep and cattle, and counted heads enough to wonder where in Midgard their animals had gotten to, he and his friends would be back in Berk, soaking in the pride and honor of a successful midnight cattle raid. 

Oh yeah.  Things were looking _up._

###

Fishlegs and Meatlug were up before first light, as the winter day promised to dawn clear and bright.  As Meatlug was a Gronckle, with the ability to eat rocks and teeth capable of chewing them, they, and the other Gronckles and their riders, were some of the biggest construction aids to Berk these days. 

One of the tribe's best artisans had asked for their help, actually, and Fishlegs was jittery with excitement as he put on Meatlug's saddle and lifting harness. 

"Today, we're going to help Rolf carve out one of the sea stacks into a new harbor statue!" he cooed at his dragon in an eager tone.  "You're going to eat the bits that he tells you to.  I know that you might still want dinner after that, so I'll be making you fish, but we're going to have a busy day, so be a good girl."

As soon as the last buckle was tightened, he hopped on Meatlug's back and the pair of them flew off through the chill and clear winter morning.  The sky was just starting to turn that perfect periwinkle blue as the last of the stars winked out and the moon set, and there was not a cloud in the sky, and the horizon glowed a beautiful orange-red to the south-east. 

At least… he thought that there were no clouds.

Fishlegs' eyes narrowed.  "What's that, girl?"

He flew closer to take a closer look.  Squinting to make out the shapes against the oranges and reds of the eastern sky, he tried to take a closer look.  Birds…?  And then the shapes resolves themselves into clarity.  He  hurriedly guided Meatlug behind one of the sea-stacks, the spray of the cold ocean below them sending up gasps of salty chilled air. 

Peeking out from behind the stone, he saw the five dragons that he'd spotted, their wings drooping from exhaustion, their riders not doing much better, come flying in from the east.  And they were carrying animals—or at least animal bodies, dangling in nets or from claws.  Fishlegs could see at least three Alban Highland cattle, with their distinctive long hair, and at least two Highland sheep, all backlit by the rising sun.  None of the almost-certainly-stolen animals were moving, and Fishlegs suspected that they had died of cold or fright or both.  As the riders approached Berk, they drifted downwards, their every movement telling Fishlegs just how tired they were. 

As they moved out of the light of the morning sun, Fishlegs was able to identify them all easily, just from the body shapes of the riders and the colorations of the dragons… and, well, he wished that he hadn't.

A few minutes later, the dragons and their prizes and riders were out of sight, having landed somewhere in Berk… and leaving Fishlegs with a bit of a problem.

While it was certainly possible that Snotlout and the others were playing a prank of some sort, that idea didn't make any sense.  They'd been flying out over the waters of the Sound between them and the Alban mainland, so even for a bunch of idiots like Snotlout and his friends, that just seemed bizarre as a way to play a prank by taking animals from Berk.  No, the simpler explanation was that they'd gone raiding on the mainland to add the animals to their own flocks here on the island. 

Oh, Hiccup and Stoick were going to be so angry when they found out. 

And Snotlout was going to be so angry if _he_ found out that Fishlegs had tattled. 

Oh, what to do, what to do?

A few more minutes passed as the village awakened in the sun's light, and dragons started flying about. Within about twenty or thirty minutes of Fishlegs having watched Snotlout and his friends return with stolen animals, a small flock of Gronckles, Whispering Deaths, and their riders were approaching him and the sea stack, led by Rolf astride his own beast, Chisel.  Back in the village, more dragons were clustered near Hiccup's latest creation, down by the old ruined catapult mount.  Fishlegs, despite chewing over what to do, had to grin at that when he saw it.  They found it so much fun, and it was fun to watch.

Tamping down his worries as best he could, Fishlegs joined up with the rest of them, as Rolf began giving directions to the crowd on what to do to help create his new masterpiece, the first new harbor statue in a generation.

An hour later, the Gronckles merrily helping chew away between the painted lines that Rolf had left, Stoick turned up, riding his new Thunderdrum, Thornado.

"Rolf, how goes it?" the chief called from the back of the blue toothy beast. 

"It goes wonderfully!  Look!  They are doing such a good job with the rough carving," Rolf said, bursting with joy.  "It took years to carve the last one because disposing of the excess rock was so hard.  But, in a week, two at most, the rough will be done, and I will be assembling my scaffolding shortly so that I may begin to carve!"  The big Viking was ecstatic as only an artist can be when handed a new tool, and Fishlegs smiled at his enthusiasm. 

"Aye, Rolf.  That is wonderful to hear!" the chief said with a wide grin.  He flew in slow circles around the sea stack, looking it over with approval.  He'd commissioned the statue to be modeled after Tyr, to match the pair that were already sculpted after Odin with his spear and Thor with his hammer. 

Fishlegs thought about speaking up, but the likelihood of the chieftain listening to him seemed to be pretty low, and he didn't want to take Meatlug away from her snacking on the rocks, plus Rolf needed him for this. 

Maybe at dinner he'd say something. 

Or… well…

He wasn't the little guy that Snotlout had bullied just a few years before.  Not anymore. 

As Meatlug chewed at the rock of the sea stack and spat the flaming leftovers into the sea, he chewed over his own problem.  Could Snotlout still beat him up? 

He grimaced. 

Yeah, probably.  The smaller boy fought dirty, and wasn't a pushover, even if Fishlegs had grown taller than him this past year. 

But…

He looked at the sea stack.  It was already starting to become more and more shaped into the rough outline of a man.  Together, they, people and dragons, were making something beautiful. 

He thought on that for a moment and then directed Meatlug up to where Stoick was talking with Rolf.  Waiting patiently for them to finish, he thought over how to say what he had to say… but not whether he should say it. 

###

Stoick pounded on the door, the smell of roasting meat drifting out from behind it.  There was suddenly a flurry of noise inside and he shared a glance with Gobber, who shrugged and smirked.  Figuring that that was enough warning, he roughly pushed open the door, which immediately hit resistance of the fleshy sort as Snotlout went flying with a yell.

He charged into the house's main room and looked around, scowling. 

"Are you utter fools, or merely witless idiots!?" he thundered.  Behind him, Gobber followed him in, sniffed the air appreciatively, and whistled.

Snotlout, flat against the flagstones nearby, slid a touch before getting to his feet.  The rest of the room was frozen in the face of the chief's anger. 

A mutton hindquarter roast was on the spit, the handle currently unmanned, while more fresh meat simmered in pots; Snotlout's mother Serena, Stoick's sister, was in the process of mincing what looked like mutton and various organ meats in preparation for making haggis.  She just gave him a level look that hearkened back to their childhoods, of "I'm staying out of this."  Spitelout was at least absent.  That was probably for the best; butting heads with his chief marshal was not how Stoick had planned to spend his afternoon. 

"Uh… is this one of those trick questions?" Tuffnut voiced from his chair; Stoick noted in passing that the black eye Astrid had given him a few days before had faded to yellow.  "Because I'm not sure."

Stoick scowled at him as Gobber choked down a laugh.  "You went out and raided another village.  Worse, you raided them using _dragons._   And, most boneheaded of all, _you did it without telling me first._ " 

"Well, yeah.  You would have said no," Tuffnut said, displaying the fearlessness of madmen and fools. 

Stoick purpled.  "You blistering _imbecile,_ what you just did makes all of your previous stupidities pale in comparison!  Who _else_ could have stolen their cattle but us?  You have just started another grudge feud with another village on behalf of all of Berk, and they will not believe me when I say that you numbskulls did it all on your own!"  He pounded on the table, where a rack of ribs from one of the cattle lay in a bed of coarse salt.  "And, worse, you killed the animals, so we can't even return them!  We can't even acknowledge this and use it to count coup like a _normal_ spat between neighbors.  No, the only smart thing you've done is hide the evidence." 

To the side, Gobber took up a spoon and gave one of the simmering pots a stir, and then scooped up a spoonful for a taste. 

Dogsbreath spoke up hesitantly.  "We was going to keep em, but theys all died on the way back."

Stoick slapped his palm to his face.  "Of course they did, you fool!  Hours dangling from the claws of a dragon on a night where the bay started to frost over?  Of course they died, either from fright or frost.  Is this a shock to you?"  Dogsbreath opened his mouth, and Stoick said hurriedly, "Don't answer that."

Snotlout, having regained some of his courage, looked up at the chieftain.  "But we're Vikings.  We pillage and plunder.  Half the reason we never left Berk for seven generations is because we couldn't stand someone else doing it to us!"  Gobber made a nod of agreement, and then turned the roast on the spit so that it wouldn't burn.

Stoick looked at the young fool and growled.  "Aye, but you are forgetting one thing, Snotlout.  We may be Vikings, _but so are they._   Do you think they'll take it any _more_ kindly than we did?"

"Uh… probably not?"

Gobber, standing behind the boy, rolled his eyes and mimed a mute sarcastic echo, before taking a knife from his belt and started to carve off some of the crispy-crunchy bits from the roast.

"And who will they blame?  A pack of idiot teenagers, or their leader who is responsible for the whole tribe—a tribe that is well known to have a difficult time getting through the winter?"

"Oh."  Snotlout swallowed.  "Oops.  Uh… sorry, Stoick."  Still standing behind him, Gobber popped the crinklings into his mouth, and then chewed appreciatively.  Smiling, he gave Serena a thumbs-up.

"Aye.  You have shamed yourselves.  You're an embarrassment to the tribe.  _Hiccup_ may have messed up in ways worthy of comedic sagas, but he, at least, was trying to help and win glory for the tribe.  You, you all just did something for your own glory, and damn the tribe for the consequences!"

"Stoick, what is going on in here?" 

Stoick turned, to see Spitelout standing in the doorway. 

"Your son and his friends raided another village last night, without telling me first, and I'd wager without telling you either.  And they didn't have the brains to keep their prizes alive through the night, either." 

"Ah.  I see."  Spitelout looked at the boys, who cowered further.  Gobber was just nonchalantly carving off a leg from the roast. 

Stoick grinned.  It wasn't a happy smile.  "Spitelout, now that I've had a chance to remind them that Loki's daughter awaits those who break oaths, I'm sorry, but I have to do this."  Gobber, having finished cutting free the mutton, gave a final wave to Serena and sidled out the door, mutton in hand. 

Stoick rolled his eyes at his friend fleeing, and stood up straighter.  "Spitelout Jorgenson, as your son was the leader of an unauthorized raid, I am afraid that I must see justice done in the eyes of Odin, Thor and Tyr on my honor.  As we cannot confiscate the beasts that your boy and his cohort carried off, if the offended ones come asking for their cattle and sheep, the compensation will be taken from your own clan's flocks."  Spitelout stiffened and glared at Snotlout, who was presently trying to hide in the cracks of the floorboards.  "The meat taken from the raid will go to the community pot, from which the boys will be forbidden to eat."  He looked at his marshal dead in the eye.  "Thus I pronounce sentence.  Further punishment," Stoick said, moving towards the door, "I leave to your own wisdom.  May Odin help you judge fairly."  And, with that, he shut the door behind him. 

The silence on the far side of the door was absolute for a moment, and Stoick shook his head. 

Then the shouting started. 

Stoick stepped away from the door, rubbing his temples under his helmet.

Gobber moved from where he'd been standing outside the house waiting; he had the leg off of the roast in his hand and a smirk on his face.  "Well, that went well."

"As well as could be expected.  Hopefully some of it sank in."  He started walking towards the mead hall, Gobber keeping pace. 

"Should we tell Hiccup?  You know how he's been talking about not wanting to push the dragons back to their old thieving habits," Gobber asked, as he gamely used his winter peg to step lightly through the snow drifts while taking a delicate bite out of the greasy mutton. 

"Aye, but what's done is done, Gobber, and I did the best that I could.  What would Hiccup do?  Repeat me?  What good would _that_ do?  Especially in the eyes of _those_ boys.  If he finds out on his own, I expect him to talk to me first, but, for now, let it lie."  He kicked aside a larger drift and gave a harsh chuckle, and then a more mellow one.  "Besides, telling Hiccup anything right now would require getting the boy's attention."

Gobber smirked.  "Aye, that's a touch difficult right now."

"Before I thought he had the attention span of a sparrow.  I was wrong.  He's very very focused.  On his girl, on his dragon and on his forge work.  Everything else doesn't exist."

Gobber laughed.  "Too right that is.  Just the other day, I walked into the smithy and found him hunched over something on the anvil.  Tried to get his attention, and the dragon dragged me outside and set me shoe on fire."

Stoick quirked an eyebrow at that. 

"Small fire.  Stamped it out in the snow quick.  'Course, the dragon had a point, because a minute or two later, I heard a loud bang and Hiccup swearing fit to curdle milk."

Stoick snorted and laughed.  "Aye.  Well, at least we haven't had any of his messes to clean up lately.  I thank that dragon and his girl for that.  They've worked wonders on his clumsiness.  We haven't had a mess since—"

An astonishingly loud BANG sounded from the lower banks of the village, followed by an even louder crashing noise.  A deeper rumbling noise finished shaking the snow off of the houses that hadn't already had their white blankets knocked loose by the first two sounds.  An earsplitting _CRACK_ of wood splintering sounded a moment later, followed by Ruffnut's shrill scream, which faded quickly before ending with a splash.  A thud, as if an immense weight had fallen into a pliant snowbank, echoed up the hillside, and then there was silence for a brief, taut moment, before something else softly crunched.  And then, almost apologetically, some small piece of metal far below them hit the ground with a musical _dink!_

Stoick heaved an enormous sigh, as Gobber just looked at his comrade with an innocent expression.  "Miladies of the Norns, I live for your amusement.  Come, Gobber, let's see what just happened."

###

A few weeks later, after the self-destruction of Hiccup's dragon-launching catapult, Toothless and Meatlug carried the Yule Log to the mead hall's doors, and Hiccup, smiling broadly, waved to Astrid to untie the ropes.  A few moments later and the stout Vikings dragged the tree into the mead hall, where it would be burned. 

Thanks to the hatchery underneath the stones of the mead hall that they had spent the last three months frantically building, it was toasty warm in the hall, the heat bubbling upwards from the spaces below.  Hiccup had had an interesting time getting the system set up right, but now they had firepits dug into the rock below as a separate chamber, with some doors and shutters to control the airflow through, and the hatchery above. 

While they were now _literally_ writing the new book on dragons, every farmer with a chicken coop had said how important it was for eggs to be brooded properly and kept warm.  Given that they had found over a thousand dragon eggs—sadly, not all of them intact—glued to the walls and floors of the Green Death's sweltering cavern, it had been pretty obvious that they needed to be kept at a temperature that would cook a hen's egg—and probably the hen, too. 

And now the heat from the chambers below kept it actually rather nice in the mead hall, even now, during the darkest and longest nights of the year.  The stone floor was still cool, and Hiccup anticipated that it would take a long time to fully warm, but the tunnels that the Gronckles and Whispering Deaths had helped dig down to the chambers they had carved ducted up the heat nicely. 

As the preparations for Yule and the Blot were underway, Hiccup went off to his house, Toothless walking in the snow next to him.  They had experimented with having him use his breath to clear a path, but the melted water had turned to ice and mud, so they had just spread sand on the pathway and called it a day. 

Already inside was Astrid, her hands spread to warm them against the flames as she sat by the fire.  One of the village washerwomen, Astrid's great-aunt Ragna, was puttering around the back of the house, cleaning up after the widower chief and his son… and not incidentally keeping a chaperoning eye on the two unmarried teenagers. 

"Hey," he said, sitting down next to Astrid, Toothless curling up next to them. 

"Hey yourself," she said, smiling. 

They sat that way in contented silence for a moment before she shifted, turning away from the fire and towards Hiccup.  A moment later, he felt her hands begin playing with his hair. 

"A lot of the ends here are singed," she noted with a tone of laughter in her voice. 

Hiccup shrugged, relaxing and luxuriating in her touch.  "Well, I work with dragons and over a forge.  I'm just glad that I've still got my eyebrows."

"Point," she said with a smirking laugh, and her hands kept running through his hair, making him give a happy moan. 

Toothless and Stormfly were just looking at each other with an air of two individuals who weren't really friends being forced to make conversation.  _So, how's the weather?  Oh, fine, fine.  Your day working out alright? Oh, sure, sure._

After a few minutes of this, Stormfly huffed to her feet and walked out the door.

Astrid looked up at her dragon quizzically.  "You okay, girl?"

The Nadder chattered for a moment and made a shooing motion with her wing.  Astrid just shrugged and went back to playing with Hiccup's hair, her fingers starting to make little braids out of his shaggy mane, only to unravel them again when she combed his hair with her fingers.

Hiccup cracked open one eye, having closed them to fully focus on the fact that the woman he had been infatuated with for a good chunk of his life was here, with him, and that they were getting to have sweet little moments like this.  If he had been a cat, he would have been purring.  Eye opened lazily, he said, "I think she headed out because it's too crowded in here, and this is Toothless's home, not hers."

"Mmmh.  Probably."  She looked at Toothless.  "Are you two friends at all, or do you just tolerate each other because of us?"

Toothless cocked his head from side to side and gave her a look of mild bafflement. 

"Never mind," she said, smiling.  She ran her nails across Hiccup's scalp, making him shiver with enjoyment.  "If I had some ties, I'd finish up these little braids so they won't catch fire as easily."

Hiccup just tilted his head back at her, a deadpan look on his face.  "You're just saying that because you like to play with it."

"Well, yes, but also braided hair doesn't burn as easily," she pointed out with a hint of laughter in her voice. 

 Hiccup just smiled, and took her legs into his lap, his strong fingers massaging her calves.  She sighed with enjoyment, and the two of them sat there, enjoying each other's presence for a long, quiet moment, the crackle of the fire and Toothless's breathing being the loudest noises.  Astrid's great-aunt, having finished her cleaning, settled into a nearby chair and worked on some naalbound shirts quietly.  For a golden time, perhaps a span of an hour, the rest of the world ceased to exist, as they retreated to a little corner filled with peace.  Their chaperon occasionally sighed with irritated amusement and a fond smile at the young pair as they traded those the sappy and honestly somewhat obnoxious endearments that are murmured between those in the first blush of young love. 

It couldn't last, of course.

An angry screech of a Nadder and the sound of dragonfire, and the sudden crackle of flame intruded on their peace. 

It took an instant to register the sound, but the pair leapt to their feet, or at least tried to, as they had been cuddling and giving each other kisses in a chair sized for Stoick.

Legs tangled with each other, they fell to the floor, Hiccup knocking his head against the edge of the firepit and seeing stars for a few moments.  But they both scrambled to their feet and darted for the door, which Toothless had already pulled open and gone through.

More screeching and the sound of additional dragonfire echoed across the snowy ground, and the glowing blaze of that fire became obvious as they ran as quickly as possible, Astrid half-dragging Hiccup across the snowy ground as he tried his best to keep from stumbling on his peg. 

Within perhaps half a minute from the noise, they turned the corner and saw the source of the screeching.

It was laid out like a tableau before them, and Hiccup froze, Astrid clutching at his hand.

Stormfly had been wrestled to the ground by a pair of husky Hooligans, clearly fighting to break free and attack, while Toothless was standing between her and Mildew with his wings spread.  Mildew was lying in the snow.  In his hand was his glaive, which was half the length it normally was and had one end still on fire.  He was also missing the ends of several of the horns on his helmet.  There was a broad melted patch stretching across the ground next to him, that tracked up the side of the nearby house, which was still smoldering, even as the snow around it on the wall melted and quenched the hot cinders.  Stormfly had a hefty wound in her side that was bleeding freely, clearly inflicted by Mildew's glaive.  Off to the side, Bucket stood, flapping his hands in distress.

Astrid gave a cry of distress and ran over to her dragon, who settled visibly, even as the two burly Vikings kept a hold on her wings and jaws.  Others were arriving too, and a crowd was beginning to form. 

Mildew wasted no time.  "The beast attacked me!" he said, pointing an accusatory finger at Stormfly.  "I was doing nothing, and it came up and attacked me!  I had to defend myself!  I demand that it be put down!"

Astrid immediately rose to the defense of her dragon.  "You must have provoked her, otherwise you'd be dead if she got in the first shot!" she said hotly.

"Ask them!" Mildew said, pointing a finger at the two strapping Vikings who were still holding down Stormfly, Hork and Mulch.  Mulch's own dragon, a Gronckle named Spade, was sitting nearby, lapping at the snow. 

Meanwhile, Toothless, who had stopped protecting Mildew and was now giving the old man a disgusted look, walked behind Hiccup and started sniffing around. 

Hiccup shook his head at Mildew.  "We're not going to put down any dragons, Mildew.  You're not the injured one here."

"Only out of luck and experience!" the cranky old man said.  Behind him, Bucket, having calmed down, stepped forward and bent, reaching for something in the snow. 

Hiccup turned to Hork and Mulch.  "What did you see?"

"Uh…" Mulch said, thinking.  "Mildew was walking by, and the dragon here started following him.  He tried to push it away, it got really insistent, and started making noises at him.  Uh… I think he slashed at it then, and she breathed fire at him, doing… that," he pointed vaguely at the melted snow.

Mildew crawled to his feet, joints audibly creaking.  "You forgot to mention that it was going to bite my hand off before I had to defend myself," he said.  "I was just minding my own business, getting ready for Yule, and then this dragon comes up and starts getting ready to make a snack out of me!  I've been fighting dragons for fifty years, of course I defended myself when one of these devils tries to eat me!  I still have all my bits and pieces, I'm not getting fitted with a hook now!"

Hiccup just looked at him, and said, "You done?  You're not injured, and if you're that upset about your staff, I'll make you a new one and pay you a geld for your property, and then _you_ can pay Astrid for injuring her dragon."

"Me?  Pay _her?_   For _defending myself?"_

A couple of approving voices called out from the crowd.  "It's only been a month or two, you can't blame him!"  "It's practically reflex!"  "What would you have done?!"

Hiccup just turned and looked at Stormfly, who was bleeding profusely from the wound on her flank.  Astrid had pulled off her arm-warmers and was trying to use them to staunch the bleeding, and the dragon was visibly calming.  He walked over, saying to Mulch and Hork, "You can let her go now."

They looked at each other and shrugged, and then let go of Stormfly, stepping back quickly.  Mulch just walked over to Bucket and patted his partner on the shoulder, while Hork joined the crowd.

"And what's to keep her from attacking me now?" Mildew demanded behind Hiccup.

"Me," Hiccup said, scowling at him. 

"Ha.  That's a good one, boy.  Admit it, you just want to let the beast eat me so that I'll be out of your hair.  Cute braids, by the way."  He waved at the dragon as Bucket walked over, holding something in his hands.  "Look at this!  The boy is biased!  He can't do _justice!_   His head is fogged with lust for the girl, and it's _her_ pet that attacked me!"

Stoick arrived at that moment, shouldering his way through the crowd.  "What's this?" he said to Hiccup.

Before Hiccup could answer, Mildew pushed forward and said hotly, "Your boy's woman let her dragon off the leash, and it attacked me!"

Stoick just looked at Mildew.  "You're still standing, and the dragon isn't.  Is she okay, Astrid?" he said, concern in his voice. 

"I think so," Astrid said testily. "But I need proper bandages!"

"Don't bother!" Mildew sneered.  "Your animal is going to get put down if I have any say in it.  Save the bandages for some _person_ who gets their guts clawed open by the next dragon that runs amok!"

"Why you—!"  Astrid starting rising to her feet, hands balled into bloody fists, her face set in fury.  Stormfly gave a cry of pain as the bloodstained armwarmers slipped free, and tried to lick at the wound, which was staining the snow around her into deep redness.  There was nothing redder than fresh blood on clean snow. 

"Ah ah, young lady," Mildew said tauntingly.  "You're not helping your case.  Or your beast."

Visibly controlling herself, Astrid turned back and replaced the arm warmers on the deep gash, trying to keep pressure on the wound as she had been taught, muttering a stream of encouragements to her dragon.

There was silence for a brief moment as Stoick looked over the scene, and then Bucket stepped forward and handed an earthernware mug to Mildew.  "You dropped this," he said thickly. 

Mildew snatched away the mug from the simpleton.  "Thank you," he said testily. 

Hiccup just glanced around.  He didn't believe that Stormfly would have just attacked the old man unprovoked, so there had to be a reason for it.  He wouldn't have believed it at all if not for Mulch's testimony.  But he was sure that he was missing something.  He didn't trust Mildew at _all_ where dragons were concerned—or where anything else was concerned, for that matter. 

The world was white with snow, which made the red drops of blood stand out all the brighter.  The pathways were well trodden, with most people having walked them over and over.  Spade was licking at the snow at his feet determinedly, and had a heavy-lidded look on his face that Hiccup recognized.

Walking over, he took a close look at the snow; a dent nearby showed where something had landed, maybe the size of someone's hand, but someone had clearly reached in a hand into the hole.  A pair of footprints stood nearby, which Hiccup vaguely recalled as having seen Bucket standing there.

But the oddest thing was that the _snow_ was grass-green. 

And _that_ was what Spade was licking at enthusiastically.  And having a heavy-lidded look that Hiccup associated with Gronckles high on dragon-nip.  Crouching down, he sniffed at the green snow and recoiled slightly at the strength of the grassy-minty scent of the dragon-nip. 

Toothless was sniffing around as well, and started to lick at the snow.  "Don't!" Hiccup said, and Toothless froze, tongue half-out of his mouth. 

The crowd was still muttering as Stoick looked over the wounded dragon, and the arguments were getting louder, while Mildew kept trying to rouse them, Stoick interrupting him each time he tried to call for Stormfly's death. 

"Dad, come here!" Hiccup called. 

Stoick thumped over through the snow.  "What is it?"

Hiccup held up a handful of green snow.  "Smell this."

Stoick looked skeptical, but sniffed.  "Aye, that's a powerful odor.  What is it?"

"Dragon-nip, I think.  But boiled, like in a tea."  Hiccup's eyes suddenly narrowed.  "Mildew, can I see that mug for a moment?"

The old man suddenly looked startled. 

"My what, now?"

"The mug that Bucket gave you."  He pointed.  "The one in your hand, that you dropped in the snow here."

"I don't see how my drinkware has anything to do with this!" the old man said angrily, but he sounded worried to Hiccup.

Stoick turned and held out his hand.  "Mug.  Now."

Grumbling, the old man handed it over. 

Stoick sniffed and visibly recoiled.  "Aye, that's the same stuff."

Hiccup turned and looked at the old man, Astrid staring at him as Stormfly's wound was finally staunched.  "Of course she was getting into your space," he said.  "You had dragon-nip tea in there!  She smelled it!"

"And what difference does that make!?" Mildew demanded.  "So I drink grass tea.  Helps with my digestion," he said with a sneer.  "Want _details_?"

Some people in the crowd voiced a _profound_ negative to that idea. 

Stoick just gave the old man an unamused look.  "If you drank tea like that regularly, I'd have noticed given how often you breathe in my face to complain.  Try again."

"I be telling you the truth!" Mildew insisted.  "The beast still attacked me!"

"After _you_ stabbed her for sniffing at your mug!" Hiccup said back strongly.  "It'd be like kicking a dog and then being surprised when it bites back!"

"But we put down dogs that bite, boy!"

"You still provoked her!"

"How was I supposed to know that she would try to take away my drink?" Mildew demanded.  "Can a man not have a hot drink on Yule?"

Stoick again looked at the elder with irritation.  "Hiccup!"

"Yes, dad?"

"Take this mug and get as much of that stained snow into it as you can.  We're going to heat the elder's drink back up for him," he said, "so that he can drink it."

Mildew's expression began to look somewhat trapped as Hiccup worked to quickly scoop as much of the green snow into the mug as he could manage.

Holding it away from himself, he handed the mug to his father. 

Stoick just looked at it.  "Even watered down with snow, by the gods, that's strong!" he said.  "You _drink_ this?"

"Aye," Mildew said, clearly lying, but having no other choice but to stick to his story. 

At that moment, Fishlegs came up with some bandages and a covered pot that steamed. 

"I brought bandages and boiled water to clean the wound," he said, and Stoick smiled. 

"Boiled water, you say?  Fishlegs, here, give that to me," he said, taking the covered pot and pouring in some of the steaming water. 

The crowd was watching with interest.  Nobody liked Mildew, but there were still murmurs going on about getting attacked by a dragon.

The mug refilled and steaming, Stoick, a deadpan look on his face, handed it back to Mildew. 

"Here.  Your drink, elder.  It's Yule, after all.  I am _sure_ that Astrid apologizes for her pet's actions causing you to drop it."  His voice hardened.  "Now drink."

Mildew, his face set, took a gulp and immediately gagged, spewing out the mouthful of green such that a few people in the front of the audience yelped and tried to jump back.  The mug sloshed in his hand, and, before he could drop it again, Stoick reached out and grabbed it.

Bending down, he put it in front of Stormfly's face, who immediately perked up and started purring, sticking her tongue out to lap at the mug. 

"Right.  You drink this.  Of _course_ you do." Stoick's expression was unamused.  "Mildew, you will pay a geld to Astrid for the damage to her dragon, and, if you try a stunt like this again, I will _make_ you drink an entire flagon of that 'tea'.  Am I understood?"

"Aye, Chief."

Stoick stood and addressed the crowd.  "The matter is settled!  Go forth and enjoy Yule!"

The crowd, laughing at the expression on Mildew's face, dispersed slowly, as Hiccup, Astrid and Fishlegs worked to bandage up Stormfly's side enough that the scab wouldn't pop open again. 

Mildew shot them a poisonous look as he walked out, rubbing at his mouth with his forearm and spitting as he walked away. 

* * *

 

**Author’s Note:**  And here we go.  Chapter 3 already.  At least it’s winter, right?  Nice, calm, peaceful time for everyone to relax, enjoy themselves... :D


	4. The Scottish Play

**Chapter 4: The Scottish Play**

_The political landscape that Haddock and his tribe found themselves thrust into was one marked by extensive conflict and political fragmentation.  The most significant power in Europa, beyond that of the Catholic Church, was the Holy Roman Empire, under Henry III, and it was undergoing a period of consolidation, and the Byzantine Roman Empire, which was likewise experiencing an era of decay in the aftermath of the death of the Emperor Basil the Younger in 1025 CE.  Otherwise, there were few extensive centralized powers; even those rulers who could claim significant domains, such as the Kievan Rus', consisted of tribal or feudal confederations that were not politically unified beyond the person of their sovereign._

_—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396_

 

A month later, Stormfly was well on the mend in the the dragon stables—and being antsy about not being able to fly with her wound.  Of course, with the weather having been foul as normal, most of the dragons were staying inside where they could, but she'd been distinctly unhappy during the nicer days when all of the other dragons could go flying, and Astrid had spent a great deal of time in the stables with her as a result.  Which, of course, also meant that Hiccup and Toothless were spending a great deal of time there as well, between the various construction projects that Hiccup was overseeing.  And with one thing leading to another…

Stormfly had been through _five_ saddle designs in the last month, each progressively fancier than the last.  And she was absolutely _delighted_ to try on any and all accessories that Astrid and Hiccup could think of, prancing about in front of all of the other Nadders and showing off what her rider and her rider's boyfriend were making for her.

Which mean that now Astrid and Hiccup were in the smithy, with Gobber working nearby… and acting as chaperon for the two of them. 

Astrid was sitting off to the side, her fur cloak discarded and hanging on a peg, the warmth of the forge seeping into her bones.  Hiccup was at the anvil, pounding away at a piece for Stormfly's new saddle.  A piece of foolscap with Hiccup's tidy scrawl lay nearby, detailing out measurements that he had taken. 

"Astrid, could you get me my notebook from the back, please?" he asked, as he shifted to smaller and smaller hammers.  "I need to check my designs for this."

A smile on her face, she hopped off the bench as Hiccup returned the metal bracket to the forge to bring the metal back up to temperature.  He waved, his brow dripping with sweat, and she returned a wider grin before slipping into the back.  It was crowded back here, filled with Hiccup's designs and experiments, and seemed to be organized based on the "is there an open spot?" method.  A basket of stone rings lay on the workbench, with pots of brushes and woodcarving tools next to it. 

She let her fingers wander over the shelves.  A variety of Hiccup's experiments at creating war machines done at the scale of toys occupied the top shelf, which he called "prototyping", while papers were stacked on the top.  The shelf below had painting supplies and his notebooks, which she pulled off of the shelf, trying to figure out which of the several were the one that he was looking for. 

"Hiccup, which one is it?" she called out to the main room. 

"Uh, the short one, I think!"

She looked back at the books.  One was taller, and the rest were roughly the same height. 

"That didn't narrow it down much!"

"Uh," he said as the sound of hammering resumed, "Hang on a second." And there was a quick flurry of hammering and then a pause. 

"Sorry Astrid," he said sheepishly.  "I've got it.  It was in my pocket." 

She stuck her head out the door to the main room, eyebrow raised, as Gobber chortled.

"Really?"

"Yeah, sorry," he said, giving a sickly grin.

She rolled her eyes.  "I swear, Hiccup, you would forget your own head if it wasn't attached."

"Not true!" he said back with a grin.  "I haven't managed to get anywhere without this," pointing at his left foot.

She grimaced.  "Uh…" and the levity of the moment died.  "Sorry, I didn't mean…"

He frowned.  "Oh, uh, sorry, Astrid.  I wasn't offended.  Don't worry."  With a sheepish grin, he indicated the book on the anvil with his chin.  "Could you…"

Her smile slowly returning, she walked back out into the main forge area as he used a little hammer to gently knock the small piece of metal into the proper shape of a bracket.  She picked up the book and flipped through it until she found the page that Hiccup needed.  Before turning it to show Hiccup, she took a moment to appreciate her boyfriend's genius brain. 

All she had done was idly comment that she wished that she could carry her ax while riding Stormfly, and by the next day, he had designed a holster that would sit below the saddle and hold the ax head, with the ax shaft in easy reach of the saddle. It would keep Stormfly from being cut by the edge, while at the same time using the springy metal that Gobber used in his tong-hand to allow her to pull it free nearly instantly.

If, of course, it worked as well in real life as it did on paper. 

She turned the book around to Hiccup, who squinted at his blueprints and made a minute adjustment with the small hammer before returning the bracket to the heat of the forge.

Toothless, who had been curled up nearby, clearly also appreciative of the heat of the forge, sat up, and walked over to the bellows, heaving the lever before Hiccup could move around to the wooden handles. 

Astrid blinked.  "He hasn't done that before."

"He does that every so often.  I think he finds it cute. 'Look at people and their fire.'  Also, he figured out that it gets it hotter, which he likes."

The thin metal heated quickly, and Hiccup removed it from the forge with the tongs once more, taking out a very small hammer from the rack to make his most minute adjustments while it glowed red hot.  Toothless stood next to Astrid, both of them watching Hiccup work.  Apparently satisfied with his final bits of work, he plunged it into the quenching bucket, where it hissed and sputtered for a moment.

An hour later, the pieces were assembled and mounted on the bracket.  As Hiccup worked to attach it to the leather, using a few temporary ties of rawhide ("in case I have to take it off again"), Astrid hopped up on the sawhorse where they had put Stormfly's saddle.  Hiccup had been all ready to just try his new invention on Stormfly directly, but Astrid had given him a level look and said that she wasn't going to put something sharp right next to her friend's wings without testing it first. 

Hiccup stood back from the holster, and crossed his arms with a grin.  "Give it a try."

Astrid carefully swung down the ax, trying to keep it aligned with the brackets that Hiccup had just laboriously designed.  Two false starts later, and she swung the ax-head in perfectly, the ax settling into the new holster with a satisfying _click,_ the three brackets holding the edges and handle of the ax, and she looked up at Hiccup, delighted. 

"It works!" she said, grinning. 

"Half-works," he said, stroking his chin as he looked at the brackets holding the ax head; a leather backing would keep the brackets from chafing against Stormfly's side, and the metal and wood of the brackets shielded the edges of the blades.  "Try pulling it loose now."

Astrid leaned over and heaved on the handle, and looked at Hiccup, who frowned as the brackets held tightly—too tightly.  "Great.  I have to loosen—whoa!"

Her boyfriend jumped back as the brackets suddenly popped open, releasing the ax and sending it flying.  Meanwhile, as she had been putting all of her weight onto the handle, she toppled over the side of the saddle.  In the other half of the room, Gobber jumped and yelped as the ax went hurtling.  The floor rose up in her vision, and she tried to tuck into a roll on reflex… only to smack into the wall with a yelp and a reverberating thud that shook the various weapons hanging in their brackets.  Even over the ringing in her ears, she heard her _very_ sharp ax _thunk_ into something wooden a few feet away, even over the sound of Gobber's exclamations.

Hiccup appeared into her upside-down field of view within less than a handful of heartbeats.  "Astrid, are you okay?" he asked, green eyes wide with concern.  In the background, she heard the length of chain that Gobber had been working on for the training pit's net slither to the floor musically.

She looked up at him, a touch dazed, before she laughed.  "It works!"

He extended his hand down to her and helped her to her feet, commenting, "Uh, let me loosen it a bit.  We don't want you falling off Stormfly in the middle of a fight." 

Standing, she grimaced, and rubbed at her head.  Hiccup looked at her with concern.  "You okay?" 

"Yeah, I've done worse to myself practicing tumbles."  She looked around.  "I'll be okay in a minute.  Let me get some ice from outside to put on it.  Get my ax, would you?"  It had sunk into one of the support pillars of the smithy nearby, and Gobber was giving the whole arrangement a dubious expression. 

The sky was a brilliant blue over the white of the snow drifts, with just a few clouds visible off in the distance, although the wind was blustery.  Packing up a wad of snow, she held it against her head, feeling the knot from her impact with the wall start to settle down. 

As she walked back into the warm smithy, she saw that Hiccup had put her ax within easy reach of the harness; he was working the bracket with a tong and a prybar, trying to get it to loosen a touch.  The metal squeaked under protest of this treatment, but he worked it back and forth a dozen times or so, until the metal resisted a bit less. 

As she walked in closer, he looked up and said, "Just about done.  Hop back on and we'll try again." 

Gobber, having finished his length of chain, or at least his current links, walked over.  "Alright you two, what is that you've got going here?"  He looked over the setup with the sawhorse, saddle and ax with an air of studied disinterest, although she could tell that he was examining it closely. 

"Oh, just a little addition to her saddle.  Give it a try, Astrid," Hiccup said with a grin.

She hopped back into the saddle and, focusing carefully, she swung down the flat of the ax-head into the brackets, which clicked closed around it smoothly, and, with a grunt of effort, she pulled it free again.  Swinging around the ax victoriously, she pumped it into the air with a cheer.

Gobber just grinned.  "Very nice.  Yeh might have wanted to loosen the metal _first_ before giving it that first go, but, eh, no harm."  He held up his hook for emphasis, and his eyes narrowed.  " _This_ time."  He gave Hiccup a level glare.  "You were working with sharp blades and springs, Hiccup, and didn't take proper precautions.  I _know_ I taught you better than that."

Hiccup flushed and looked chastened.  "I… I… yeah, sorry, Gobber.  You're right."

" _I'm_ not the one needing apologizin' to.  You're lucky that Astrid didn't fall onto one of the swords or crack her head open on one of the warhammers when she fell," Gobber said scoldingly.  " _She's_ the one that you just put into danger because you didn't _think_." 

Astrid made a protesting sound, and Hiccup looked at her apologetically.  "No, he's right.  You… could have gotten hurt."  He looked at the pack of snow in her hand.  "More hurt."

She gave him a level look, and Gobber sighed.  "Lecture over.  Now, let me look at what you two have put together," he said, bending to examine the brackets.  A few minutes or so of study, with him making "hmm" and "ahh" noises, and at one point taking Astrid's ax and slotting it home to examine the mechanism and taking it out again several times in a row, left him satisfied. 

"Interestin' idea.  Let her be a proper Viking on dragonback, ax and all.  The springs should hold pretty well.  But you'll want to try it out first with some of those silly acrobatics that I've seen you pull before trying them in battle.  You'd probably feel very silly if you did one of those cartwheels in the sky only to have your ax fall off midway through and cut the dragon's wing or leg."  He stood up with a grunt of effort.  "Also, you'll need to replace the springs every so often as they wear out."  He slapped the side of the saddle.  "Other than that, looks like it should work.  Finish those ties and take it out there."

As Hiccup went to remove the saddle from the sawhorse, Astrid saw a contemplative expression cross his face, and she gave him a look.  "What was that?" she asked. 

"Oh, just another idea."

Gobber looked at him with a degree of exasperation, while she sighed.  "Of course yeh just had another one.  This isn't going to be another idea like the dragon catapult, is it?"

"It worked!" Hiccup protested.

"Hiccup, yes, it could launch a dragon straight up and let them start flying, but it didn't work so well with _people,"_ she retorted. 

He sighed as he hauled the saddle down from the sawhorse.  Setting it on the table, he said, "I said I was sorry for accidentally launching you."

"Over the side of the cliff," she noted dryly.  The Weyland-inspired contraption had lasted a week before it had shaken itself apart in that awe-inspiring racket, and she'd been its first human victim. 

"Stormfly caught you before you hit the water!"

"And dropped me back on the platform like it was a game," Astrid said, shaking her head, remembering her screaming as she'd gone hurtling through the air without the benefit of a dragon—again.  At least she'd been luckier than Ruffnut, who had gone flying from the thing's death throes.  "I know that she likes to play fetch, but that was...  not what I had expected," she finished lamely.

Gobber burst out laughing.  "Aye, lass, you can't really blame the lad for _that_ one.  He did warn you not to step on it.  And you should blame Tuffnut for sending you flying; he's the one that pulled the lever."

She gave the old smith a level look, which made him laugh harder. 

"There you were, talking with your dragon, wondering why she was so excited, and walk out onto the board, then Hiccup gets this look on his face and warns you, and before you have a chance to get what he's saying," his hook traced out an arc in the air, "there you went!"

She sighed and put her head down in her hands, before starting to laugh herself.  "And then I punched Tuffnut."

"Twice."

"He deserved it," she growled.  Tuffnut had been watching and waiting for her to get onto the thing before pulling the lever that sent her flying.  So she'd gone over and decked him, and then done it again when he'd staggered back to his feet.  And she just regretted that _Ruffnut_ had been the one that had been launched over the side when the contraption had destroyed itself. 

"Aye, that he did.  Of course, I still canna understand why you built it in the first place, Hiccup.  Dragons can fly pretty well on their own," Gobber said, picking out an iron bar from the stack and putting it into the forge.  "Sort of their nature."

"Yeah, well, I noticed that not all of the dragons can fly straight up from the ground, so I was experimenting with a takeoff system that wouldn't require more space or an overhang or something."

"And then it turned into a dragon toy," Astrid noted.  The dragons had _loved_ it, especially the Nadders.  There had been a _line._  

"And then it turned into a dragon toy," Hiccup acknowledged.  "How many times did Stormfly take a ride on it before it broke?  Eight times?  Nine?"

"I lost count.  It was like jumping out of the swings when we were children."

"Huh…" Hiccup suddenly had another contemplative look.  "Dragon swings…  Ouch!"

"That's for coming up with too many ideas," Astrid said, smirking, having just pinched Hiccup's ear.  She then hugged him and gave him a peck on the cheek.  "And that's for everything else." 

He grinned at her, and undid the rawhide ties.  She watched, occasionally being called upon to hold the saddle steady in place, as Hiccup worked intently at replacing them with rivets at the anvil, the small metal slugs heated, pushed through the holes and then flattened. 

Once they were done and cooled in the quenching bucket, she tugged at his arm, still holding Stormfly's newly enhanced saddle.  "Come on, I want to try this before the sun goes down and it gets too cold to go outside!"

She swung open the door, into a world of swirling white, the blue sky from before having vanished since she'd last looked, and then shut it again.

"Then again, maybe tomorrow," she said, deadpan. 

Hiccup chuckled.  "Yeah."  He bent down to Toothless, who had looked at the blustery snow with disgust, and started scratching behind his ears.  "Dragons don't like flying in storms, do they, bud?"

Toothless shook his head in disgust, and Gobber laughed.  "Aye, a year ago, a big blow like this was a sign that we would be safe for at least the night.  The only dragons that will fly in a storm, much less a blizzard, are ones like the Skrill or Scauldron.  A wet dragon head doesn't light, and a wet dragon wing is just an ice sheet waiting to happen." 

Hiccup nodded.  "I remember."  He suddenly turned thoughtful.  "Huh…"

Astrid and Gobber shared a look of mutual understanding.  She leaned over and asked the older man, "Should we let him think, or stop it now?"

"Eh, let the dragon decide."  Gobber turned to Toothless.  "Eh, I think your buddy there is trying to think of a way to have you fly in a blizzard.  What do you say to that?"

A moment later, Hiccup was flat on his back, pinned by Toothless, who was licking his face.  Thoroughly. 

"Oh, come on!  I was just thinking!"

Astrid crouched, and tousled Hiccup's hair.  "Hiccup?  With you, it's never 'just' thinking."

He sighed and laughed.  "Can I get up now?"

She laughed and Toothless moved off of him, but not before getting in one last slobbery lick.  He pulled himself to his feet, making grossed-out noises as he wiped away at the slime, and then joined in the laughter with her and his mentor.

Flying could wait for later, she thought to herself as she grinned at him.  This now… this was wonderful on its own. 

###

Ruffnut, bundled up against the cold, flew next to her brother above the overcast clouds on the back of Barf and Belch, soaking in the sunlight.

Taking in a deep satisfied sigh, she looked out over the expanse of white clouds under the deep blue sky, which looked like the waves of an ocean.  Down below, it was cold and dreary, and, while it was definitely frigid up here, the warmth of the sun helped.  The Zippleback was just coasting along, rarely flapping his wings, as the twins rode on his back, enjoying the moment of getting out from the house. 

Of course, they _might_ have had a reason to hide up here… but she was sure that nobody would find them up here until after they had finished unburying the chieftain's hut. 

Who knew that there was _that_ much snow on the sides of Raven's Point?  They'd done Hiccup and Stoick a favor by making sure that it wouldn't happen again, that was for sure.  Yep.  Totally a favor.  No way that it was a prank that had gotten out of hand.  Yep.  That was her story.

As they drifted along, she looked out at the clear blueness, Manni's moon visible as a waning crescent of white on blue in the west, the horns pointing away from Sunna's chariot. 

An image occurred to her as she looked at the ripples of the clouds, and she started to work on a kenning based on it to share with their uncle. 

"Ymir's skull vaulted over the white sea… no, no, that doesn't work…" she mused to herself. 

Tuffnut leaned over.  "Whatcha working on?"

She gave him a sidelong look.  "A new kenning for Uncle Chestnut, and I'm _not_ sharing.  Make up your own."

"Fine.  I'll make one nine times better than yours!"

"You can't even count to nine!" she said testily, trying to keep the images in her head of the various layered metaphors that a _proper_ kenning was made of. 

"Sure I can!  Just watch!"

"Then work on your kennings and let me think!" she said back crossly. 

"Fine!" 

It was nicely silent for a moment, quiet except for the air rushing over Barf and Belch's wings, and then Tuffnut started muttering to himself.

She groaned.  "Shut up!"

"I was being quiet!"

"No you weren't!"

"Yes, I was!"

"Then you need to clean your ears out again the next time you bathe, because you weren't!"

They kept bickering for a few more passes until they settled down in sullen silence once more.

Ruffnut had _just_ managed to put together a good solid kenning of the image of the sea of clouds beneath a featureless blue sky that implied the reversal of colors…

When Snotlout's voice came from nearby and knocked it out of her head. 

"Hey there, beautiful.  Come up here often?"

She scowled and huffed in utter frustration as she realized that she'd _lost_ the kenning.  Pulling out a knife, she looked around and threw the small blade at Snotlout from where he was flying nearby, looking at her.

"Whoa!" he shouted, as Hookfang darted out of the way of the knife, which quickly vanished into the clouds below.  "What's wrong!?  I'll go get your knife for you!" he said in a hurry and he and his dragon dove after it, vanishing beneath the blanket of clouds. 

As he disappeared, she sighed and started piecing her shattered kenning back together. 

A minute later, though, he was back, and proffering her knife back to her. 

"I caught it!  Told you I could.  I'm just that amazing," he said boastfully.  "So, interested in coming by and seeing my place?  Maybe work out a little?"

She just sighed and looked at him.  "Why aren't you pestering Astrid anymore?"  The other question on her mind, _what did I do to deserve this?_ was easy to answer.  She was a girl near him.

"Oh, that's not important," he said with a winsome smile.  "I mean, why do you care? I'm here for you."

_Oh, I know.  How can I make you go away for me?_   With a sigh, she just gave him an exasperated look.  "Turned you down, didn't she, so you went for your second choice?"

His grin turned a bit sickly. 

She sighed.  "Give me back my knife."

His grin turning more hopeful, he eased Hookfang closer and held out her knife for her to take. 

Grabbing it by the hilt with one hand, she looked him in the face as she used her other hand to unhook his belaying lines. 

"Snotlout?"

"Yeah?" he said, grinning widely and leaning in. 

She grabbed him by his collar and yanked him off of Hookfang's back.

As he plummeted down through the clouds, she shouted down after him, "I'm not interested either!"

Hookfang gave her a reproachful look and dove after his screaming rider. 

Tuffnut just looked at her. 

"What?"

He shrugged.  "He was just trying to be nice."

She just gave her twin a flat glare.  "No…" she said through her teeth, "he was _trying_ to get into my trousers."

"Huh?"

She rolled her eyes and decided to use small words as she put her knife back in the belt sheath.  "That wasn't being _nice,_ that was 'Hey, want to sleep with me?'"

"And…?" Tuffnut asked, clearly confused. 

She sagged and sighed.  "Tuff, did he _ever_ even _talk_ to me before?"

"Uh… well… didn't he?"

She just looked at her brother with a level stare.  "Only to tease me, in between hitting on Astrid or picking on Hiccup."  She clasped her hands up by her face and affected a mocking smile. "But now that she's with Hiccup, he _won't leave me alone._ "  She shifted her tone to a nasally mocking exaggeration of Snotlout's voice, "' _Hey beautiful, wanna come by my place and sing?' 'I found this cool thing, want to see it… alone?'"_ She huffed in irritation.  "So if you think that I'm dumb enough to…" she looked at him.  "Wait, nevermind."

"Huh?"

She snorted and turned away, looking back at the clouds.

After a moment, her brother said hesitantly, "Umm… sis?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want me to tell him to leave you alone?"

She just turned and looked at her brother.  "Oh, that'd be nice," she said sarcastically.  "Because _of course_ he won't listen to _me._ "

Tuffnut's eyes just grew wider.  "Uh, so you don't want me to talk to him?"

"Sure.  Swell," she said.

Snotlout and Hookfang flew back into view. 

"You just tried to kill me!" he shouted angrily at her.

"No… I had a knife.  If I _wanted_ to kill you, you'd be dead," she said levelly to him. 

"Then what do you call that!?" he demanded.

"A warning."  She glared at him.  "Snotlout Spiteloutsson, I'm not your consolation prize for Astrid picking someone else, or your spare bedtoy."  She narrowed her eyes.  "Got it?"

He looked at her and then, wordlessly, flew away. 

With a smile, she got back to working on her kennings. 

###

Hiccup hammered the second-to-last nail into the wood and stepped back with a grin before passing the hammer over to Astrid's father. 

With a look that was half-skeptical and half-curious, her dad hammered in the last nail with a few solid hits and stepped back as well, looking at what she and Hiccup had spent the last fortnight working on. 

The waterwheel was a bit taller than Stoick, and it had taken Astrid weeks to talk her father into letting Hiccup borrow one of their smaller millstones for this experiment.  But the spring thaw was nearly here, and they'd managed to convince him, as the village miller, to let Hiccup try building a small water-powered grain mill.

The idea had come from a book that Fishlegs had just bought from Trader Johann, about some engineering done down in the continent, and Hiccup had run with it, building a model that had convinced Astrid.  And then she had pestered her father into trying it.  It had been a hard sell; they'd had _horizontal_ wheels before, but they weren't very effective, and her family had switched over to mules at some point a generation or two back, apparently citing that the mules could be bribed easier.  So a _vertical_ wheel had been a tricky sell on her part. 

But now it was built, after a month and a half of hard work, near one of the streams that cascaded near the village; Hiccup had picked a nice little waterfall as the spot.  The water was currently frozen over, but that had made construction easier, and carrying over the supplies and materials had been simple with the dragons.  The millstones themselves had been the hardest part to bring over, just due to them being heavy stone, but the Gronckles had lifted them easily after she and Hiccup had figured out the best way to attach the carry-straps. 

Her father turned and looked at Hiccup.  "So now what, son?"

Her boyfriend just turned and whistled to the dragons standing nearby.  The Night Fury and the various Nadders promptly turned to the frozen-over holding pond above the waterfall, one that they had put together the other week during a brief thaw, and breathed fire. 

The rush of heat made her sigh in appreciation as the cold disappeared.  A minute or two later, the water, steaming in the cold, started to flow over the small dam, down the spillway, and onto the waterwheel. 

With a creaking noise, the wheel started to turn, slowly at first and then faster and faster. 

Cheering, she and Hiccup ran inside the new building, and watched the wooden gears and shafts that they had so carefully shaped start to spin. 

Her father came up behind them and put his hand on her shoulder. 

"Alright.  I'll admit it," he said, looking as the millstones ground together, barley flour pouring out between them, and not a single draft animal needed, "this was a grand idea."  He shook his head, a smile on his face, and patted Hiccup on the shoulder with his other hand. 

After a moment, watching the millstone spin, her father laughed again.  "Looks like I have to go get more barley.  That stone's spinning twice as fast as the mule could manage to turn it."  He turned and looked at the pair of them.  "Astrid, you know the rules for being around a millstone.  Keep him from losing any bits."

"You mean any _more_ bits," Hiccup said sarcastically.

"Uh…" her father glanced at his peg and reddened slightly.  "Sorry.  I just don't want to have to explain how you lost some fingers or something to Stoick."

Hiccup sighed and nodded.  "Okay."

Astrid just slung her arm around her boyfriend and nodded at her father. 

She watched her dad hop onto his Nadder, a sanguine and rather hyperactive pink fellow named Cloudfox, and fly back towards the village.  Once they had flown out of sight, she turned, took a quick look around and saw that there were no witnesses in the area.  Grinning, she grabbed Hiccup by the collar to pin him against the wall with a thump, and gave him a bruising kiss. 

He gave a brief noise of surprise, and then melted into it, and they were both breathing heavily when they broke the kiss shortly thereafter. 

"It's working," she said gleefully to him, their foreheads touching, the noise of creaking wood surrounding them. 

"Was there any doubt?" he asked back, grinning. 

She just gave him a skeptical look.  "When you've had three, no, _five_ creations in a row work without them falling apart or flying apart, you can ask that question again, okay?"

He shrugged, grinning widely at her.  "Okay."

She gave him another kiss, and her own hands started to wander a bit.  As they reached certain spots on him, Hiccup coughed and pulled away a bit. 

"Not now," he said with a pained look.

"Why?" she said, giving him a sly grin.

"Because your dad won't be gone long, and having him walk in on you… _touching_ me like that might have him change his mind on me losing bits!" he said plaintively. 

She gave him a look and then nodded sourly.  "Point."  They'd had a few scant moments of actual privacy since Yule, but what times they had found had been so very enjoyable… if a bit fumbling and occasionally intensely awkward.  And even then, they hadn't gone too far… yet.  But they both knew that that was coming, sooner or later. 

Assuming that they could find themselves enough privacy to do anything, of course.  But Hiccup was right—her dad would be back soon, and him walking in to find her hands in certain places on Hiccup, or the other way around… probably wouldn't be good. 

The millstone started to slow, as did the sound of the water from outside. 

Hiccup poked his head out the door and shrugged.  "Looks like the meltwater's all done," he said. 

"Well, for an experiment, it went well, right?" she said.  "And Thawfest is in a month or so.  The water will start flowing once the ice melts."  She grinned at him as the millstone came to a slow stop. 

He nodded and grinned up at the gearing that they had put together and waved his arms around to indicate it all.  And, as the reality of it really sunk in, he put aside his earlier bravado and started to cheer in earnest.  "Astrid, look!  Look!  It works!  It actually worked!" 

She beamed at him.  "It did!"  She reached up and tousled her boyfriend's hair with a grin, and then reached further up and patted the main drive shaft like it was a well-behaved pet.  Her father had always been complaining about how much it took to feed the mules that they used to turn the millstones that ground the flour for the village's bread.  Now, thanks to Hiccup… well, those days would be a thing of the past. 

Again.

She leaned up against him possessively.  "So, what's next on your list of ideas?"

"Well, I had some ideas for this place, or the next one we build…" he said, grinning. 

She rolled her eyes fondly and gave him a moderately light punch to the arm with a grin.  "Of course you do.  What sorts?"

"Well, for starters, I'm noticing that the drive shaft there is rubbing against the socket there…" he pointed where the big beam entered the room, "so I was thinking of carving some wooden balls from oak or something and making a collar for them to spin in…"

She tried to visualize that, and then nodded.  "So it can spin without rubbing?"

"Yep!"  He grinned and then said, "And I think the next waterwheel needs to be bigger, with bigger buckets or paddles… and if we do it on the side of a steep hill, there's nothing stopping us from having one wheel dump water into another wheel below it…"

Cocking her head in thought, she nodded in agreement after a moment.  "I see.  Yeah.  Oh, dad would love that."  A thought occurred to her.  "Hey.  Can't you have the drive shaft push, oh, I don't know, a hammer or a flail?"

Hiccup stroked his chin in thought for a moment.  "Hmm… yeah… well, probably.  Why?" 

"Threshing grain," she said, making a whacking motion, as if knocking the grain-heads from the stalks.  "Although it's a _really_ great way to work on proper hammer form."

Understanding dawned in his eyes.  "Oooh.  I see.  Hmm… yeah.  I think I could do it."  He cocked his head.  "Heck, if I do that… I could make it also for the forge… a nice hammer… and maybe work the bellows…"

She grinned and gave him another kiss, which quickly deepened.  She started nibbling on his lip a bit as his hands started rubbing her back. 

Which, of course, was when her dad walked back in. 

He gave an amused cough from behind the two of them, holding a pair of large burlap sacks of barley grain, one on each of his shoulders.

"Am I interrupting anything?" he asked with a smirk, dropping the heavy sacks to the ground with a thud. 

Hiccup's hands flew to his sides and he stepped back from Astrid convulsively.  "Nosir.  Uh—"

"Hiccup, don't worry.  I'm not going to feed you into the millstones for touching my daughter."  He grinned at the pair of them.  "So, let's melt some more water.  I want to test this thing that you've built first.  It worked for a short while and for a few handfuls of barley.  Let's see how well it handles a few sackfuls, shall we?"

They nodded, and Astrid just gave her father a grateful look.  He and her mother—after some initial lingering skepticism at the dragon tamer in those first few weeks, courtesy of a long family tradition of dragon-slaying—had eventually come around to accept Hiccup as her boyfriend.  They even had their own dragons now, Nadders like hers. 

Hiccup went outside to get the dragons to work, and called greetings to her mother, who had arrived with her father.  As her father fiddled with adjusting the millstones, she heaved up the sack of barley onto a ledge and slit it open with her knife, noting that the blade's edge was getting dull.  Well, she'd just have Hiccup put it to the stone when he had a chance.  Another roar of dragonfire from outside, and the millstone started to turn once more after a few moments. 

A few minutes later, it was spinning merrily, the big wooden gears taking the slow speed of the waterwheel and making the stones spin that much faster, due to their differing sizes.  She just remembered her own reaction when Hiccup had shown her the model and how the different sized gears could be used to change the speed of the spin.  And now the ideas were bouncing around in her head, and she was thinking of other ways that they could do things.

A rush of air announced the arrival of another dragon, and a moment later, Stoick walked into the mill, looking around carefully before stepping fully inside.

"How goes it, Hákon?" he asked her father, as he looked around with interest.

"Your boy and my girl do good work," he said with a grin, feeding in handfuls of grain into the hopper from the sack that Astrid had opened.  He waved vaguely to indicate the room.  "We're about to start seeing how well it works for long term, but so far I'm impressed.  It's working much better and much _faster_ than the old wheel that my father talked about."  He motioned to the clean floor.  "And not having to work around mule shit is a blessing in and of itself."

Stoick grinned.  "Aye.  And less spoilage from the smell, too, I'd wager."

"Ayep."  Her father tossed another double-handful of barley grains into the hopper..  "Now, let's take a look…"

Her dad knelt down to where the flour was pouring out from between the two millstones and down onto the pan around the base of the bedstone, and picked up a double-handful of the flour.  Holding it up to his face, he took a deep sniff, dumped half of it back into the pan, and then rubbed some between his fingers with his eyes closed, feeling for the texture.  Then, smiling, he turned to Stoick.  "Nice and fine.  Minimal grit."

Stoick just quirked an eyebrow.  "Aren't they your own stones?"

"Aye, but, as you said…" her dad tossed the handful back into the pan and rose to his feet, "less spoilage.  The bakers will be happy."  He pointed to a small pile of empty flour bags nearby.  "Hand me one of those?  I want to start bagging this."

The chief laughed, and tossed over an empty sack.

Stoick having cleared the doorway, Astrid slipped around him and made for the door; it was a touch cramped in there, with the chief in the way.  As he and her dad chatted about the new mill, she went outside to find Hiccup talking with her mother near the holding pond.

"I still can't quite believe you built the whole place in less than two months," her mother was saying to him as Hiccup shoveled in more snow to be melted.  "I know that the dragons helped, but I'm still surprised."

Hiccup just blushed and shrugged in a downplaying manner.  "They did all of the work.  I just pointed—"

Astrid threw a snowball at the back of his head from maybe ten feet away.

"What the—! Hey!" he shouted, turning around to look at her.

Grinning at him, she threw another one, square in his face.  The light powder exploded as it hit his nose, and he coughed and shouted, "No fair!" 

Ducking, he scooped up his own snowball and threw it blindly back in her direction, but it missed.  Grinning, she tossed another one at him, and it hit his hair in a wonderful cloud of white.

Her mother ducked out of the way down the hillside, grinning, and gave her a cheer. 

He rubbed the snow out of his eyes and glared at her before laughing.  "What did I do to deserve that?"

She just grinned at him.  "Nothing.  It was just a perfect opportunity."  Her grin widened.  "I couldn't resist."

There was suddenly a smirk under those big green eyes, and he shrugged and went, "Well, I guess then I shouldn't feel bad about this."

"Wha—?" she started to say, and then Toothless, having snuck up behind her, dropped a giant pile of snow onto her head from where he'd been carrying it between his front paws.  As she sputtered and cried out over the sudden cold, he dropped down around her and gave his little chortle-laugh. 

Hiccup and her mother, the traitor, were laughing hard as she brushed the snow out of her face and hair.  With an exaggerated _humph_ , she gave the black dragon a deadpan glare, which he returned with a grin. 

Just as she turned back to her boyfriend, another snowball came flying in and whacked her in the chest.  Unfortunately, Hiccup's snow supply was a bit melted, and it was much damper snow, and shockingly cold from the water in it.  She gasped from the chill as it spread across her chest, and then swore at Hiccup before throwing more snow at him. 

"You _ass_!  That was _cold!"_ she said, half-laughing as the cold water made her skin pucker up all over, and threw another snowball at him. 

He ducked away from the snowball, and then his peg slipped out from under him on the slickness of the snow.  With a yelp of surprise and a splash, he fell into the melted waters of the holding pond.

Astrid gasped, her eyes wide in realization of how cold that water would be.  Without hesitation, she darted up the last few feet of the little hill around the waterfall and went in after him.  It wasn't terribly big, but it was still enough to drown in.

As the water hit her skin, she held back a screaming gasp from the sheer frigid chill of it, but Hiccup was worse off.  He was scrambling for leverage on the water-smoothed rocks at the bottom of the pond, and it was just deep enough to keep him from pushing himself clear of the water with his arms.

Taking a deep breath, she ducked her head under the water and grabbed him by his collar and arm. She managed to drag his head up and free of the water just as her mother appeared over the lip of the pond; she had mud all down her front, on her arms and in her hair, probably from slipping on the hillside.

Astrid's own muscles were clenching in the face of the cold, and she tried to haul the two of them out of the water, only to find that she _couldn't._   Her fingers had lost all sensation, and her arms were just trying to wrap themselves around her.  Feet on the bottom of the pond, she tried to pull herself out, so she could pull him out next, and her hands slipped on the wet wood.  Then her mother grabbed her with both hands and pulled her free.  Turning, even as her muscles screamed at her, she helped her mother drag her boyfriend free of the grasping waters of the little frozen pond. 

Teeth chattering, she held him close and tried to speak, only for a spasmed shiver to hit her that nearly doubled her over.

"C-c-c-c _old…_ " she gasped out.  Hiccup just fell to his hands and knees and vomited up a stream of water before gasping for air.  He was shivering so badly that it hurt her to watch him.

The dragons hustled over, and Toothless did something that she'd never seen him do before.  With a look of focus on his face, he gave off little breaths of fire, which gave welcome warmth to her, but they faded too fast. 

Another spasm hit, and her mother turned to the concerned dragons.  "Get them to the bathhouse and into the warmth, quick!"

Toothless nodded and went to help Hiccup onto his back, but a massive shiver-spasm made him fall off.  Toothless gave a growl of concerned alarm. 

Stormfly, who had been watching the snowball fight with an amused look and had rushed over when Astrid had dived into the pond after Hiccup, pushed her way into the group. 

"Take Stormfly," her mother said, concerned, and turned to the dragon.  "Hiccup can't work the tailfin when he's like this," she said to Astrid's dragon.  "You have to carry them both to someplace warm now."

"Toothless can, no—" Hiccup tried to protest to her mother, just as another wave of shivers wracked his body, his voice sounding raspy and watery.

"Hush, boy.  Save your strength," her mother said, and looked at the dragon.  "Take them!" 

Stormfly nodded, and helped the two freezing teenagers onto her back.  With a rush of wings, they took off, Toothless following behind them on the ground at top speed. 

The chill of the wind on their wet clothing was like knives on their skin, and they huddled close together on her dragon's back for the brief flight to the village.  It couldn't have been more than a count of thirty, but each moment seemed to stretch into an infinity of agonizing cold. 

Then Stormfly banked and flew down, landing in front of the bathhouse.  She hauled Hiccup, whose hair had frozen into an icy reddish mass, off of her dragon's back.  Then, hunched over, the two of them staggered towards the bathhouse, their woolen garments crackling with a sheen of ice.

Stepping over the threshold, each of them leaning on the other, they staggered and collapsed onto the floor as alarmed adult voices sounded. 

Astrid lifted her head to see the bathhouse attendants picking them both up off of the floor, exclaiming at the chill of their skin. 

Fortunately, being Vikings, they knew quite well what to do about someone having taken an unintended dip into ice water. 

Astrid felt herself trying to blush as the attendants, a married couple from the Thorston clan named Braun and Hilda, summarily stripped the two of them of their sodden and icy woolens and furs, but she was too cold.  She got a few glances at Hiccup in the whirlwind of activity, and was deeply concerned.  Her boy's skin should _not_ be that pale, verging on outright _blue._

"Is he going to be okay?" she managed to get out after several shiver-spasms, her chest shaking as she made little shallow breaths.

"Probably," said Braun, working on him.  "What happened?"

Hiccup, his teeth chattering and voice gurgling a bit, said, "My fault—"

"No, it wasn't!" she protested.  "I threw the snowball!"

"And I messed up and fell in—" he said, and gave a deep wracking cough, falling to the floor and vomiting up more water with great gasping heaves that made Astrid's gut twist in sympathy.

She winced and reflexively reached for him, only to be restrained by Hilda, who was still working on her. 

"That's a clear enough picture, thanks," said Braun dryly, hauling her boyfriend to his feet and then unceremoniously wrapped him in a big linen towel. 

Astrid herself was still shivering, as Hilda brusquely wrapped a towel around her with just as much decorum.  Hiccup looked awful, and the watery noise of his hacking breath was scaring her. 

"What now?" she asked.

"This way," Hilda said, and the two adults dragged them off to the back of the bathhouse and more or less tossed the pair onto a bench in the tub room. 

"You two, sit there," Braun said. 

"Stay _out_ of the baths and the sauna," Hilda said.

"But, but… Why… why," she shivered, "why not just put… us in a warm bath?" she managed to shiver out.  It was warm and moist in here, but the steaming tubs of bathwater just looked so inviting…

"Because Stoick, Gunvor and Hákon would be mighty upset with us if we managed to kill their children," she said dryly.  "Putting someone from ice water to steaming water or a sauna is a good way to have their heart stop."

Astrid blinked as another shiver wracked her body.  "Oh."  She leaned up against Hiccup unconsciously, and he did the same, the two of them shivering even as they breathed the warm air. 

A few of the bathers in the room gave them concerned looks and someone called out to the attendants, "What happened?"

Astrid shivered, her breath still coming rapidly, and managed to get out, "Hiccup fell into the holding pond for my parents' new mill…"

"And she pulled me out," Hiccup said, his voice still watery.  That seemed to be enough to trigger another coughing fit, and he fell forward, the linen towel opening and draping across him, and then vomited up more water.  The last of it came up just as Toothless bulled his way into the tub room.

The dragon just looked around the room, gave them all an inscrutable look, and laid down protectively on the floor around their bench.  He looked at Hiccup with concern as his friend reclosed the linen towel around himself and sat back down on the bench next to Astrid. 

Hilda just sighed.  "Did you remember to close the doors?" she asked the dragon.

Toothless huffed. 

"Well fine then.  _You_ can keep them alive and I'll go deal with those soaked woolens before they're ruined.  Keep them out of the sauna and the tubs.  No matter how much they complain that they're cold, you hear me?"

Toothless gave an affirmative gruff, and Hilda shrugged and walked out of the room. 

Braun just looked at the two—three—of them.  "She's not kidding.  You two will stay _out_ of the sauna and tubs, you hear me?"

They both nodded, and Astrid leaned up against Hiccup again, suddenly feeling very tired. 

Her mind started to wander a bit as she just tried to feel the warmth of the room… even if they couldn't just jump into the steaming vat less than five feet in front of them… it looked so warm and inviting… Hiccup could join her…

She then stiffened, realizing that, under the linen towels, they were both completely naked.  While he might not have gotten a look at her when Hilda had stripped her of the sodden clothes, as he'd been tossing up ice water from his lungs, _she'd_ gotten an eyeful of him when Braun had done the same for him.

Suddenly grateful that she was too cold to blush, she tried very, very hard to put the memory aside.

Now was _not_ the time for that… especially with the half a dozen other people in the room looking at them with concern and worry.  Berk usually was pretty good about not losing people to cold exposure or winter drowning, but it still happened.

Hiccup's shivers were starting to taper off, and he looked up at her.  Voice still a bit raspy, he said, "You okay?"

She just gave him an incredulous look.  "You were under for twice as long and actually started drowning and breathed in cold water, and you're worried about _me?_ "

He shrugged, which made the linen towel shift a bit.  "Well, yeah.  You're—" he paused, clearly trying to think of the right word.  Astrid sympathized.  Her head felt all mushy and tired too.  "You're… I mean… you're cold too, right?"

She smiled and kissed his cheek.  "Yeah."  She put an arm around his shoulder and sighed.  "And so are you."

Someone nearby muttered something.

She turned her head and gave the heavily-scarred, silver-haired fellow a look.  "What?"  She narrowed her eyes a bit, trying to bring him into focus, but she was still cold and tired… she knew his name, but couldn't recall it at the moment… 

He shrugged and said with a smirk, "Been watchin' yeh two be all over each other all season.  Bet yeh're enjoying the moment."  His smirk turned lewd and he opened his mouth to say something more, but Hiccup jumped in first.

"Hey!  Astrid kept me from drowning!"

"Yea, and now yeh two are all nice and cozy there…" He winked knowingly. 

Astrid just found herself laughing slightly at the sheer absurdity of it.  Her first glance of her boyfriend's naked body, and it was him getting ice-caked frozen clothes off of him.  Hardly romantic.  And now… well, amorous was hardly an accurate way of describing how she felt at the moment.  More like bone-deep cold and tired. 

She just looked at the older man and said, "Think what you like, but," she gave a deep shiver that seemed to start at her toes and go up her in a wave, "if you're going to start wagging your tongue over this…" she blinked and pushed the uncooperative words together, "go chew on some ice first, and maybe take your own ice bath and see how _cozy_ you feel, okay?"

With another shivering shudder, she burrowed in closer to Hiccup's side, and the bather… Fritjof, right, that was his name, just shrugged and sank down deeper into the steaming tub without another word.  She remembered him now.  He was an outsider, a former sea raider who had joined the Jorgensons a few years back, looking for glory in fighting dragons. 

Her mother came into the room, Stoick following closely behind. 

"You two all right?" he asked, concerned.  Nearby, there was a sudden muffled splashing as Fritjof hurriedly climbed out of his tub.

They both nodded. 

Stoick just looked at his son.  "Green Death's fire, winter ice water… and yeh fly on a dragon and go down in dragon tunnels."  He sighed.  "Yeh got four elemental ways of killin' yerself, son.  Be more careful." 

Hiccup shrugged.  "Astrid and Toothless will protect me," he said, smiling at the two of them.

Astrid poked him in the ribs.  "Yes, we will, but it's not fair to us to have to yank your ass out of harm's way."

Toothless chuffed in agreement. 

Stoick gave her a grateful look.  "Aye.  Well.  You two warm up.  Your father is trying out his new mill, and I want to see it work.  But I wanted to check in on you both first."  He turned to Astrid's mother, as Fritjof was slinking off towards the door behind him… probably trying to get clear before she could tell the chief about his rudeness.  "Gunvor, coming with or staying?"

"I'll be along shortly," she said, looking at the two of them.  Hiccup tensed under her regard. 

"Aye.  See you then."  The chief turned to his son.  "Hiccup.  First that catapult… then the spear chucker—"

"It worked!" Hiccup protested.  Off to the side, the door closed behind Fritjof; Astrid considered saying something, but after a moment's thought, decided that robbing him of half of his bath to be a fair trade for his rudeness.

"Aye… unless it jammed," Stoick said mildly.

"I just think I need to work on the shape of the groove better," Hiccup said, only to have Stoick hold up a hand.

"That's enough, Hiccup.  You can work on it again at some point later.  My point is, you've been working on things all winter, and training the dragons.  You've done well.  But this is the third time this winter that something that you've built has almost badly hurt you or someone else—"

Astrid jumped in.  "But this had nothing to do with the mill!  It was my fault for picking a bad spot for starting a snowball fight!  It's my fault, not Hiccup's!"

Stoick looked at her and sighed.  "I suppose that there's merit to that.  But I want yeh both to be more careful.  Alright?"

They both nodded. 

"Good.  And… Astrid?"

She looked at the chief.

"Thank you."  He looked at Hiccup with concern in his eyes.  "Thank you for saving my son."

"I—"

"Your mother told me that you dove in without a care for your own safety.  So thank you."  He turned and gave her mother a wry grin.  "Aye, and on _that_ note, I think that your mother here might have _some_ things to say to you…" 

He turned and left, and Astrid braced herself.

Her mother just looked at her for a moment… looked at _them,_ smiled, and reached down and tousled Astrid's hair.  "You did good, kid," she said, smiling at her.  "I'm very proud of you."

Astrid blinked.  Her mother wasn't terribly overprotective, and always encouraged her to be strong and self-reliant and capable… but honest praise had to be _earned._   "I… uh…"

Giving her another smile, her mother shrugged.  "You were brave, you were smart, you didn't panic, and you reacted well.  I'm proud."

Astrid blinked again, looking down at her hands in embarrassment.  It had all happened so fast… but then she looked up at her mother.  "Mom… thanks."

"Well, you two warm up and rest," her mother said, and then she turned her gaze to Hiccup.  "Oh, and Hiccup?"

"Mmmh?"

"How hard would it be for you to build more of those waterwheels?"

He blinked and waved his arms expressively… causing the towel to drop slightly, exposing his chest.  Astrid very carefully averted her gaze as he started to talk with enthusiasm.  "Not very hard.  Actually, we were talking about improvements to make for the next one."

"Good.  We'll talk.  But we have another three millstones… and we might want you to make new homes for them," she said.  "But that can be for later."  She turned and left. 

Astrid just leaned back on the bench with an explosive breath of relief. 

Hiccup sighed.  "I second the motion."

They both laughed and, fixing his towel, they leaned up against one another, eventually dropping off into a light nap in the warmth of the bathhouse.

Astrid felt… satisfied.  Her mother was pleased, the mill was working, and Hiccup was all right.

Yeah, this was good.  Things were going all right. 

 

###

Sitting back in his throne, Donald Mac Bethad mac Findláích,  listened to the itinerant bard as the winter winds howled outside the walls of his hold in Moray.  It was his first winter since becoming King of the Scots, since his succession from his cousin Donnchad mac Crínáin, dead these six months, killed on the field of battle at Bothnagowan.  His wife Gruoch, sat next to him, with his stepson Lulach, who was watching the bard with wide eyes as the man sang.

Mac Bethad was listening as well.  His court fili had mentioned some of the general details of the saga when suggesting this evening, but Mac Bethad would have thought it a tall tale out of myth and legend, if not for two things.

First there was the fact that for the last four months, there had been an utter lack of reports of dragon attacks and raids coming from his northern vassals.

And second, there was the blackened and burned scale the size of a round shield that the bard had produced from a sack at the proper moment in the tale.

They all had gaped at it.  Mac Bethad had seen dragons, and had once fought against the beasts when they had raided his procession, years before, but such beasts were usually the size of horses, on up to perhaps the size of a team of oxen.  Prodigious, for certain, but functioning on the scale of man and his works.  Their hides produced scales sized on the order of coins—and were even occasionally used as such in his realm.

For the beast to have reached a size that such prodigious scutes were not the largest found… Mac Bethad found his imagination wanting.  He could understand the measures that the bard reported, of sixty cubits tall, two hundred cubits long, and wings of three hundred cubits.  But his mind staggered at the thought of such a beast upon his shores.

But he need not fear, apparently, for this Hero, from a village so small that he could not recall its place on his maps, had _killed_ the beast.

And had done so with another dragon.  And _that_ one was something that Mac Bethad knew of, for a Night Fury had been among those that had attacked his camp that long ago night.  He could still hear that demonic whistle and the screams of dying men if he thought too much on it…

But the Hero had apparently managed to break one to the saddle and bridle, to do his bidding as he willed, having bested it in the skies above his villages and then done battle with it in the forest surrounding until it submitted and gave its loyalty to him. 

And, together, they had slain the beast, shortly after he himself had been on the battlefield against his cousin the king. 

He wondered if this not-so-distant Hero was also working to consolidate his own power, much as Mac Bethad was doing.  Reportedly, he was the son of the Viking chieftain of the tiny village, and he could only imagine that a man possessing such martial strength among those tribal peoples, and with a legitimate claim to the position, would have no difficulty claiming his father's throne.  Mac Bethad himself had had to carve out his own power and authority with a sword, even though, by the law, his own line had the right to it.

After the bard and his fili finished with a flourish, reporting the dire injury to the Hero and (much to Mac Bethad's disappointment) his subsequent recovery, he rose and nodded towards the pair. 

"We thank you, wise and learned gentlemen, for this news and entertainment here tonight.  You have given us much to think about, and you," he turned to the bard, "will be justly compensated for your efforts in traveling in this season to bring us such news."

The bard glowed with satisfaction, and gave a deep bow to the king.  "Thank you, my lord," he said, sticking the scale back into the sack. 

As the room broke into excited murmuring and discussion over the story, Mac Bethad thought to himself.  Something must be done, that was for certain.  At the very least, he had to ascertain the intentions of this new power on his borders. 

He himself had sworn submission to Cnut the Great these nine years ago, when Mac Bethad had just been the _dux_ of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda, Forranach—or, as his lord had been styled to Cnut's Anglo lackeys, Malcolm the Second, son of Kenneth the Second, The Destroyer, King of Alba.  And his lord had also sworn submission to the Viking Dane. 

Now, with both Máel Coluim and Cnut having joined the Lord in Heaven, he eyed King Harthacnut with concern, after the man had taken the crown from his half-brother not even a year earlier.  The two were still exchanging letters and verbally dancing around one another.  Mac Bethad had sworn to the man's father, not to the man himself, but Harthacnut commanded not only England but the Danes, and his Thingmen had grown their fleet to sixty ships this past year, with some reports saying even more.  Such a force could easily conquer much of Mac Bethad's kingdom, or at least press him hard.  So, instead, he fenced with the other man, knowing that his only salvation was the threat of invasion by the boy, Magnus the Good of Norway, who had inherited many of Cnut's raiders from that kingdom.  So long as he was a threat to Harthacnut, Mac Bethad could breath easier, for the Thingmen were needed to defend.  Just because the two kings had met this past summer at the border between their nations and agreed to peace, didn't necessarily mean that they were going to follow _through_ with that promise.  Plus there was still the threat from the Swedes and Wends.  Mac Bethad, on the other hand, just wanted to be left alone.

It was ironic, in a way.  The Dragon Hero was apparently still but a boy, but if he commanded a Night Fury, then he was deadly dangerous.  Magnus was still a child as well, but commanded thousands of berserkers and raiders.  And here Mac Bethad was between them. 

Magnus had resisted his overtures of peace and alliance, but perhaps, if Mac Bethad played his pieces well, the Dragon Hero of Berk could be brought into his fold.  The dragonfire of a Night Fury would reduce any longboat to flotsam, whether that ship belonged to the Thingmen or Magnus's raiders, and Mac Bethad's men could hold the passes against the English coming from overland.  The old Roman wall could be put to its old use once again, perhaps. 

He considered, brooding, as his wife approached him. 

"What troubles you, husband?" she asked.

Looking at her, he said, "The bard has brought news of either our salvation or our doom, milady, and I know not which.  Magnus threatens from the sea, Harthacnut from the land, and now perhaps dragons from the air.  And I have met the beast that the Hero rides in battle, and count myself fortunate to have survived.  He would make for a potent ally, or an even more deadly enemy, and I know not how to court him to our side."

His wife leaned down to face him.  "Then find out.  Magnus is but a boy, but dreams of rebuilding Cnut's empire, for he has had a taste of rulership and power, and wants the full dish.  But this hero?  He is from a tiny tribal holding among the islands to the north.  However great his deeds, he will think with his thews and his ax, not his brains, and know not the intricacies of what it means to be a lord.  Woo him, dazzle him, find his weaknesses and vices, and _bend_ them."

Mac Bethad looked at her and smiled.  "And how, pray tell, would you propose that I do that, and in a way that will not be obvious to even a thew-bounded berserker?  Send gold and jewels that we do not have, on pretty maidens perhaps, and simply assume that he will not just take them and come looking for more?"

"Simple.  If they follow the old pagan ways, then in a few months' time, they will hold their celebration for the end of winter.  If they follow the way of Christ, then they will mark our Lord's martyrdom at the same time.  Send trusted men to witness, watch and report back, and perhaps offer a gift to the chieftain to sweeten his mood.  Once we know more… then we can begin.  Because, dear husband, the options for our survival are four; they become our vassals.  We become theirs.  We join in alliance of equals.  Or they are destroyed.  Magnus commands an army, and we cannot confront him directly.  But this Hero?  He had his friends astride dragons during the battle, but they were dismounted, according to the bard.  His forces will be limited, and vulnerable.  If we must, we could take them, raze their village, and secure our flank, and be no worse off than we are now."

He nodded. 

"Agreed."


	5. Thawfest

**Chapter 5: Thawfest**

**_Thawfest_** _—Colloquial term for the **Sigurblót,** the traditional Norse Festival welcoming the summer.  Held the Sunday after the full moon after the **Dísablót**_ _held at the Spring Equinox (Compare: Easter), in either April or May, to celebrate the Spring Thaw and the turning of the seasons.  Typical formulations consist of contests and demonstrations of prowess by all attendees in honor of the gods.  The Thawfest is a time of great social and legal importance; during the **Viking Era** , this festival marked the beginning of the campaigning season, and the winter was officially over at the conclusion of the festival; children who had seen sixteen winters were now officially adults.  The term **Sigurblót** literally means "victory sacrifice," and the festival is an acknowledgment of the Norse survival of another harsh dark winter.  Winter is over, and summer has won, and **Ragnarok** is postponed for at least one more year.  _

_—From Aesir To Yggdrasil: A Norse Primer_

Hiccup and Toothless soared through the warming skies, the ground brown and green beneath them, the endless horizon of the sea stretching out before them.

Spring was here! Eostre, goddess of the Spring, had taken the reins from Hodr, god of Winter.  The snow had melted and the dragons could fly again…

Which meant that so could their riders!

Hiccup waved towards Astrid as she and Stormfly darted acrobatically through the sea stack maze below, while he and Toothless went for altitude.  Whooping with delight, they spiraled through a cloudbank, soaking themselves.  They hovered for a moment at the top of the climb, and then _dove,_ the screech of a diving Night Fury sounding around them.

It was odd, Hiccup had noticed, but the sound was very different when he was _riding_ Toothless than when he had been on the ground. On Toothless's back, it was constant, but when he was on the ground, the sound rose and fell depending on where Toothless was in relation to him.

At first when he had noticed the difference in sound, he had been worried that he had somehow further broken his friend. It had taken some explaining, but he had convinced Astrid to fly Toothless for a little bit and do the dives where he could listen. It had been a relief to hear that, no, he hadn't damaged his friend even more. Apparently it was some weird property of the Night Fury dive, and Hiccup had made a note in the growing stack of loose paper that was his, Fishlegs' and Astrid's notes on the newly peaceful dragons. 

They were _eventually_ going to make a clean copy of those and bind them into the new Book of Dragons. Fishlegs was probably going to end up being the scribe, as he had the most patience for quill duty of the three of them. And, being fair, the best handwriting.

Hiccup was still going to be stuck with doing the illustrations, though.

A few weeks ago, Astrid had found one of his sketchbooks and had spent the next day wide-eyed as she went through his sketches and drawings. He honestly hadn't seen what the big deal was—he drew what he saw in front of him, using big lines to catch the big details, and then working in from there as he had time. Sure, he practiced his sketching a lot—she had giggled at his sketches of his father and had given him a thorough kissing when she found the studies of her and of Stormfly—but it was just common sense, right?

But apparently it wasn't. She had asked for a portrait of her and Stormfly together, and _that_ was now hanging in her parents' house.  _Framed._

And then Fishlegs had come up with the idea of doing drawings of each person's dragon, in order to write down a record book of who owned which dragon.  And without thinking, Hiccup had agreed that it sounded like a _great_ idea, especially after the whole mess over the stolen Zippleback.

On the positive side, Hiccup now knew that he could draw fifteen sketches of dragons, which were good enough to use to identify them, in an afternoon's time. As a side benefit, he also now recognized most people's personal dragons on sight.

And Astrid's massaging of his hand when it cramped up and spasmed had been a nice side benefit…

He smiled at the memory.

She was practicing too, determined to be as good as he was, but, for now, yeah, he was not only the chief dragon trainer and first dragon rider, he was the foremost dragon artist.

At least the Nadders were easy to sketch. With one fewer set of legs, there was that much less to draw.  Also, once word had gotten around the dragons that he was drawing them, the vain Nadders had been _happy_ to pose for him. The biggest problem was them getting impatient and wanting to see what he had drawn before he was finished. The odd thing was that none of the _other_ dragons—not even Toothless, who he thought was smarter than the Nadders—could recognize themselves in his drawings. It was weird.

Toothless reached the top of the clouds again and they _dived,_ the sea far below them. The water was beginning to turn green with the turning of the seasons as well, the waves forming even rows across its expanse. Soon the cod and tuna and herring and mackerel would be returning from the warmer waters to the south, and they would be fishing to their hearts' content. Hiccup was looking forward to seeing what men and dragons could do _together_ when fishing.

He, of course, had already come up with some ideas, only two of which had been vetoed by Gobber and his father.

As they banked up towards the sky again, pulling out of the dive just above the wave tops, the spray of the salt water spattering against their faces, another dragon and rider came into view.

Snotlout was out exercising Hookfang, and Hiccup's face soured, and then he sighed. "Shall we say hi to them, bud?"

Toothless nodded, and made a beeline for the pair.

As they flew, Hiccup mused to himself. Of _course_ , Toothless and Hookfang were friends, although Toothless was _definitely_ the dominant one of the two. Just their luck that their riders weren't. Meanwhile, Toothless and Stormfly were cool acquaintances, although they had definitely been warming up to each other, given how often they were stuck spending time with each other. Hiccup suspected that it was mostly based on mutual amusement at their riders, and things had gotten a bit better after Yule and Mildew's attacking Stormfly.

Hookfang and Snotlout dove as Hiccup and Toothless approached, Snotlout yelling at the top of his lungs. Shrugging, Hiccup clicked the harness and they dove as well. A moment later, they had caught up with his cousin, and Hiccup and Toothless positioned themselves upside-down and above the other rider and dragon.

He waved, and Snotlout stopped screaming for a moment when he looked up to see his cousin nonchalantly falling towards the ocean without a care.

Hiccup waved and clicked Toothless's harness again, taking them into a faster dive. Righting themselves, Hiccup resisted the urge to look back at Snotlout's expression, because Hookfang had been falling at top speed, and they had left the pair of them behind as if they were standing still.

He could still hear Snotlout screaming behind him, though.

Pulling out of the dive just above the waves, he turned back to look, and winced, as did Toothless.

Hookfang was coming in awfully fast.

Snotlout was still screaming as the pair worked to pull out of the dive as Hiccup and Toothless watched.

"Uh oh," Hiccup said, then he and Toothless both winced as the other pair _almost_ succeeded.

Hookfang's belly hit the water, and the red dragon and idiot rider went skipping across the waves like a stone. 

Hiccup and Toothless watched, their heads bouncing and faces grimacing in unison, as Hookfang bounced once… twice… three times… four… across the waves before he managed to get enough wind under his wings to take flight once more.

Banking, they turned back to the soaked pair, who were gasping with the appreciation that only a near-brush with death grants.

"You two okay?" Hiccup called out.

"I totally meant to do that," Snotlout shouted back with transparently fake bravado.  "It's all part of my Thawfest strategy!"  He struck a pose.  "What do you think?"

"Awful lot of screaming for something you planned on doing!" Hiccup called back.

"It was the first time we tried that!  But, hey, it worked!"

The two boys and their dragons were flying upwards, gaining altitude, and then Snotlout pointed.  "Hey, look, longboats!"  He turned his head, mentally tracking landmarks.  "Hey, Hiccup, doesn't it look like they're heading for Berk?"

Hiccup looked.  A pair of longboats, wakes easily visible from up here, was indeed sailing straight towards Berk.  "Sure seems so!" he called back.

Snotlout grinned and turned Hookfang's head towards the ship.  "C'mon, cuz!  Let's go say hello!"  And, with that he and Hookfang dove again.

Hiccup sighed.  "Let's follow them, bud, and make sure that they don't set the ships on fire or something."

 

###

"Look, dragons!" the cry came up from the bow, terror in the boy's voice.

The captain looked up into the blue sky, studded with clouds, and squinted.  A pair of winged shapes were quickly heading towards them.

A moment later, the shapes of young men on their backs became clear, and he called out, "We're near!  Just as the stories said!  Berk has tamed dragons!"

He began waving his arms at the pair of dragons and their riders, and a few heartbeats later—a very brief time, as the captain's heart was beating fast—the two dragons began to circle the boat at a range of perhaps twenty or thirty yards, the young men, still beardless boys from what he could see, waving back.

"Hello the ship!" the one on the back of the black one called out, his hands cupped around his mouth.  "Are you sailing for Berk?!"

"Indeed!  We are coming for your Thawfest, with letters and tribute from King Adalwin ua Imair, King of Vedrarfjord!  Can you point us the way?!" he called back.  "I am Ragnell ua Imair, his kinsman and captain of these ships!"

"You're already on the right bearing!" the boy called back.  "You'll get there just after lunch!  Just be careful of the sea stacks!  You might want to shift your heading a bit to larboard and then come around the coastline!"

"Much obliged!  I look forward to meeting your chief, and his son the dragon tamer!" he called back.

The one on the back of the red dragon almost fell out of his saddle, he twisted around so hard at Ragnell's statement.  Only a pair of belaying lines attached to his saddle kept him from hitting the waves a dozen feet below him. 

Ragnell called out, "Boy, are you okay?!" as the young man clambered back into his saddle, his dragon straightening and leveling out to help him, which took them further away from the ship.

"He's fine!" the other boy said, a very odd tone in his voice that Ragnell could hear even from where he was standing, and then shook his head like a dog shaking off water.  "I'll ride on ahead and let them know that you're coming!"

And with that, they both were gone, rapidly diminishing dots shrinking in the distance.   

###

A few hours later, Hiccup stood next to his father on the docks, wearing his best furs and tunic and freshly bathed and groomed, watching ships come in. 

He'd come back, told his dad, and promptly been marched off to the bathhouse, even though it wasn't Wash Day.  Noble visitors were coming, and they had to look their best as befitting their positions as the hosts. 

The first two ships to arrive, which he'd met on their way in over an hour ago, had been from Adalwin Ua Imir, the King of Vedrarfjord.  That was a Norse city down on the south-eastern Eirish coast, from what he'd been told by Gobber in a hurried summary as they'd gotten ready for their arrival.  Captain Ragnell had turned out to be a tall dark-haired Norseman with a weatherbeaten face, a ready smile, and a few missing fingertips that he claimed he had lost in a swordfight.  When he'd been introduced to Hiccup as Stoick's son, there had been the exasperating (to Hiccup) glance by the man from him to his dad, and then back.  Oh, yes, he could tell exactly what the man had been thinking.

But then another ship had arrived before they'd even had a chance to head back up the ramp to the village.  At least he and his dad hadn't had to make two trips; Astrid had spotted this one, and she had come in with the news while he'd been getting scrubbed with harsh soap and doused with buckets of steaming water by Braun.  They were from the Isle of Manau, carrying a messenger from King Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, who ruled over a good portion of the area around the Eirish Sea and had taken tribute from Berk many times when Hiccup was growing up, to keep the village from being raided.  Certainly the king's man, Bran mac Muchada, another stout Norseman about the same age as his dad, hadn't changed; he looked like he had swallowed some unripe apples or something like that when he'd stepped off of the ship.  He, at least, had met Hiccup before, and wasn't nearly as careful with hiding his contempt at Hiccup's scrawniness… which was oddly almost relieving.  Hiccup had caught him sneering down at him at one point, and had simply leaned on Toothless's back pointedly with a smile and a raised eyebrow. 

Now Bran's ship was emptied of his men and tied up at the dock, but the visitors weren't walking up to the village.  No, they were sticking around to see who was coming in next.  That was because another ship was about to sail through the sea stacks.  The trio of horn blasts announcing its arrival had sounded while they'd been greeting Bran, and Astrid had flown down to tell them a few moments ago.  The new ship had managed to sail through the waters around Berk unnoticed or at least unchallenged, by any of the riders who had been flying around all morning.  Which meant that Hiccup and his dad had no idea who was aboard, although it was probably more merchants.

So now at least he had Astrid standing next to him.  She was looking a bit windswept and soaked from sea-spray, with a giant grin on her face from her stunts in the sea stack maze on Stormfly.  But they couldn't hold hands, due to the formality of the occasion.  As far as everyone was concerned, her position here was that of another rider who had spotted an incoming ship. 

As the newcomers pulled up to the dockside, his dad went up to meet them.  One man from the new ship stepped forward to the edge of the gangplank and prepared to speak.  Near him, Hiccup heard Bran take in a sharp breath and rudely call out, " _Finnian mac Seamus!_ "

The redhaired Eirishman whirled and looked at the sea king's envoy.  "Bran!  What are you doing here!?"

"Paying a visit to a long-held _ally,_ you traitor!" 

Before things had a chance to degenerate further as Hiccup watched, his dad moved forward.  "Captain mac Seamus!  I welcome you to Berk and offer you my hospitality.  Do you accept?"

The man bowed and nodded.  "Aye, I do, on behalf of my lord, Ímar mac Arailt, King of Dubh Linn!"

There was a sudden scuffling noise from the direction of Bran's men, and Hiccup, his dad, and Astrid turned to look.  Bran's men were looking surly and belligerent at the newcomers.  Hands were on weapon hilts, faces were set with grimaces of anger, and more than a few crouched in fighting stances.  Astrid commented quietly to Hiccup in a tone of sarcastic surprise, "Think they know each other?"

Hiccup snorted and said quietly back, "No, I think that this is just their way of saying hello.  Must be some special tradition back where they come from."

Stoick rolled his eyes, either at their banter or at the behavior of his guests, and then walked forward until he was standing between the two envoys with a blunt expression on his face.  "Aye, yeh have a history between yeh, but yeh are both _here_ under my hospitality.  If yeh don't like that, take it outside."  He pointed out past the sea stacks, just as _another_ ship was suddenly visible through the spray.  Belatedly, the horn started blowing the three blasts alerting the village to an incoming ship.

Stoick sighed.  "Head up to the village.  We will have a formal welcome at dinner tonight.  I'll have someone guide yeh."

As the two groups, watching each other cautiously, walked up towards the village and guest quarters, led by Snotlout, Hiccup walked over to his dad.  "What's their issue?"

His father scoffed.  "I don't pay much attention to the issues of outsiders, but this one's hard to forget.  Mac Arailt and Echmarcach are both of the Uí Ímair."  Hiccup nodded.  They were the descendants of Ivar, the legendary Viking from a hundred and fifty years ago.  "But they don't get along very well."

"Oh?" Hiccup asked with a smirk, remembering the look on Seamus's face when he'd seen Bran.  "Why do I think that that's an understatement?"

"Aye, yeh are not wrong.  Echmarcach used to rule Dubh Linn some years back… _before_ mac Arailt forced him out."

Hiccup whistled and gave a nervous chuckle.  "Yay.  Great."

"Aye.  And now let's see who stirs the pot next," Stoick said gravely.  "I'd dearly love to know who this one is."  He suddenly quirked an eyebrow.  "Hiccup.  Dragon patrols.  Plan them and post them after we're done with all of this.  I want to know who is paying us a visit in the future _before_ they get to our harbor."

Hiccup nodded.  "Sure thing, dad.  Um… any guesses as to who that is?"

Stoick just sighed.  "Trouble.  Details to be determined."

The ship pulled in shortly, and another man stepped forward at the gangplank.  "Greetings, Mighty Stoick, I am Maredudd ap Gruffydd, son of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, King of Gwynedd!  I bring greetings and glad tidings from my noble father on this happy day!"

Hiccup's father bowed and said, "Welcome to my shore, Maredudd.  I accept your greetings and glad tidings, and offer you my hospitality."

"I most graciously accept!" the man said, and walked down the gangplank to shake Stoick's hands. 

"We will be having a welcoming feast for you and the other guests that have arrived today," he said.  "Please, come ashore and enjoy my hospitality."

"Thank you!"  And then Hiccup watched the rest of the sentence sink in as the man paused and then looked at Stoick, eyes widening in surprise and a sickly half-smile slowly forming on his face.  "Other… guests?"

"Aye.  Yeh are not the first to arrive today.  We've had envoys from Manau, Vedrarfjord and Dubh Linn… so far."

"I… I see.  Thank you, my good lord," the fellow said with some difficulty. 

Stoick smiled.  "Aye.  Here, this is my son Hiccup.  He will show you and your party to where you can prepare."

The man looked at Hiccup and did a double take so intense that it was almost painful to watch. 

Hiccup sighed to himself.  Captain Ragnell had reacted pretty much exactly the same way.

He turned to the Welshman and said, "If you'll follow me, please?"

Still not recovered from his shock, the man mutely nodded.  Hiccup just hoped nastily that he'd given himself whiplash with that double take. 

As they walked up the ramp to the village, he tried to stick to the needs of hospitality, and not think dark thoughts at the men who had clearly expected someone… taller, to be the Dragon Hero. 

But it was hard, and he kept thinking back to that moment on his doorstep the morning he had shot down Toothless.

_Excuse me, barmaid! I'm afraid you've brought me the wrong offspring! I ordered an extra large boy with beefy arms, extra guts, and glory on the side! This here, this is a talkin'_ fishbone _._

At least his dad accepted him more… now. 

But… well…

He scowled when he had an opportune moment facing away from the Welshman, which made Toothless look at him with concern.  Then it was back to being a polite host, and he brought the man over to the bath house so that he and his men could freshen up if they wished.

It was already packed with the other visitors, and you could cut the tension between Bran and Finnian with a knife and use it as bricks. 

Hiccup just handed them off to Braun and Hilda, and then fled with Astrid.  He needed to get this off of his chest or rupture something.

###

That evening, Hiccup sat in the mead hall in the chair next to his father's throne, with about half of Berk present to watch the four outsider nobles come before their chief and politely grovel, in addition to most of a score of foreign traders that were unfamiliar to them; the latter had been dribbling in over the last few days, and wanted to petition the chief to be allowed to make a market at the festival. 

His dad sat on his throne, the very image of a Viking barbarian chieftain.  Next to them were Toothless and Thornado, sitting on carved stone slabs, and his father's council of advisers flanking them, featuring the four other clan heads, plus Gobber as steward, Spitelout as marshal, and with Gothi's chair currently empty as she blessed the assembly.  Front and center before them were the outsider visitors, in a place of honor, occupying several tables all by themselves, nobles in front, merchants behind.

Hiccup just remembered the last time he tried sitting in his dad's throne.  His rear hadn't touched the back of the chair, his feet had dangled off the floor, and he could have put his spread hands between his thighs and the sides of the chair without them touching.  _That_ had been so very utterly encouraging.

As Gothi went through the ritual welcome thanking Njord for his forbearance and wisdom in allowing the ships to cross his seas, Hiccup just stewed in his irritation and frustration.  Apparently _,_ when a king sent an envoy specifically to meet with the _fabled_ Dragon Hero—and he was going to strangle Chestnut for that saga if he ever caught the skald alone in a room somewhere—they expected the Hero (capitalized; you could _hear_ it) to look the part! 

They didn't come hundreds of miles across the storm-blown sea just to see a scrawny talking _fishbone!_  

A hint of motion caught his eye.  Looking, he saw Astrid giving him a sympathetic, if wry, smile from where she was sitting with the rest of her clan.  They'd had a good talk after he'd handed off the Welsh prince's party.  Well.  _Mostly_ they'd talked.  But they'd also had a few minutes unchaperoned, with the adults running around dealing with the sudden influx of visitors, so they'd taken advantage of the moment for some deeply enjoyable—and heavy—kissing.

Fortunately, they'd managed to keep enough control of themselves and their nuzzling so that they had been back to a demure and chaste personal distance by the time Gobber had found them.  Hiccup had even managed to keep his formal clothes from being mussed, by some direct blessing of Freyja. 

He gave her a wistful half-smile and cocked his head to the side, indicating the spot where Toothless was currently curled up.  He would love to have her sitting there next to him, the two of them holding hands, until this whole agonizing formality was over.

She smirked and rolled her eyes upwards.  Yeah… but there _was_ the little hitch that she wasn't legally betrothed to him, and wasn't more than his girlfriend.  On top of that, they weren't even legally adults yet—and wouldn't be until Manni's Day, after Thawfest—so even if they _were_ betrothed, it would be "unseemly" for her to be up here with him as part of the family just yet.

Well, that was coming, if he had anything to say about it.  He wanted her… and, by a miracle that he still gave thanks for every day to each of the gods, she wanted him.  And when it came time for that… he'd show these outsiders that she hadn't picked poorly in him, that he wasn't some fluke or accident, that she'd chosen wisely… that he wasn't…

He sighed.

That he wasn't Useless.

That she wasn't better off with someone else because he didn't fit the image of the Dragon Hero that others imagined. 

He'd show them all that she'd made the right choice… that he was good enough for her.

He caught one last sympathetic look from Astrid as the blessings concluded, and then shifted his attention to the four noble visitors, sitting at the tables nearby.  He did his best to keep a scowl off of his face.  Of the three new envoys, all three and their honor guards had looked at him in shock for not living up to their expectations. 

Having Toothless next to him was helping… at least a little bit.  Well, for certain values of 'helping.'  Thornado was blase about the whole Thing, and just sat at the foot of his dad's throne.  Toothless _,_ on the other hand, was intrigued, and was staring at the visitors with his big wide eyes filled with curiosity. 

Unfortunately, having a Night Fury stare at them with giant green and black eyes wasn't doing very much good for the visitors' self-control either _._   Hiccup had to keep a firm hand on Toothless's collar, and knew that the only thing that was keeping his friend from getting up and walking over to inspect the newcomers with a full sniff, and maybe a lick, was that Toothless could tell Hiccup didn't want him to. 

Hopefully that would last through at least the introductions.

Hopefully.

He sagged in his chair for a moment before forcing himself to sit up straight again as Gothi finished with her blessing and resumed her seat.

In the expectant hush that followed, his dad stood and walked forward, looming over the noble visitors.  "I greet all of yeh, who have traveled far and risked much.  Yer bravery and skills are worthy of note.  The hospitality of my hall is offered to yeh.  I know that the journey was long and fraught, and not made lightly.  Know that I know this, and extend my hand to yeh."  He turned and sat back down.  "Now, I believe that yeh have messages for me?"

All four of the noble visitors went to stand at once.

Bran looked at Finnian and sneered, while Ragnell tried to step forward first, and Gruffydd tried to push ahead.

"I claim the right to go first!" Bran said, trying to elbow his way to the fore as Hiccup watched, trying not to laugh.  "I have spoken with Stoick before, and claim precedence!"

"And that's why you shouldn't go first!  Let someone with less familiarity speak!" Finnian said heatedly.

As they argued, Hiccup leaned over to Gobber.  "Why are they arguing like me and Snotlout, or the twins?  I thought that they were supposed to be adults?" he whispered.

"None of them want to go last and get left in the shadow.  They're all here bringing tribute, see the boxes?  They want to make a good impression."

Hiccup snorted.  "Well, they're doing a _great_ job!" he said quietly.

Gobber laughed softly and then raised his voice.  "Stoick, can I make a suggestion?"

His dad rolled his eyes as the nobles continued to argue.  "Please."

Gobber chortled and said, "Gentlemen, gentlemen!  Please!  Might I suggest that we solve this in a simple, unbiased manner?"

They all paused and looked at Hiccup's mentor.  "Aye?" said Gruffydd after a pause.  In the background, a number of the Hooligans looked disappointed at the ending to the free entertainment. 

"Aye.  Since we won't be able to agree on who goes first by arguing over it, might I suggest that we go in alphabetical order?" Gobber said with a smirk. 

The four nobles all looked at each other and then nodded. 

Then Gruffydd said, "But in whose alphabet?"

There was a moment's pause as everyone seemed to consider the question… and before they could start arguing over that _,_ Hiccup's dad sighed and said, "Mine, as host.  And in order of yer kingdoms.  Does _that_ make yeh all happy?"  His tone made it very clear that they had better be happy.

They all nodded like marionettes.

With that settled, Captain Finnian mac Seamus of Dubh Linn, a smile on his face, approached him and his father.  He had a scroll in one hand and one of his honor guard at his side was carrying a coffer. 

Breaking the seal, the captain gently cleared his throat and unfurled the scroll.

"'To Stoick the Vast, Chieftain of the Hooligan Tribe, Leader of Berk, Lord of Dragons, from King Ímar mac Arailt of Dubh Linn, I send greetings,'" he read.

"'We congratulate you on your victory, and your new dominion.  Assuming that even a tenth of what the merchant told Us was truth before God, you have dared greatly and won glory and respect.  I acknowledge you as a brother lord, and wish only peace between us.  With my captain, I have sent you a gift as proof of my sincerity and my desire to see the two of us reach an accord.  Sincerely, King Ímar mac Arailt of Dubh Linn.'"  With a few fumbling motions, the captain rerolled the scroll and knelt before Stoick, extending the roll of paper towards him.

Hiccup's father took it and set it aside; even sitting, he was taller than the man was standing, and it looked… regal and impressive.  Hiccup would just look like… well, like a child sitting in his father's chair, playing.  "Thank you, and thanks to your lord for his kind words," Stoick said. 

"And my liege's gift to you," the captain said, taking the coffer and a key from his man standing at his side, and handed both items to Stoick. 

Opening the coffer, Stoick blinked and reached into it.  "A book?"

"A Bible, my lord.  Illuminated by the monks of Dubh Linn monasteries, with art that depicts the life of our Lord and Savior."

Stoick nodded gamely and returned a few platitudes to the captain, who moved off to the side to allow Bran to approach.  The book was placed off to the side on a table, and Toothless sniffed at it and then made a face.

Over the next twenty minutes, the scene repeated itself three more times.  Gwynedd offered a fine sword, once wielded by the Gwynedd King Llywelyn ap Seissyll.  Manau sent a great war-ax named Arm-Biter, once the possession of a famous Viking.  Vedrarfjord gave a substantial purse of copper coins.  At their seats, Bran and Maredudd politely sneered at each other for having had the same idea.

Hiccup was doing his best to keep a straight face as he thought on what he was seeing and what Gobber had told him.  He didn't like where this was going.  Each of the other kings acknowledged his father, said that they wanted to be peaceful, and offered a gift. 

It had taken him half of the presentation to realize that they were actually bribes.  Gobber's comment about wanting to make a good impression… and the fact that Bran was giving his _dad_ something valuable, and not the other way around, had bounced around Hiccup's skull, and he'd practically jumped in his chair when he realized that they were offering Danegeld to Berk.  Bribes to not come and raid—or conquer—their lands.  That _was_ what Vikings had been doing for the last few hundred years, after all.  Berk had been one of the bases of operation for the raids all up and down the Eirish, Alban, Welsh, and Saxon coastlines.

And now… thanks to him, things had changed.  Berk wasn't the place of stubborn Vikings that barely managed to survive their war with the dragons anymore.  His dad had an army of battle-hardened warriors now… who rode dragons.  And who didn't have to worry about having to fight off raids every few nights anymore. 

And given that his dad had paid Bran's lord tribute in the past to keep Berk from being attacked…  and now the situation was reversed…

Yeah.  Hiccup held down a scowl.  It made complete sense that they were all expecting him to start conquering and raiding… just like they all did. 

Captain Ragnell having finished with his own request for peace—which could have been the same letter as the one from the lord of Dubh Linn,  with the names swapped out—he handed over the leather purse that clinked heavily to the chief and then took his seat again. 

As his dad stood and thanked the visitors, Hiccup watched their faces carefully.  Even as his dad promised peace and friendship, he could see that they were skeptical.  Bran wasn't even bothering to hide it. 

Well, they could believe as they liked.  He wasn't going to let the dragons be used as weapons, not if he could help it.  And while he might not be _chief,_ the dragons would listen to him.

"—and I hope that yeh all enjoy this Thawfest.  This year, my son is a man before Tyr, and, in honor of the victory that he won for us, we have added dragon contests to our games.  We will be having races and other contests."  Stoick clapped his hands as Hiccup rolled his eyes.  His dad had an additional motive to adding dragon contests to the Thawfest games.  He'd added _just enough_ so that, if and when Hiccup and Toothless managed to beat Snotlout and Hookfang at them, they'd win the youth games… and deny the Jorgensons—and Spitelout—their perfect sweep for Snotlout.  "Let us all compete for the favor of the gods on the contest field and not on the battlefield."  He bowed and sat back down.

With that, the welcoming ceremony was over, and people began to mingle and socialize.  The instant Hiccup let go of Toothless's collar, the dragon bounded over to the visitors, examining them with intrigued sniffs.  Hiccup sighed as the men froze, one of them reaching for his weapon on reflex before freezing—realizing either where he was or that Toothless meant him no harm, Hiccup couldn't be sure. 

He walked up.  "He's just curious," he said to Captain Finnian, who was looking a bit worried at the dragon nosing at him. "He won't hurt you." 

Toothless gave one last sniff of the man and turned, walking around behind Hiccup.  The Eirishman visibly sagged in relief. 

"See?" Hiccup said, bending to one knee, thankful for all of the practice he had put in with his new leg, and rubbing Toothless's ears.  "He was just being friendly."

"Aye," Finnian said weakly.  "Just like a giant, black scaly dog."

Someone behind him muttered quietly, "With bat wings and who spits fire…"

"Pretty much," Hiccup said to the Dubh Linn man, ignoring the second voice.  Still kneeling, he winked at Toothless before scratching under his chin at that spot that the dragons liked so much.  The dragon slumped to the floor with a thud and a happy purr.

The nobles and merchants blinked, and moved carefully away as Hiccup kept petting his friend, who was making happy noises.  At least someone around here was having a good evening. 

Then he felt a pair of hands rest on his shoulders and move in to start rubbing at his neck.  He tilted his head back to see Astrid smirking down at him.  "You look tense.  You all right?" she asked in an innocent tone, eyebrows lifted knowingly under her bangs. 

He smiled, stood with her help, and thought to himself that the worst of the evening was over.  Thank the gods. 

And things went nicely from there, even with the visitors staring at him like some exotic beast, and with the adults watching the two of them like hawks.  He didn't even mind that much when he got dragged into the circle dance by Astrid and he managed to trip on his peg and the stump slipped free as he went flying.  Because she was smiling at him and they would be adults soon and they would be together and everything would be all right.

Yeah.  He was going to show the world that he was worthy of her.

###

The day of Thawfest dawned, cool and bright, and Hiccup was awake and ready for the spring festival, Toothless at his side, as soon as the sun was up above the horizon.  There would be games, and food, and contests, and music, and traders from distant lands.  Especially this year, given that, _for some reason,_ a dozen ships from neighboring tribes and petty kingdoms had shown up, as well as Trader Johann and several other merchants, some from as far away as Normandy, by the Frankish kingdom.

He said as much to Astrid as they started walking through the paths in the town and nearby field where most of the festival was being held, his dragon tailing them close behind.  It was complicated by Toothless wanting to poke his nose into everything, especially the food stalls. 

Waving his arms around to indicate the entire festival, he said, "I mean, most years, it's just us, maybe the Bog-Burglars and a few of the other tribes in the area.  But now?  Six months after I make friends with Toothless, they all show up?" He shook his head and spread his arms wide.  "Pull the other one, it's got bells on it."

Snotlout's voice spoke up behind him. "Don't you mean, 'it comes off'?"

Hiccup and Astrid turned to look at his cousin.  Astrid scowled and looked at Snotlout.  "Really?  Really?  You went there?"

"Hey, it's the truth!" Snotlout defended himself.  "So, Coz, ready to get humiliated again this year?  Because I'm going to take home the ribbons for everything, like I always do."

Hiccup sighed.  "We're not kids anymore, 'Lout.  But, hey, sure, if you want to get yourself humiliated for child-game ribbons in the last year we can play, and by a guy whose leg comes off, I'll be there."  He smirked.  "Remember that we added _dragon races_ for the kiddie division this year." 

Snotlout sneered and moved off. 

Astrid sighed.  "Can we please kick his ass at the contests this year?  It _is_ our last year being able to compete in the 'kiddie division', after all," she said in an innocent tone. 

"Sounds good to me.  You beat him at the physical stuff and Toothless and I will work at the dragon stuff, and send him home crying?"

"Deal."  She bent over and gave him a kiss.  Pulling back, she grinned evilly.  "This year, I have a better chance."  Indicating herself, she said smugly, "I got taller than him, and I'm going to kick his ass."

Hiccup took the moment to appreciate what she had indicated, and grinned at her.  "Yep.  You are.  And you'll look glorious when doing it."

"Flatterer," she said, smiling.

"Honest," he replied, pulling in closer.  "I don't like lying.  I'm no good at it."

She laughed and gave him a friendly punch to the arm.  "That's the truth," she said, shaking her head.  "'Making outfits.'  I still can't believe that _that's_ what you came up with."

"And then you damn near broke my fingers."

"I said I was sorry.  And I _know_ that I made it up to you."

"And then the ax butt."

"Well, that you deserved."

"Yeah, probably.  We _did_ kidnap you afterwards.  And then I got a punch and my first kiss out of it, so that definitely came out positive."

"Mmmh.  I'd say that that whole thing came out good for both of us," she said, leaning in to give him another kiss. 

After they had been at it for a good long moment, someone whistled approvingly, and they both looked up to see one of the traders standing nearby, giving them both a favorable look. 

"Ah, don't mind me, lad, lass, I was just appreciating it.  I wish you both the best.  Been a long time since I was a young one, but I remember it nicely, and you two look like you're getting along just fine."  He looked directly at Hiccup.  "So, you be the Dragon Hero, then?" he said, indicating both Toothless and Hiccup's prosthesis with a jerk of his chin.

Hiccup nodded slowly.  Sure, maybe he didn't like the title that much… but maybe it was time to start owning it. 

"Aye, not what I was expecting," he said, which made Hiccup sigh.  "But I was expecting someone ten feet tall who used dragon gut to floss his teeth, by the way the stories were by the time they got to me."  He indicated his tent-stall.  "Can I offer you and your fine young lady there anything, Mister Dragon Tamer?"

Hiccup cocked his head, looking over the man's stall-tent.  He looked like a general goods seller, with a little bit of everything.  "Got any ink or paints, paper, parchment?"

"Aye, maybe," he replied, and started rummaging through his supplies.  "I think I got a nice red in here somewhere, and mayhap some blue.  Lots of demand for those from the monasteries over in Eire."  As he rummaged, he said, diffidently, "So, lad, I hear that you be the one in charge for all things dragon around here."

With a slow nod, Hiccup looked into the tent and said, "Yes… but, before you ask, no, they're not for sale.  Any of them."

"Ah, well.  Next year, perhaps?"

Hiccup made a non-committal, "We'll see, but probably not."

"Ah, well.  Well, I have here a few pots of ink, green, black, blue and yellow, plus a nice stack of cowhide parchment.  What can you offer me in exchange?   Goods or coin?"

Hiccup reached for his pouch and opened it.  "I have dragon teeth and scales, if that might be of interest."

"Teeth?  So you have had to put down a few of them?"

Hiccup shook his head.  "No, the dragons shed them and then new ones grow in."  He laid out the fangs on the little table the trader had set up in front of him.  "I've got some from Gronckles, which can crack rocks and make for good chisels, some Monstrous Nightmares, which are really sharp and make good knives, and this one is from Toothless here," he pointed to one stubby incisor in particular. 

"You have a tooth from a dragon named Toothless?" the trader said with a laugh.  "That sounds like a story."

"Not much of one," Hiccup said, pulling out some dried fish and turning to his friend, who obligingly opened his mouth to show the gums. 

"Aye, lad, I see no teeth there, looks like they shou— _God in Heaven!_ " the trader swore and jumped back as Toothless extended his teeth and snatched the dried fish.

Hiccup just turned back to the trader with an innocent look, as Astrid tamped down a snicker.  "Yep.  One of those teeth.  Interested?"

"Aye."  The merchant composed himself quickly and leaned in. "How about fifteen teeth per pot?  Sounds like you'll have an easier time replacing them than I'll have getting more ink."

Hiccup nodded.  "Sounds reasonable."  He turned to Astrid.  "But I don't have enough on me.  Could you wait here while I go get some more from the chest?"

"Lad, I can wait.  Here, let me put these aside," he said.  "Is there anything you would like for yourself, lass?"

Astrid grinned.  "Hmm… let me see…  what do you have?"

"Well, I have some turtleshell combs and some amber necklaces…" he said, looking through the stall, before Astrid held up her hand. 

"Any weapons?" she asked as he popped open a coffer with a key from his belt.

Hiccup cocked his head at her and said, before the merchant could answer, "I can make those too, you know."

She grinned at him.  "No harm in seeing what he's got."

"Aye, lass, I have some hatchets, a dagger made by the smiths of Damascus, and a Welsh yew longbow," he said, shrugging. 

Her eyes lit up at the mention of the dagger and bow.  "Ooh.  How much for those?"

"Hmm…"

A commotion sounded behind them, and they turned and looked. 

Fishlegs was running through the festival at top speed, stumbling as he ran, and was heading right towards them, knocking people out of the way in his hurry. 

"Hiccup!  Oh, Hiccup, thank Odin I found you, she's gone, they took her, she's gone," he babbled. 

"Slow down, Fishlegs!" Hiccup said.  "What happened?"

"Someone kidnapped Meatlug last night.  We got ambushed and they had nets and bolas, and they said they were going to kill me to keep me quiet and I got away and fell down into a hole and I just got out," he panted out in a rush of words. 

Now that he was standing still, Hiccup could see that his friend's right ankle was grossly swollen, and that Fishlegs was obviously favoring it, along with a long slashing wound in his left forearm that was still weeping blood.  Obviously Fishlegs had blocked a thrust that would have ended up in his throat with the meat of his arm.

Hiccup and Astrid looked at each other, and before he even realized it, Hiccup had hopped on Toothless's back, Astrid behind him.  "You get that leg taken care of," he said to Fishlegs.  "We're on it!  We'll find her, promise!"

As Toothless took flight, Hiccup heard the merchant say in a very hard tone, "Boy, come here, I'll help you with that leg, you shouldn't be walking on it.  I'll put your friend's things aside.  You there!  Call the chief, tell him what happened!  Call for a healer!"

And they were up and away. 

"Where's Stormfly?"

"In the stable by my house.  I wanted her well-rested before the races.  I fed her before coming with you to the festival grounds."

"Okay.  Bud, we're heading for the Hoffersons!" He clicked the pedal and Toothless poured on the speed. 

"Check the docks first!" she said in his ear.  "See who is missing!"

"Good idea!" 

They banked and overflew the harbor, Hiccup leaning left, Astrid leaning right, both of them furiously counting.

"I make two ships gone!"

"Same here!"

They banked around for another pass, Hiccup straining his memory to match up ships with owners.

He grimaced as he put it together.

"That's why they sent two ships!"

* * *

 

**Author's Note:** Oh, hey, look, plot!  


	6. Return To Sender

**Chapter 6: Return To Sender**

_In Berk's immediate vicinity in the Alban Isles, there were not many major dominant powers.  Eire was politically fragmented into dozens of warring petty kings, and had not been unified since the death of High King Brian Boru at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.  Alba, in the north, was under the rule of the Red King, Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, but he was new to his title at the time, and, despite his later activities, was not by any means a major power.  Wales was politically splintered into five squabbling kingdoms that would not reunify for years.  Around the Eirish Sea and Hebrides were other warlords and petty kings, many of whom belonged to related dynasties and feuded endlessly with one another._

_The single greatest powers in the immediate vicinity were England, which was ruled by the tyrannical King Harthacnut, and the politically decentralized Frankish kingdom to the south, ruled by King Henry of the Capets.  Neither power had the population, or the initial incentives, to pursue conflicts with Berk. Henry was dealing with conflicts with and between his nobility, while Harthacnut was imposing his will on a restive populace.  In particular, the autocratic methods that Harthacnut had used to rule over Denmark for the previous several years were backfiring on him tremendously and setting the stage for…_

_—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396_

Captain Ragnell looked at the captive dragons as they sat in the restraints, and shuddered.  But Adalwin had ordered him to return with dragons, whether the Hooligans wanted to give them up or not, and with the holds that his king held on him…  Well, now here he was, having sailed through the night and morning as far and as fast as he had dared. 

Hopefully, in the chaos and general activity of the Thaw Festival, their absence would go unnoticed.  As it was, they were already over thirty leagues away from Berk as the crow—or dragon—flew, and the sea was vast, and his ships were just tiny bits of moving flotsam on its surface. 

They were still moving under full sail, though.

Finding a ship on the vast reaches of the sea was hard for another ship.  Ships were small and the sea was vast.  A single ship was just a tiny mote that would require God's own Sight to be able to spot from anything beyond a mile, may two under ideal conditions at the very best.  But he wasn't concerned about being spotted by another ship on the surface of the waters; his true worry was about watchers from the skies. 

Hours more passed, and they made for the Sruth na Maoile as fast as he dared. His ship could handle these conditions, but if they got any more blustery, he would have to take in a reef in the sails, or risk foundering.

But he didn't dare do so now.  Every league that they put between them and Berk was one more league further that they would have to come in search and pursuit.

With luck, they wouldn't even notice that he was gone until he and his ships had fled so far that search was impractical or impossible.  His men had reported that the boy they had stolen the dragon and its tack from had run away in the dark and fallen off a cliff, so hopefully no alarm had yet been raised. 

As the noon sun passed overhead and then began dipping down to the horizon once more, he allowed himself to start to relax, and went over to examine the dragons. 

They made fine prizes, for certain.  Having pumped some of the Hooligans for information over fine drink, they had gone after Gronckles, as the beasts needed to eat rocks before they could breathe fire.  That meant that they could be fed safely without worrying about risks of having the ships _set_ on fire.  Further, the beasts had been very trusting, letting his men get right up and close, before scratching at the pressure point under the chin.  Ragnell had no idea what they would have done if the chief's son had not inadvertently shown them that weakness the night they arrived.  That had made trussing up the beasts child's play. 

They had set sail near midnight, using the just-past-full moon for light to get past the sea stacks, and then begun sailing south towards home at maximum speed, with eight dragons hidden under tarps and cargo.

Now, most of a day later, his crew was tired, some of them stumbling on their feet.  He had taken a double crew specifically to be able to sail as fast as possible, allowing exhausted men to rotate out as necessary in order to maintain full watches on the sails and oars, but they didn't need any incentive from him to keep working as hard as possible.  None of them doubted the rage of Berk would be roused by what they did, and their lord had promised them all great rewards for success.  Fear and greed made powerful motivators for diligence and enthusiasm.

All they had to do now was finish returning home with their cargo, and they would be protected by their lord's stout walls and personal guard.  As for that cargo, he gathered together a bucket of fish that they had filched from one of Berk's great urns and went to feed the beasts, as none of his men dared.

One of them was whining in its chains.  Reaching out cautiously, he scratched it under its chin, and then watched in awe as it thumped to the boards underneath.  Next to the beast was its tack and saddle, which they were taking back to have the leatherworkers copy. 

He took a closer look at the leather, making out some words that had been burned into the strap.  It was in the angular Norse script, but he managed to puzzle it out over a moment or so.  "Meatlug, eh?  Or are you Fishlegs?"

The beast whined at the last.  The captain shook his head.  The Hooligans had the _oddest_ naming traditions.  "Aye.  Fishlegs, pleasure to make your acquaintance.  I apologize for the accommodations, but I can guarantee that you'll be well taken care of when we return."

The beast whined again, and he patted it on the nose before holding out a fish for it to eat.  "Ah, don't you worry," he said as it slurped the fish down, "When I present you to my King, you'll go from being one dragon in a flock to being the personal mount of a high lord.  Won't that be nice?"

Before the dragon could respond, a panicked shout came out from the other ship. 

He looked up, wondering what was wrong.  Someone pointed, their hand shaking, before them, and Ragnell focused on the sea ahead, wondering if they had stumbled across a Viking raid, or the navy of Dubh Linn or Manau. 

And then he looked _up_ , his stomach moving in the opposite direction.

_Ahead_ of them, in the sky above the Sruth na Maoile's narrowest point, was a flock of dozens of dragons, winged dots against the hard blue of heaven, their riders visible on their backs.

He didn't know if his ships had been spotted yet, but there was no question as to why the dragons were there.

He had been out-thought and out-maneuvered.  For certain, while a ship on the open sea was nigh impossible to find… the Sruth na Maoile was _not_ the open sea.  It was barely three or four leagues across at its narrowest, being the channel between Alba and Eire.  On a clear day, one could reportedly see one shore from the other.

And, on this clear day, he could plainly see that the Hooligans had outsmarted him.  Rather than try to find him with a fruitless search of the open ocean, they had instead flown ahead and cut him off on his fastest route home, waiting in the one place where he was certain to cross.

He hated having clever enemies.

Well, he could be clever too.

"Turn around and make for the northwest!  We'll hug the coast of Eire and come around from the west and south to home!  They haven't spotted us yet, so we have a chance to evade!"

His sailors leapt to his orders, turning the ship around as quickly as possible.  The keel and timbers creaked in protest as the sail and rigging crackled, snapped and fluttered in the changing wind.  The wind was out of the northeast, dry and smelling of trees and dirt, and they came about, swinging their bows to the south, shifting from their previous broad reach bearing south-east to a beam reach bearing them northwest. 

His sailors were skilled and _very_ motivated, and they managed to execute the course change, without being driven upon the lee shore when the crossed the point of running wind.  That was good, as that shore was where the Kingdom of Ulaid lay, which was a cold ally at best to Adalwin.  He had no doubt that if they came to be wrecked down upon that shore, they would be found and caught by either the Ulaid or the Hooligans; while the former would undoubtedly be kinder than the latter, he doubted that Adalwin would be willing to pay a ransom for a failure to return home, even if that failure was claimed as a close kinsman.  It was not as if the Uí Ímair were known for overflowing with a sense of deep and abiding kinship, as he quite well knew. 

No, his best option was to keep moving, and to try to evade the Hooligans by hugging the shoreline until he could lose them in the dark of night, or hopefully a storm that might decide to arrive and give him some cover from watching eyes aloft.  He felt exposed and vulnerable, and knew that only his cleverness stood between him and a bath in dragonfire.

He watched the dragons in the sky intently for any sign that they had seen his ships. 

Twice over the next half hour, he saw a dragon leave its position in the line aloft and dive below, for reasons that he could only guess, but he imagined that they were checking fishing boats and other ships.

So intent he was upon the distant beasts that had laid in wait that it took an inelegant blubbering gasp to draw away his sight from them, and then his second in command took him by the hand and spun him. 

His protest against such treatment died on his lips as the _other_ line of dragons, flying steadily forwards, shifted into view. 

He _really_ hated having clever enemies.

Spread across half the sky, he guessed that they were spaced at roughly half-mile increments, as he could see at least five or six as dark dots moving purposefully across the blue sky.  They were moving across the sea below as if to sweep him into the line that he had left behind him.

There was still a chance to be clever himself, though. 

"Cover the dragons!  Hide me!  You," he pointed to the third mate, "you're the 'captain.'  We're taking cargo from Dubh Linn.  You're terrified of the dragons and aren't afraid to show it!  When they show up, try to bluff them!"

It was a long shot, but it was their only shot.  The sailors burst into motion, throwing the spare sail over the dragons and tossing spare rigging atop them, as he pushed aside several sacks of food and attempted to conceal himself among them. 

His last view of the sky, before a bag of dried beef obscured it, was to witness a distant shape in the sky begin to drop down and approach his vessel.

The next few minutes passed in increasing tension.  He could hear the dragon rider and his third mate shouting back and forth, followed by silence. 

Then someone was digging him out from under the supplies.

With an apologetic look as the sack lifted away from his face, the sailor said to him, "It… uh, didn't work, sir."

###

Astrid flew towards the knot of dragons circling the pair of ships.  She'd been hovering over the Sruth na Maoile with the other tripwire dragons, while Hiccup had led the sweeps team.  About a quarter of an hour ago, they'd been signaled that they'd found the Vedrarfjord ships.

Snotlout flew up alongside her as she approached.  She stifled a sigh and said, as brusquely as she could, "What's going on?"

"Nice to see you too!" he said back. 

"Stuff it, 'lout," she said bluntly.  "What's going on?"

"Well, we caught them, and now they're holding the dragons hostage.  I've been saying that we should just burn them to the waterline, and then go burn that city they came from," he said, "but Hiccup doesn't want to listen to me.  He'd rather give in."

She growled at him and flew on.  Behind her, Snotlout just called out, "So, see you later?!"

She hissed and said to herself, "Yeah, when I'm kicking your ass black and blue at the Thawfest games."  She couldn't… well, actually she _could_ believe that he was still flirting with her, even after she and Hiccup were a couple.  It wasn't like he respected Hiccup for 'having' her.  And respecting _her_?  She snorted.  Yeah.  Sure.  He just saw her as a possession… and one that was owned by his cousin that he had no respect for anyway.  Respecting her own wishes would be asking too much of him.  He'd just see seducing her away from Hiccup as a way of winning against his cousin.

She shook her head to clear away the angry thoughts and flew onwards

She saw Hiccup and Toothless hovering near the pair of ships and moved in, looking closely.  

The terrified sailors were holding axes to the throats of the captive Gronckles, a sight that made her grimace.  Hiccup was calling out something to the ships, the sound of his voice hard to make out over the flapping of hundreds of wings. 

Hiccup sounded furious as she got in close enough to hear his words. 

"—and that's not going to happen!  Put the axes down, and I'll swear that you get to live, but there's no way you're going to get to sail away!"

"We'll kill them!  We will!"

"We've been over this three times already!" Hiccup shouted back, sounding exasperated.  " _They're the only reason you're still alive!"_

"So why should we give them up!?" the captain said in a note of near-panic.

"Because, sooner or later, _someone_ is going to make a mistake, and you're all going to die!" Hiccup called back angrily.  "I'm _trying_ to save your lives here!  Work with me!  I've got an entire flock of angry dragon riders who have a bone to pick with you!  Specifically _your_ bones!"

Astrid could see the Norseman captain swallow hard when her boyfriend said that, and she grinned.  Then she bent over and pulled her ax from the holster on Stormfly's saddle and just… _smiled_ at the thief.

"I'm the only one holding them all back!  But, hey, my cousin just wants to burn your boats to the waterline and get back to the festival!  And, hey, it's not like he's a known hothead or anything like that!" Hiccup said, and Astrid gave a low harsh chuckle.  So Snotlout _could_ be useful for something!  Imagine that!

"So stop panicking for a moment and stop and _think!_   We have you dead to rights!  There is no way out of here that ends with you sailing home with our dragons!  If you want to live and go home, you give up those dragons!"

"Then what keeps us alive!?"

Hiccup looked at her with a grimace, visibly sighed, and then looked around at the circling riders and their dragons.  Cupping his hands, he shouted, "When they surrender, they're not to be harmed!  I'm taking them as _my_ prisoners on _my_ honor!  Am I understood!?"

There was a ragged chorus of assent from the other dragon riders—some approving, others more begrudging, but, overall, people seemed to be willing to watch and see what Hiccup would do.

She grinned, her heart bursting with pride, as her boyfriend looked back down at the thief and called, "There!  It's _my_ honor on the line now, and, unlike _you,_ honor means something to me!  _Drop.  The.  Axes."_

The sailors all looked at each other and their captain… and stepped back from the wriggling dragons, dropping their weapons to the decks of their ships.

As the riders moved in to take them into custody… into _Hiccup's_ custody, she flew up next to him and said as quietly as she could and still be heard in the noise, "That was well done."

He shook his head.  "Let's make sure that nobody decides that my honor is worth a little satisfaction on their parts."

She grimaced and nodded.  "I'll go supervise," she said, and flew down to keep watch. 

###

Three hours later, Astrid, sagged tiredly out of Stormfly's saddle and onto the grass outside of the mead hall.  By the look of the sun, she'd been in the saddle for nearly half the day, and her rear and her thighs felt as if someone had taken sharkskin and a tenderizing mallet to them, and the rest of her body felt like she'd been thoroughly and methodically beaten by her Uncle Glenn's padded training club. 

Her feet touched the grass and promptly betrayed her, slipping out from underneath her, sending her into a sprawling, exhausted heap.

A deep rumbling voice came from nearby.  "Bit tired, lass?" asked Stoick, a mix of concern and humor in his voice.

She lifted her head up, looked at Hiccup's father, and gave him a mute thumb's up. 

He laughed.  "So, they're almost back?"

She nodded mutely.  They'd sent messengers ahead with the news of the capture, and she had left the main group behind when they'd reached the sea stacks.  Taking a deep breath, she said tiredly, "Yeah.  They're out by the Five Sisters at the moment."

Stoick reached down and hauled her to her unsteady feet.  "Well, we should go meet them, shouldn't we?" he asked with a smile.

She nodded tiredly and stretched, gloriously _stretched,_ the bones of her back audibly popping one after another, before following the chief down to the docks.

The two ships were being dragged in, ropes tied to their oarlocks and pulled by the dragons.  The prisoners had their hands bound, and Hiccup and Toothless were standing at the prow of the lead ship.  Her boyfriend looked a little seasick—okay, very seasick, because it was visible from up here—but that was probably from the speed that they'd been going.  It had been actually rather fun to watch from Stormfly's back… for the first hour. 

As she and Stoick reached the ramp down to the docks, a knot of people marched up towards them.  Astrid stifled a groan as she saw who it was. 

Bladewit Drorsdoitter, the Ingerman clan head, barely acknowledged her before saying directly to Stoick, "You caught them, but they attacked my grandnephew.  Yes, they stole from your flocks, but the greatest harm was to my blood.  I claim the greater injury and precedence in judgment."  The ax in her calloused and inkstained hands made it very clear on how she wanted judgment and punishment to be handled. 

Astrid protested, "Hiccup swore on his honor that they wouldn't be harmed!"

The older woman turned and looked at her.  "Aye, and they weren't!  They've been taken into custody, awaiting judgment—"

"Aye, and we shall talk over who gets the first hit at them, Bladewit," Stoick said with a frown.  "But I shall not compromise me son's honor for your vengeance."

She scowled at him and said, "I want satisfaction on this, Stoick!"

"And yeh shall _get_ it.  But let us _not_ be rash here, shall we?" the chief said.

With a white eyebrow raised, she gave the chief a deadpan look and said bluntly, "My grandnephew is not a warrior.  It is time he learned how to face a man with a weapon in hand."

Astrid blinked and said, "Wait, you want _Fishlegs_ to kill them?"

"He already admitted to cowardice and ran away into the night!" she snapped.  "He needs to remember that he is a _Viking!_ "

"If I recall correctly," Stoick said in a carelessly even tone, "The fight was eight on one.  He showed wisdom in fleeing, otherwise you'd be down one grandnephew, Bladewit."  He held up a hand to forestall her reply.  "How about this?  As the directly injured party, we make _Fishlegs_ the arbiter for your clan on what happens to these thieves?"

"I already said that he was too soft," she shot back.  "But, given what they did to him…" A smile spread across her face which gave Astrid a chill.  "Aye, I suppose."  She then walked off just as Hiccup and Toothless came in to land next to them. 

Astrid shivered as the older woman disappeared around the bend of the path. 

Hiccup just looked down from Toothless's back, and said tiredly, "Hey Dad.  How was your day?"

Stoick snorted.  "I hope that yeh have that plan yeh promised in yer message, son."

Hiccup sighed and went to dismount, and promptly stumbled on his unsteady foot and peg.  Astrid shifted to catch and brace him, and a moment later, she and her boyfriend were basically leaning against each other for mutual support.

Stoick looked them over and smirked, but, instead of commenting on their relationship like he usually did when they were like this, he just said, "Well, let's get those prisoners into the cells, shall we?"

Astrid just had to stand by and watch as the foreign captain and his crew of thieves were led into the cells by the dragon training pit.  They were secure and sturdy enough, and a group of thanes— _not_ from the Ingerman clan, but from hers and the Thorstons—were put on guard. 

Then they went into the mead hall for the argument.

It proceeded more or less as she expected.  The Ingermans were baying for the blood of the men who attacked their kinsman, the Jorgensons wanted to avoid looking weak, and her clan and the Thorstons were looking to Stoick for direction.  And Fishlegs, a bit battered and bruised, was looking like he was considering bursting into a pillar of fire out of sheer embarrassment at being the center of attention. 

Then Hiccup did some _very_ fast talking, about how he had promised the men their lives… but he _hadn't_ promised anything beyond that…

And he had a little suggestion on how to proceed.

When he finished, the room was completely and utterly silent, and Astrid held her breath, her heart pounding in her ears.

Then someone, who sounded like Horsefeathers, Fishlegs' older brother, burst out laughing.

The humor spread like a wave through the room, and when Fishlegs gave a nod of earnest approval, people were coming up and giving Hiccup and Fishlegs spine-cracking backslaps that made her wince in sympathy. 

After a long moment of amusement on the part of her tribemates, Stoick stepped forward and announced, "Tomorrow we will be holding the rest of our Thawfest.  The captain said that his lord is not expecting them back too soon.  We will hold our festival before the gods… and then settle this."  He thumped the table.  "I call this Thing to a close."

Astrid sidled up next to Hiccup as people started to disperse.  He sighed and leaned his head against her arm.  "I tired."

She patted his head gently and fondly. "Same.  Long day."

"Yeah."  He sighed again, and she felt the stress leave his body.  "Thank the gods that he's not expected back too soon.  I don't want to offend them by putting off the contests…"  He gave a silent chuckle, noticeable to her as his shoulders and chest shaking against her.  "We'll need all of the help we can get to pull _this_ off."

She nodded in assent.  "Yeah… Although I think Thor and Sif would forgive us."

Stoick snorted from nearby.  "Aye, but don't tempt the jotunns.  We'll have our displays of prowess and skill before the gods… and then we'll deal with those that would steal from us."  He looked at the pair of them, smiled, and then said, "And, on that, the two of yeh should be gettin' to bed.  You look like I could breathe too hard in yer direction and knock yeh over."

Hiccup shrugged and grinned.  "Nah, dad, that's just the smell."

Astrid snorted and Stoick smirked.  "Oh, is it now?"  He pointed.  "Bed.  Don't shame yourselves before the gods tomorrow because yeh were too tired."

They both nodded tiredly and left the mead hall, holding hands until they'd reached the front door of his house at the top of the hill.  A parting kiss and hug, and her boyfriend slumped into his house, and she staggered down the hill to hers.

###

The next day, Mani's Day, Berk finished holding its Thaw Festival.  There were contests of all types—fishing contests, ax throwing contests, log splitting contests, sailing races, cattle riding, cattle wrestling, arm wrestling, glima wrestling, raw wrestling, water wrestling, sheep carrying, athletics, rock climbing, feats of strength and endurance, log rolling, duels with blunted weapons and padded armor, and, the annual favorites, eating contests and drinking contests. 

The adults and children had separate competitions, for the sake of fairness in the eyes of Tyr, Thor, Odin, and the rest of the gods, for what adult could claim honor and glory for beating a child?  And, of course, to keep the children's own competitive spirits honed to a razor's edge, not only were there ribbons for each contest won, but whoever among the youths collected the most was given a special medallion for the honor. 

And this would be the last year they would get to compete in the youth division, too.  Having seen the end of their sixteenth winter, the conclusion of the Thaw Festival marking the end of that winter, Astrid, her boyfriend, Fishlegs, the twins, and Snotlout would be officially adults before the eyes of the tribe in all respects.  This would be their last chance to win in front of their age peers as children.

Snotlout had won that medallion for their age cohort for the last ten years, ever since her cohort had been allowed to compete.  And he _never_ let the rest of them forget it. 

Well, this year would be different.  Although, given what had happened the day before, she was a bit distracted, and she could tell that Hiccup was too, knowing what they'd be doing _tomorrow._

That being said, her boyfriend and Toothless managed to win a few ribbons for flying acrobatics and racing skill, along with target accuracy, and had won by a significant margin… even with the points docked for Toothless's little prank on Barf and Belch.  It _had_ been funny, though, to see the Zippleback look up with both heads and have their eyes go wide at the same time when the weighted net had dropped on them. 

It hadn't all been fun and games, though, as Spitelout had disputed Hiccup's win in the target accuracy contest.  Hiccup had designed the targets for the obstacle course, and Snotlout's father had claimed that Hiccup had an unfair advantage, despite him having no hand in the placement of the targets.  So it had been declared that it was going to be used as a tiebreaker, which had ticked _her_ off to no end.  She and Stormfly had come in second in all of the dragon categories. 

Meanwhile, she'd beaten Snotlout in the ax throw by a respectable margin; he'd clearly been practicing, but she'd managed to get a bullseye for each round.  Hiccup… had managed to hit the target once.  Out of the five rounds.  With the ax handle.

Sheep carrying had been carried without question by Snotlout; Fishlegs was currently sidelined, with a badly sprained ankle and a heavily bandaged arm, and he was the next best at that event.  She'd come in second, but Snotlout had been well ahead of her.

The log roll in the harbor had been… interesting.  Hiccup and the twins had been the first to take the plunge into the icy water, leaving just her and Snotlout, who had pushed the log to spin as quickly as he could manage.  His usual flirting was taking a backseat to his own competitiveness, and she was thankful for that.  While she had had put up a valiant fight, only her superior coordination had saved her from taking her own dip into the water before Snotlout.

She'd only won because he messed up, tripping on a knot in the log.  Hiccup's cousin ended up getting brained in the head—twice!—by the log, once when he fell and once when he sputtered to the surface.  Of course, she had missed it, having frantically been trying to stay on the log herself for a few more moments.  But Hiccup had described it to her with glee, considering it to be poetic justice, as they'd both dried off in the bathhouse.  The water had been _barely_ warmer than when they'd taken that dip in the millpond two months earlier, but at least this time her boy had managed to keep from breathing in water.

At the end of the day, Hiccup had won the youth contest medallion, the dragon events having tipped the scale. 

Snotlout had been… less than pleased, as had Spitelout.

But she and Hiccup had just left the main part of the festival—and the senior Jorgenson's shouting—behind, finding a quiet spot near his home on the upper banks of the village, to sit, relax, and be together for a moment.

And… she checked around carefully… unchaperoned.  Well, they _were_ out in plain sight.  But there weren't any adults within warning-cough range. 

 As they sat together, holding hands, he just looked at his prize quizzically as it lay around his neck. 

"It looks good on you," she said quietly.  And it did.  Sure, from the events of a traditional Viking, he'd come in dead last, but he _wasn't_ a traditional Viking, now was he? 

He shrugged.  "A year ago, if I had had this, I would have been ecstatic.  I would have been bouncing off the walls.  My grin would have been so blinding that I wouldn't need candles to read at night for a week."  He dinged it with a fingertip.  "Now… now it's just a child's toy.  Astrid, I have _prisoners_ locked up in the old dragon cages.  Ones who are there because I _promised_ to keep them alive and let them go so that they wouldn't hurt Meatlug and the other dragons."  He gave a deep sigh and leaned against her.  "I mean… yeah, if I hadn't done anything today, it would have insulted the gods, but… my heart wasn't in it."

She nodded, understanding. 

He continued, "And tomorrow, we're going to be playing a different game, and one with stakes much higher than…" he dinged the bronze medallion again, "this."

She leaned her head against his shoulder in turn.  "If you don't want it, I'll take it," she said with a grin, giving him a friendly punch to the other shoulder.

He snorted.  "I thought that you weren't interested in jewelry?" he teased.

"I'm not, but let's face it—without the dragon contests, this year, that would be mine.  I would have beaten Snotlout fair and square, and… I'll admit, I was really looking forward to being able to say that and show the proof." 

Without a word, Hiccup pulled the medallion off over his head and put it around her neck. 

"The winner," he said softly, smiling. 

She smiled and kissed his cheek.

Pulling back, she looked out across the water.  "So… are we going to be ready for tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I think so.  Their ships are nice and sturdy, and we've already got that system tested." 

She leaned up against him again.  "Well, then, everyone knows what they need to do.  We need to just _do_ it.  And," she grinned tiredly, "I have to admit, as messages go, it's got _style._ "

Hiccup grinned back at her, his teeth white in the growing gloom.  "Thanks.  I just wish that we could stick around to see the looks on their faces."  He gave a grunt of effort and hauled himself to his feet. 

"It's getting late, but before we go to sleep, I have something for you," he said.  He walked over to the back door to his father's house and disappearing inside of it for a moment.  A few seconds later, the door opened slightly, and he stuck his head out.  "Close your eyes, okay?"

Obediently, she closed them.  She trusted him.  If that request had come from Snotlout, she'd have kept her eyes open a bit and been tensed to throw a punch—or a Jorgenson—assuming she hadn't just laughed in his face.  But from Hiccup… she closed her eyes extra tight so as not to ruin his surprise. 

She heard him walk over, and then a leather-wrapped hilt was pressed into her right hand, followed by a rawhide-wrap in her left, and something else was put at her feet.

"Open," he said, and she could hear his smile.

The Damascus dagger sat in a leather sheath in her right hand, and the Welsh longbow was in her left, taller than she was by almost a handspan.  Another, shorter bow, and a quiver full of arrows, lay at her feet.

"I went back around lunch and got them for y—" he said, and that was as far as he got, before she dropped both weapons and tackled him in a hug, kissing him thoroughly as they fell to the ground. 

A few moments later, Hiccup said in a level, deadpan tone, "I take it you like them?"

She beamed at him from where she sat, half-straddling him, her grin giving a solid answer. 

"Awesome.  Can I have my stomach back?  Your knee is currently staying there."

"Oh, sorry," she said sheepishly, and rolled off of him before repositioning herself next to him, and helping him to a sitting position.  She then reached over and picked the dagger up off the ground from where she had dropped the weapon.  Unsheathing it, she admired the wavy pattern of the steel for a moment and then tested the edge with her fingertip, finding it extremely sharp.  "My boyfriend is awesome and actually knows me," she said with a smirk as she re-sheathed the weapon, and then put it aside.  "Freyja must be gloating."

Hiccup just grinned back.  They sat and chatted a bit more on the grass behind his father's house, as young couples will do, before they shared one last kiss.  She walked him to his door and then started for her own house.

Tomorrow was going to be a big day and a long night.

As she walked down the hill, carrying her gifts from Hiccup in hand, a giant grin on her face, a voice called from nearby, "Astrid?  What do you have there?"

She turned to see her Aunt Cecelia walking up.  Her kinswoman took in the awkward pile of weapons clutched in her hands with a raised eyebrow.  "What's this?"

"Ummm… Hiccup's Thawfest presents for me?"

Her aunt looked them over with a critical eye.  "Well, he's certainly trying hard there, isn't he?"

Astrid blinked in her exhaustion, and then realized what her aunt was saying.  "Hey!  He's my boyfriend!"

"Aye, he is, and, as of today, you two are both adults.  He's not letting any grass grow under his foot, that's for certain," she said in a considering tone.  "Just don't let yourself get into a bad position, Astrid.  Young men are all alike, even if yours acts like he is non-traditional.  So he gave you weapons instead of jewels, like a more traditional beau would.  Just remember that you are still expected to keep up the honor of the clan." 

Astrid just sputtered at her aunt, eyes wide and incredulous,  "Are you _serious?_ "

"As a hole in a longboat.  Astrid, you two are adorable together, but there's already been gossip about you and him.  You don't need more.  Just… be careful, please?  Keep proper decorum, for your own sake."

With a huff, Astrid turned and continued down the path to her parents' house, Hiccup's gifts in her hands.  She wasn't going to let her aunt taint them with her accusations, even if they were well-meaning.  Because her boy wasn't giving these to her to get into her trousers.  He had given them to her because she would appreciate them.  And, unlike some people around here, _she_ recognized the difference. 

###

King Adalwin ua Imair—who had not been born with that name, nor was he a descendant of Ivar the Viking—woke up well before he normally rose on Wodinsday, and snatched the dagger from beneath his pillow at the sudden sound.

Screams.

And an unearthly howl that came and went.

It was still dark outside, the stars beginning to dim, with dawn an hour or so off.

Throwing off the bed furs, he rolled out of bed and darted over to the arming stand next to his bed.  The battered piece of armor slipped on like an old friend, greeted daily, and he had his arms through the sleeves of the padded arming jacket by the time his wife, also woken by the shouts and screams, had wordlessly dropped the bed furs that she had clutched to herself and rolled out of bed herself.  A moment later, she silently darted around the bed to help him don the main bulk of the leather and mail.  It went quickly, her fingers practiced at tightening down the buckles.  That done after a minute's frantic effort, they nodded to each other silently before releasing their hands.  The moment might have lasted longer, if not for another howl, punctuated by screaming. 

She quickly went to the side table next to the bed and reclaimed the false thrall collar that was sitting there, and closed it around her throat with equally quick, practiced motions.  Adalwin took a moment—hopefully not his last, but he'd be damned if he didn't take the chance—to appreciate the look of her, the iron band her only adornment, before she vanished into the small side room, safe.  The door closed behind her, vanishing into the seams of the woodwork. 

Drawing his sword, he went to the door that, as far as most knew, was the only entrance to the king's chambers in the Vedrarfjord keep.  Opening it, he called out for the guards.

As the man came running up, he demanded, "What is going on!?"

The guard, sputtering, answered, "We're under attack!  Dragons!  They've been attacking the walls, the motte, the bailey—"

Someone screamed loudly, suddenly begging for mercy in a high frightened voice, the sound receding into the distance.

Both Adalwin and the guard blanched.  

"That didn't sound good," Adalwin said, marching towards the stairs to the lower floors of the keep, the guardsman following behind him.  He took the steps quickly, and reached the ground floor and the door to the courtyard in a matter of moments. 

He flung it open, just in time to see a black… _shape_ fly by at high speed in the dark, the eerie whistling noise that he had heard upon waking following in its wake.  It had snatched a guard from the middle of the wall and carried him off, pleading for his life. 

Adalwin shut the door in a hurry, and then opened it again slightly.  He knew of dragons, but he had never heard of one that fast.  And it blended into the night so well that, if not for the torches, he wouldn't have seen what little he could.

He couldn't see any of his guards, but a few seconds later, the black beast flew by again, that eerie whistle being the only warning, and another guard screamed, carried off by the beast. 

Then there was silence for a moment, which stretched out… and out…

Finally, Adalwin opened the door fully. 

The waning moon was still above the horizon, giving enough light to make out shapes in the darkness.  But between the torches and other fires, he could not see far into the night.  His sword in his hands, the guard at his side armed with a bow, an arrow nocked and ready, they stepped into the bailey of his fortress, staying close to the walls.

The silence continued… and then, over the hiss and crackle of the torches, Adalwin could hear something.

Something that sounded like… _wings._

_Many, many wings._

He bolted back for the fortress atop the motte, needing to see what was coming, the walls hemming in his line of sight.  Taking the stairs two at a time, he raced for the roof and looked out towards where he could hear the sound of wings flapping in the night.

For a moment, what he saw made no sense to his mind.

His guard came up behind him, panting slightly, and stared out at the night as well.  Then the whistling noise sounded again.  His guard froze and then tried to dive for cover along the roof wall, but was too slow. 

Adalwin watched in shock as the man was snatched and lifted bodily into the air by a dragon that Adalwin only saw in the briefest flash, the guardsman's screams receding into the distance. 

As far as he could tell, he was alone.

Having fallen into a crouch below the wood crenelation, he dared a glimpse over the lip after a few moments.  Then his eyes grew wide as the source of the flapping wings came fully into view.

Dozens of dragons flew in a tight formation through the night sky over Vedrarfjord, with chains and ropes extending from their bellies… down to a longship, which they were carrying bodily through the air, the keel well above even the highest rooftops of his city.

That included his own.

He watched, amazed, as they carried the ship over his walls and past the peak of his fort.  It was close enough above him that he could see the ropes and chains supporting the hull, even in the pre-dawn darkness, along with the barnacles and weeds that were dripping seawater onto his face.  They then blithely deposited it in his bailey. 

He heard the dragon riders calling out to each other as they gently placed _an entire ship_ in his fortress's courtyard, the hull neatly wedged in between the smithy, armory, and kitchens.  Several things went _crunch_ as the weight of the ship settled on them.  Slightly clumsily, they began casting off lines, as someone on the ship went around and detached them from the hull.  As the last dragon above the ship flew off to the sea, the one on deck looked around, gave a laugh, and got on their own dragon and sailed off into the brightening sky.

There was a sudden gust of wind behind him, and he turned to see the black beast that had destroyed his personal guard standing behind him on the rooftop, crouched on the opposite crenelation, a young boy riding on its back. 

He hefted his sword, determined to go down swinging if it came to it. 

"Are you King Adalwin?" the boy called out. 

"Aye," he said back, unsure what the boy was playing at, but not expecting to leave the rooftop alive.  He'd been mousetrapped most effectively, and they had him dead to rights.  It was… discomforting to have been so out-maneuvered.

_Well, it was a good run while it lasted,_ he thought to himself.  At least his wife was safe.

 Setting his expression, he waited for the opportune moment to strike if his killers let down their guard and maybe drag them down to Hell with him. 

Another dragon, this one blue and white and ridden by a girl with blond hair, came up and alighted on the rooftop, also out of sword-reach.

The boy threw down a scroll of parchment onto the roof, wrapped around a stone. 

"That's for you," he said.

Adalwin quirked his eyebrows.  Regicides usually didn't start with letters.  God knew that _he_ hadn't.

"What are you playing at, boy?"

"I am Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Chief's heir of Berk," the boy said stoutly, although Adalwin thought he detected a quaver.  "Your kinsman and his men attacked and nearly killed one of my tribesmates, kidnapped and stole away his mount and friend, and attempted to steal dragons from my family's flock.  But they failed and were caught."

"Ah.  I had no idea," Adalwin lied, hope springing in his breast.  While they still might kill him if he handled this poorly, he rather doubted that they were going to give him a letter for him to read and _then_ slay him.  That was just too convoluted for Vikings.  "I simply told them to see if any of your beasts were available for purchase.  It is not _my_ fault that they overstepped their instructions.  In fact, if you killed them over this kind of misunderstanding, I demand weregeld—"

"Oh, they're still alive," the boy said bluntly… and with a note of what Adalwin thought was relief.  "So are your guards, although I think a few said that they weren't good swimmers right before we dropped them in the water.  But for your crews, we returned them, whole and hearty, although they were complaining about being cramped in there the whole way back."

Despite himself, Adalwin whirled and looked down at the ship in his courtyard.  Now that he was listening, and there weren't any dragon wings flapping about, he could clearly hear some moans and complaints echoing up from below.

"We returned your thieves to you," the boy said, his dragon and the other taking flight.  "We even returned one of your ships to you.  Have fun getting it back in the water, though.  And next time," he shouted, flying off, "we might not be so nice!"

Adalwin just stared as the beast and boy flew off.  He put his sword down and picked up the letter lying on the wood of the rooftop.  Holding it, he then went over to the edge of the roof and stared down, appalled, at the sixty-foot vessel currently lying in his fortress.  There was a sudden cracking noise, and something below gave way, making the ship lurch and fall several feet.  From inside it, he could hear his men scream at the sudden movement.

Well.

This was going to be _interesting._  

One thing had just become clear to him, however.  Dragons were now the new great power in the world, against which fortresses could not stand.

So he had to have some.


	7. A-Viking

**Chapter 7: A-Viking**

**_Burh—_ ** _Old English fortified settlement or fortification, as a response to the threat of Viking raids of the 8th to 11th centuries.  Conceived of as a network of forts containing detachments of local defense militia and roads (known as herepaths) connecting them, they were intended to act as a place to shelter the populace against Viking attack, as well as allowing the English forces to concentrate quickly in the event of a raid or invasion.  Until the 1040s, and the domestication of dragons by the Norse, the burh and herepath system was notably effective in repulsing Viking raids._

_—A History Of Old England, 1451, Oxford Press_

Snotlout gripped Hookfang's horns, his palms sweaty as his heart pounded with nervousness.  Several other dragons with their riders were flying in formation with him, heading south.  The stars overhead glowed, the springtime constellations marching across the heavens from over the mainland to their left, the moon beginning to wane to its last quarter.

Back in Berk, he and several of his father's cronies had hatched this plan; they weren't going to raid cattle from other Viking tribes in the highlands.  Stoick had been right on that count—stealing from other Vikings using dragons was bad form, even by Snotlout's standards. 

But he hadn't said anything about raiding from the Christian Saxon lords to the south, and, besides, those lords were a better test of their Viking prowess and thus a better road to earning glory.  After all, Hiccup was now off doing a raid—sorta—against the Christians who had attacked Fishlegs. 

The fact that they would have richer loot was also a nice side benefit.  Snotlout, in particular, was hoping to steal enough from the followers of the Cross to be able to pay off the _geld_ for Hookfang.  His father had made it very clear that Hookfang was now a walking coffer against any drains on the clan's needs after the disastrous raid back before Yule.  Even Snotlout had understood that if he cost the clan any coin or herds, his father would sell Hookfang to make up the cost. 

And a dragon, he had found, was _expensive._  

He had taken to helping with the winter fishing, just to be able to keep his friend fed, scared that if Hookfang started eating too much of the Jorgensons' fish, his father would sell him. 

But it wasn't enough to be able to build up enough coin in his coffer to be able to buy Hookfang back if his father did sell him, or to pay off any major costs that he might get hit with.  And then there was the matter of a bride price… 

He was pretty sure that his father would be willing to put up some of the offer when he found someone worthwhile.  Pretty sure.  But it would have to be a pretty impressive offer, probably for someone from outside Berk, because most of the girls that might be acceptable for him were already taken. 

An alliance with the Hofferson clan was definitely no longer an option, unless Hiccup managed to stick his _other_ foot in his mouth and chew it off in front of Astrid.  Sure, with the dragons now, and his father's position, he was a good catch for anyone looking for an alliance with the Hooligans.  But, with Hiccup no longer being "the Useless," he was almost certainly going to be the next chief.  Which meant that Snotlout probably wasn't.  Which meant that he wasn't as good an offer as he had been last year. 

It was so infuriating!  A year ago, Hiccup had been the village idiot, even compared to Bucket, who walked around with an actual literal bucket on his head!  Snotlout and his father had been certain that Stoick would have no choice but to anoint Snotlout as the next chief, between Snotlout being Stoick's nephew and Hiccup being widely reviled.  Hiccup wasn't strong, wasn't battle-hardened, wasn't a dragon-killer, wasn't anything other than a mistake, and Snotlout would have been chief one day. 

And now, Hiccup had it all.  He had the hot girlfriend from a respected warrior clan, the best dragon, war wounds to brag about, his own _saga,_ for Bragi's sake!, the respect of the tribe, an entire _flock_ of dragons, and a lock on the succession for being the next chief!  He had _even_ taken away Snotlout's streak of Thawfest victories, denying him a perfect record, which had infuriated his father to no end.

All Snotlout had were debts and his dragon.  He had no position, no woman, no glory, no wealth.  He had barely merited even a mention in Chestnut's saga!  His name, and the fact that he was the first one to fall off his dragon!  Chestnut hadn't even mentioned the fact that he was the only one to actually physically _hit_ the Green Death, and in the eyes, no less!  With a hammer!  Eighty feet above the ground!  Hadn't Astrid said that he was a real Viking when he had done that!? 

But, no, Hiccup had gotten all the glory.

He scowled. 

So now he was going the traditional route.  For three hundred years, the Vikings had been sailing and raiding through these Isles.  Twenty years ago, a Viking lord of the Danes had even conquered much of the Anglo-Saxons, King Cnut.  So now they were just continuing tradition—glory in battle, wealth through conquest, honor through arms. 

But instead of sailing in the traditional longboats, they were riding on dragons. 

And that was thanks to Hiccup.

Snotlout sneered. 

Fritjof, one of the other riders and his father's best friend, was signaling for them to descend.  The raiding party quickly circled and landed, with varying degrees of skill.  Snotlout landed the smoothest of all of them, which was great, because it meant that he could point and laugh at the ones who managed to get themselves stuck in trees or other indignities. 

In the wan light of the pale moon and a fluttering candle, they assembled, twenty men and shieldmaids with their beasts—Nightmares, Nadders, Whispering Deaths, Zipplebacks.  Fritjof had found a flat rock and unrolled his chart upon it as they gathered round.  "I be more used to seeing these places from the waters below, but I recognize this place, which puts us here."  He tapped the chart with the tip of his dagger, indicating a spot right before the sea took a turn to the east.  "Here be the prize."  He slid his dagger to the east, indicating a spot where the two coastlines met and rivers poured into the sea.

"Brycgstow.  It be a burh, by a river and bridge."  He grinned.  "They built it against us, and every crack at it that we've tried has failed.  But, before, we had no dragons, just longships."  There were jocular mutters around the group, anticipating a glorious cheat where the rules of the game changed.  Fritjof waited for them to quiet before continuing.  "Inside be a mint, striking silver pennies for Harthacnut the Dane, and his half-brother Harold Harefoot before him, plus Christian traders who have sworn to never exchange coin with those who still follow the All-Father's wisdom."

There were appreciative jests this time; not everyone had been told the target before they left Berk, and the idea of silver pennies, and the bullion from which they were struck, was well received all around.  Add to that the opportunity to strike a blow for Odin and Thor, and there was much excitement. 

"Inside, they have men a-horsed, ready to ride out against any raiding party, and signal fires all along the coast here."  He swept down the south coast of the narrow leg of the sea with his dagger.  "When they see us coming, the farmers and herders will all retreat to the nearest burh.  We don't want that.  So we fly under cover of night, and strike at dawn, fly over the walls, hit the mint, best the horsemen, and fly away with silver and any loot that might be in the trading post, before the burh can be reinforced."  He grinned.  "And then back home, with coin in our purses.  Either over the moor and fen, or over the sea, depending on how we go.  If anyone gets separated," he slid his dagger up the chart to the north, "we will meet here on the morrow," he said, indicating a spot where the coast shifted from east-west to north-south.  "There be a river here, named the Meresey.  There be a bit that sticks out the sea to the west of it; we meet at the headlands to the sea.  The King of the Scots is nearby, here," he pointed on the map, "and he be a canny man, so probably best to avoid for now."

He looked up around the group.  "Be there any questions?"

There were negative shakes of the head and anticipatory grins. 

"Then let us go," he said.  He turned to Snotlout.  "Boy, we follow you and your father.  You take the lead and the glory.  We follow your ax and shield into battle.  Will you bless us on behalf of the All-Father before we may find ourselves in his hall?"

Snotlout felt himself smile widely.  Now this was the kind of respect he was talking about!

###

Lunch's remains were lying on the table in front of him, and Hiccup sat back in his chair, feeling quite full.  Astrid was lying bonelessly in the big chair across the table from him, another cleaned plate in front of her, a clean rag draped over the arm of the chair.  On the floor next to him, Toothless looked up at him expectantly.  With a sigh and a smile, Hiccup put back on the thick leather glove that he'd made yesterday and started rubbing at his friend's back again. Lunch was over, and it was time to get back to work. Toothless moaned with deep appreciation, even as Hiccup's arms burned. 

The glossy black hide had gone pale and matte, and was flaking off in pieces, to reveal shiny and new scales beneath.  And that was pretty nifty.  Except for the part where it pretty obviously itched horribly, as his friend had been scratching himself against trees, houses, boulders, and Hiccup for two days.  Stormfly wasn't much better, and the vain dragon had kept Astrid working full time at helping her clean off her old scales and polish up the new ones. 

And the wild flock of dragons that were officially his family's had found that they _really_ appreciated human hands right now. 

Mostly Hiccup's.  Or at least it felt like it.  His fingertips felt like he had left them up against the grindstone for an afternoon.

But it had been worth it.  Hundreds of dragons all shedding scales together resulted in an absolutely enormous mound of pale dragon skin.  Even sorted by type, he'd been impressed by the sheer quantity.

Hiccup had experimented with the shed scales, and found that they were just as fireproof as they had been before.  The shedding Gronckles, in particular, were sloughing off pieces that were as thick as leather, and he was wondering if it could be cured like other hides. 

Astrid lifted her head limply and moaned at him. "Each time another one flaked off, I had to polish the whole dragon again…  she's so demanding…"  Stormfly was snoozing in the space behind her rider's chair, her scales at a high gloss.

He managed a wan smile. "Sorry, milady.  I'd offer to help, but I have a few dozen _other_ Nadders wanting my attention right now."

She snorted, and moved like she was going to get up out of the chair to hit him, but sagged back down after a moment.  "Consider yourself punched."

"Ow," he said with a goofy grin. 

"So there.  That's for laughing at me," she said tiredly.  Pulling herself forward out of the chair, she slumped to her feet and staggered around the table before plopping down in front of Hiccup's chair.  Grabbing his hand that wasn't occupied with scratching Toothless's back, she pulled his fingertips to her head.  "And that's for everything else." 

Grinning a bit, Hiccup started running his fingertips through her hair, massaging her scalp, which made her give an appreciative, if tired, moan.  The washerwoman, Embla Thorston, poked her head in their direction, and, having made certain that they were maintaining innocent contact, went back to making sure that the chief's house was in acceptable condition. 

Hiccup sighed tiredly and ran his sore fingertips over Astrid's head, making her sigh in appreciation.  That made the soreness worth it, and he relished the feel of her head against his leg.  On some level, he was glad that they were being watched all of the time.  Not when some wild bits of Hiccup's mind were urging him to touch her on places lower than her scalp. 

_Much_ lower.

But he'd overheard her aunt's lecture to her after Thawfest.  Astrid had forgotten or dropped the victory medallion and he'd gone after her to give it back to her… and he'd overheard her aunt lecture her about how 'men are all alike'… and how she needed to keep 'proper decorum.'

As if it wasn't _his_ responsibility, too.

Since getting back from Vedrarfjord a few days ago, he'd been stewing on it, the tedious work of helping the shedding dragons giving him lots of time to think about how badly things could go for her if they slipped up and made her look… unchaste.  It wasn't like he didn't have _vast_ personal experience with how the tribe would treat someone that 'broke the rules.'  And she didn't have the protection of being the Chief's Son.  For Freyja's sake, he'd _seen_ what could happen to a girl who wasn't careful; Hazelnut had ended up challenging Dogsbreath to a _holmgang_ for what he'd said about her a few years back.  And the whispers had only died down after she'd married that freedman, Aodh.

Just because Astrid could break him like a twig didn't mean that he couldn't hurt her… and he'd rather fall on a sword than do that.  But that didn't mean that he couldn't do it by _accident._  There was already gossip… a thought that made him swallow hard, his heart and chest clenching at the idea of what they might be saying.  He'd seen her furious many times.  He _never_ wanted to see her in the sort of pain that Hazelnut had been in the day she'd sat in this very chair and wept to his dad about what was being said about her. 

But… well… he wanted her.  Wanted her terribly badly.  He had dreams that he woke up from, with his heart pounding and and feeling utterly frustrated at having woken up _right then_ , and she was present in all of them. 

But he'd also gladly let Nidhogg snack on his entrails before he harmed her.

And if that meant being a little… okay, really, really, _really_ frustrated, then he'd deal with that. 

And if being Proper and everything was the way of doing that, then he'd _do_ that.

Which was why he was glad that they were being chaperoned at the moment. 

After a few minutes of them resting—well, Astrid resting, and Hiccup massaging her scalp and Toothless's back, Fishlegs walked in, holding some books and looking far too chipper. 

"So, I looked through my books and…" he took in the scene in front of him and paused.  "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

Astrid vaguely waved an arm in the direction of the other chair.  "Nah. Come in.  Take a seat," she managed to say. 

Fishlegs, after looking at Hiccup for assent, shrugged and took the seat that Astrid had just vacated.  He plopped a few books onto the table and immediately started opening them up and digging through them.

"So there was nothing in the old Book of Dragons about this," he said, "So I had to look through one of the Naturalis Historia books that I got from Johann a few years back."  He picked up one book that looked a touch worn and weatherbeaten.  "This was originally from one of those old Romans from a thousand years ago, although I think this copy was from the Greeks, and I did find a reference to dragons shedding their old scales in here.  According to Pliny, it's natural, and lasts about a week in the spring.  Apparently dragons in the wild will eat their old scales, which sounds gross."

"A _week_?" Astrid squeaked.  "It's been two days so far and I'm already starting to fall apart."

Hiccup just moaned, imagining a week of this.  There had to be a better way to handle it, because his fingers weren't going to last much longer. 

Fishlegs just continued on, undeterred.  "But, yeah, it's completely natural, just like those teeth that they shed and replace.  They're not sick or diseased or starving or anything."

"Oh, good," Hiccup said, leaning back in his chair.  "Because that's been the second most tiring part of this whole thing.  In between helping dragons peel off dead scales, just about everyone has been asking me what's wrong with their dragon, if one of the visitors poisoned them or gave them a pox during Thawfest last week."  He groaned.  "Even Mildew, although I think he was more _hoping_ than worried, you know?"

Astrid groaned.  "Are you sure I can't challenge him to a duel?"

"You need a reason, love."

"I could find one.  Isn't being an obnoxious and nasty old man against the rules somewhere?"

Fishlegs shook his head and gave a tiny smirk.  "If it were, most of the clan leaders would be in violation."

Hiccup snorted.  Fishlegs' great-aunt was the only woman of the five clan leaders.

Astrid sighed and just leaned back against Hiccup's legs, appreciating his touch with her eyes closed.  "Hiccup, you're the genius.  Can't you build something that will help with getting those dead scales off them?"

He gave a short sharp laugh.  "I've been thinking, but it's going to be tricky to build.  The best thing to make it out of would be dragonhide, and while we've got plenty of _that_ right now, it's not in the best condition."  Toothless rolled over onto his belly, demanding more scritches, and Hiccup complied.  "I'll definitely have something for _next_ year, but the best idea I've had so far is a leather-covered pole or arch, padded with grass or something on the inside, for them to rub up against.  It has to be firm but also soft, so it doesn't damage the soft new scales underneath."  He sighed.  "And I'd still have to make it."

Fishlegs said, "And if you made it out of leather, any dragons with rigid spines on it—like a Nadder—would just tear up the leather as they rubbed against… do you hear something?"

Hiccup looked towards the door.  "Is that cheering?"

"I think so," Fishlegs said, standing.  He started towards the door, and then looked back at the groaning couple trying to extricate themselves from their seat.  "Uh, should I go look and come back?"

"Could you?" Hiccup said.  "Because that would be great."  Astrid just nodded numbly. 

The door opened and shut, and the two of them just looked at each other tiredly. 

"Hiccup?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you make that rubbing post if I help?"

"Probably."

"Good."  Her head slumped back against his knee.  "Any other ideas?"

"Well, a pitchfork that's been blunted and bent, and then padded with leather to work as a backscratcher was another one…"

She gave a tired chuckle.  "Now there's an image."

They sat in companionable silence for a moment, Toothless's tail wrapped around Astrid's lap, Hiccup stroking her hair and Toothless's belly.

Then the door opened again, and Fishlegs walked back in, looking worried and angry.

"Hiccup?"

"Yeah, Fishlegs?" Hiccup replied tiredly.

"There's a problem."

"Can it wait?"

"Uh… Snotlout and about twenty thanes just got back from going a-viking on their dragons, and they have saddlebags full of loot."

"What!?"

Hiccup and Astrid dragged themselves to their feet, and, sensing the tension and sudden lack of belly rubs, Toothless rolled over and looked at his friends. 

Darting outside, the three teens and two dragons raced down the side of the hill; despite his exhaustion, Hiccup only stumbled twice on the stairs. 

In the village commons, there was Snotlout and Hookfang and the rest of their raiding party.  Their age-mate was holding aloft bars of silver from the bag at his feet, his clothing covered in soot and dried blood, while Hookfang was just looking tired and itchy behind him, burying his jaws into the giant urn of fish.  A crowd had gathered and there was cheering as more loot came up out of the bags of the victorious Vikings. 

"Where's your dad?" Astrid asked as they walked as quickly as they could manage.

"Out on Thornado somewhere, I think."

They hopped down the next stairs as quickly as they could, Astrid helping Hiccup as he stumbled, Fishlegs moving on ahead.

"What's going on here?" Hiccup shouted as he pushed forward into the crowd.

"Oh, hi Hiccup," Snotlout said with a sneer.  "I was just showing what an absolutely _awesome_ Viking I am.  Sure, I didn't take down the Green Death—I just _helped_ —but I'm doing my part to ensure that our tribe is prosperous." He kicked over the saddlebag in front of him, which poured out silver coins mixed with other odd bits of loot.  Hiccup could see bronze discs, what looked like a piece of embroidered linen or silk, a necklace with an odd pendant on it—a gold cross with a carved ivory statuette of a man crucified on it—and an iron coffer the size of a person's doubled fists,  as well as several small sacks whose pungent smells Hiccup could practically _taste_ from where he stood. 

Snotlout jumped on top of the bench to address the crowd.  "I am a Viking!  My men and I did what Vikings do!  We went out a-viking, to prove our valor in the eyes of All-Father Odin, our courage in the eyes of Thor, our bravery before Freyja!  We met outsiders in combat, ax to sword, shield to shield, and we vanquished them!  We tore down walls built to keep us out!  We took from those whose valor was weak so that our families may grow stronger!  We showed that the age of vikings has not yet passed, but has been born anew!  The age of the longboat is over, and the age of the dragon rider has begun!"

Hiccup yelled, "No!" and the crowd looked at him.  "Haven't we had enough of blood and fire!?  They are our friends, not our weapons!"

"Why can't they be both, _cousin?_   We are Vikings.  They are dragons.  We both have shown that we can take from the weak to feed ourselves.  What part of being a Viking can a dragon not _also_ be a part of?"  Snotlout turned to the crowd.  "We have been raided for years by the dragons.  We know their strength, we know their skill, we know their cunning!  These are Viking virtues!  They are every bit as much honored in the halls of Valhalla as we!  Why not join forces with our former enemies, to show the world once again what it means to be a Viking!?"

Parts of the crowd were cheering, and Hiccup could see why—Snotlout had turned what were once Berk's greatest enemies into their greatest weapon.  Those same people were casting ugly looks at Hiccup, and greedy looks at Snotlout's spilled saddlebags, and at the stuffed saddlebags of the rest of his party.  Hiccup looked at the rest of Snotlout's raiders, who were flanking the flushed victor, showing their support, and scowling at the scrawnier boy. 

His hands balled into fists.  "Snotlout, you idiot…!" he got out. 

Snotlout roared back.  "No!  Today, I am a Viking!  Our home is stronger by what we did!  We proved our strength to Odin, ourselves, and the _world!"_   He turned around in a circle as he addressed the crowd from atop his bench, a crowd which continued to grow.  " _Twenty Vikings took yesterday something that a thousand Vikings had failed to take before!  The Vikings of Berk know dragons!  The world does not!"_   He pumped his ax into the air to cheers.  "Let them build their river chains to block our ships!  Let them build walls to block our axes!  We shall fly over them!"

He turned to Hiccup.  "We owe my cousin a great debt!"  Hiccup blinked in surprise, and then realized where Snotlout was going, too late to stop him.  "But he is not a Viking warrior!  He is a skald, a scholar!  We owe him honor for ending the dragon raids and vanquishing the Green Death, for certain!  But his way brings no honor, brings no coin, brings no valor!  We are not being diminished any more, but what has his way added to us!?  His way would bar the doors to Valhalla!  He would end us with his saga, so that none will exceed him!"

"That's not true!" Hiccup tried to interject as the crowd jeered.

"Then _what have you done for us that will give us glory!?_ " Snotlout roared back.

Hiccup just looked at his cousin, and felt his face harden.  "What, riding dragons isn't enough?" He gritted his teeth and shouted back, "If riding dragons and seeing the sky beneath you like the wings of a Valkyrie isn't enough _glory_ for you, then I'll think—"

"Yes, you'll _think,_ cousin!  And the rest of us will _do_ , while you _think."_

Hiccup gave a cry of utter frustration, turned and marched away.  As he turned, he saw Astrid giving Snotlout a poisonous glare before turning to follow him. 

Behind them, Snotlout continued to show his loot to the assembled crowd, who continued to cheer.

As they walked away, they both could see Spitelout standing nearby, on the lip of the nearby hill overlooking his son's triumph.  He had his arms crossed and a look of supreme satisfaction on his face, his Terrible Terror sitting on his shoulder. 

As Hiccup wordlessly saddled Toothless and then hopped onto his back, Astrid did the same with Stormfly, and he and his girlfriend took off.  Before they could get too far, though, Fishlegs came flying up and, stammering, said that he'd been assigned as their chaperon.

Hiccup just nodded, still remembering the look of sneering triumph on his cousin's face… and flew on, his two friends trading worried looks behind him.

###

As they landed at the cove, Astrid dismounted off of Stormfly; Hiccup had already stormily jumped off of Toothless's back, and was standing at the edge of the pond, his shoulders hunched in… fury?  Sadness?  She couldn't tell.  She started towards him, her arms out, and suddenly Toothless was standing in between them, a scowl with narrowed pupils on his face, and raised his wing between her and her boyfriend. 

She just looked at the dragon incredulously, and silently mouthed at him _Are you serious?_  

Toothless cocked his head and then made a tossing motion with his nose, pointing away.

She crossed her arms and scowled at the dragon and then made to move around him.

He shifted slightly and shook his head again.  He wasn't being threatening, but his attitude was unmistakable—no, she couldn't go to Hiccup. 

She gave the dragon a scowl of her own and just stared at him for a long moment.  Finally, after that failed to budge him, she walked off a bit, but not before mouthing _Fine!_ at the dragon.

Behind her, Fishlegs was looking at the whole thing with an expression somewhere between interest and embarrassment; he had an awkward half-smile on his face and his shoulders were hunched, but his eyes were looking at her and Toothless with curiosity. 

Giving Hiccup his Toothless-demanded distance, she walked to the boulder where she'd sat and surprised Hiccup last autumn, and settled down onto the rock, it feeling chilly even through her clothes.  Stormfly walked over and curled herself up at the base of the stone after circling around a few times, apparently blithely unconcerned with what was going on. 

After a moment, she glanced at Hiccup.  He was now half-heartedly trying to skip rocks across the water.  Toothless was nearby, his tail twitching back and forth intently.

"So… um…" Fishlegs started to say. 

She gave him a glance and a shake of the head.

He quieted down, and went to Meatlug's saddlebag.  After rummaging for a moment, he pulled out a journal and a charcoal stick, and settled down next to his dragon.  For a time, the sound of his charcoal scraping the journal's pages and the rocks failing to skip across the water were the only noises in the cove.

After the dozenth rock with only two skips, she spoke to the air, addressing no one in particular, "Y'know, if Snotlout is really being that much of a traditionalist, I could call him out to the _holmgang_ for an ass-kicking."

Fishlegs looked up and said, "But what insult could you claim to issue the challenge?  He didn't break any of the laws—Hiccup and Stoick haven't really written any yet regarding the dragons."

Astrid heaved herself to a sitting position.  Despite the fatigue in her bones from having to polish Stormfly over and over again for the last two days, she still had enough presence to just look at Fishlegs with a level expression that communicated her _utter_ lack of concern for such legalities. 

"Okaaaay then," he said.  He looked up.  "Tell you what," he said, heaving himself onto Meatlug's saddle, "I'll go back and keep an eye on things, make sure there isn't a problem and Snotlout's not intending to proclaim himself chief or something like that.  You two…" he gestured vaguely to Hiccup and Astrid, "well, you stay here and… talk about whatever it is you're going to talk about.  But at the very least, I'll be your eyes and ears back there.  Okay?"

Astrid nodded.  "That sounds like a great idea," she said sincerely.  "Thanks, 'legs."

The burly teen nodded.  "Hey, it's the least I can do."  He bent down to Meatlug.  "Come on girl, let's go back home."

The nearly-equally-sized pair took flight.  Astrid pondered for a moment whether Fishlegs had forgotten that he was supposed to be their chaperon, or if he was giving them space on purpose.  As they flew out of sight, the cove was quiet again, save for the sound of Hiccup's poor attempts at rock skipping. 

Astrid just watched him for a few moments and three or four rocks, then her eyes narrowed.

Sliding off of the rock, she looked at Toothless for permission.  He cocked his head, and then nodded mournfully.  Stepping closer, she said, softly, "No wonder you're doing so terribly with those."

"Hmm?" Hiccup said distractedly.

"It's no wonder that you haven't had more than three skips since we got here," she said, gently catching his right wrist as he cocked it to throw another stone.  "You're left-handed."

He pulled away and threw the stone.  It sank without skipping.

Throwing up his hands, he looked up at the sky, saying, "Come on!"

"Hiccup…" she said softly, "talk to me."

He turned to her and waved his arms wildly.

"Snotlout's right!  I'm no Viking!  I can't fight, I can't lift an ax, I can't kill a dragon—"

"That last one's not true," she interjected.  "Or does the Green Death not count?"

He waved vaguely and dismissively. "Argh!  We're still _Vikings_ here in Berk."  He pointed to her ax in Stormfly's saddle holster.  " _You're_ more of a Viking than I am!  And look what your first idea was to solve the problem!  The same as his!  An ax!  A duel!  A fight to show who is stronger!  Not who is smarter, or wiser, but who can hit the other guy harder!"

She opened her mouth to object midway through and then closed it slowly. 

"I… I… oh."

He laughed bitterly.  "Yeah.  _Oh._   And if _I_ or _my_ friends start using the dueling ring to settle scores, how long do you think it'll be before _I'm_ the one challenged?"  He waved at his false foot.  "Even without _this,_ let's face it, Astrid—all I am in the _holmgang_ is a pair of messy breeches waiting to happen."

He sagged to the ground.  "And I don't _want_ to fight.  Oh, if I have to, I will, preferably with Toothless," who looked up at the pair of them, clearly worried for his friend's stress, "but without him… yeah…"

Astrid grimaced and sat down next to him.

After a moment, he leaned up against her.  "I don't know what to do, Astrid.  I thought… I hoped that this could be a new way, a way that I could fit into… _better_.  Like… like… like I didn't have to be a square dowel in a round drill hole!  Instead," he sighed, "Instead, I've just made an improved old way, where I won't fit.  I can't."  He turned and looked at her.  "You saw them cheering."

"Yeah, and they were all Jorgenson cronies," she said.  "Or did you miss that?  Out of a village of over six hundred, Snotlout only got maybe fifty or sixty, counting the thanes that he took with him, to cheer for him, and most of _those_ were people he was related to." 

"I…" he paused, and then continued, sounding sheepish.  "I didn't notice."

"Yeah, well, you were busy trying to deal with Snotlout on a victory high.  But out of that whole crowd, not all of them were cheering.  A bunch of them were looking at Snotlout like he had some contagious new disease, or were looking to see what the commotion was about." She crossed her arms.  "Also, he didn't _sound_ like Snotlout, you know what I mean?"

Hiccup blinked and shook his head.  "Explain?"

She looked upwards in thought and chewed on her lip.  "Um… he… he sounded like he was giving a _speech?_   Like he had practiced it?  And maybe someone had given him suggestions?"

Hiccup just looked at her sourly.  "Like he'd planned for that?"

She nodded.

He sighed.  "Thank you for summing that all up."

Reaching out, she patted him on the shoulder.  "Hiccup.  You've been working yourself to the bone for the last two days, walked into an argument like _that_ with no warning, and you're blaming _yourself?_ "  She shook her head.  "Nuh uh.  You don't get to blame yourself for _this_ one."

He sagged again, and she sighed. 

"Hiccup.  So Snotlout went out a-viking.  The Jorgensons are going to be crowing and boasting about what they've done, and they're going to want to do it again."  She hugged him.  "And we both know why they put _Snotlout_ in charge."  Because Snotlout had been the only acceptable heir to the tribe, being Stoick's nephew, and Hiccup being the screwup… until last autumn. 

He sighed, turned his head, and kissed her cheek.  "Yeah."  He grimaced.  "I… I hadn't even really _thought_ about it!  Not until now!  I don't _want_ to be chief!  Dad always insisted on me learning, but…"  he trailed off.  "But…"

She let him out of the hug and patted him on the shoulder.  "But… you never expected to actually have the responsibility.  Didn't you?"

He nodded.  "But… well… you heard what Snotlout said.  If I don't… if I just step out of the way, the Jorgensons will just use the dragons like weapons."

"So you have to stop them," she said, a slight smile on her face.  "You can do it."

"Can I?" he asked bitterly.

She gave him a nod.  "Well, if you don't even _try,_ then you can't.  But if you do _that,_ all of those ideas you have will just go to waste."

He sagged against her.  "Thanks."

"No problem.  Happy to serve," she said with a sarcastic smirk. 

Speaking softly, he said, "I just want to ride Toothless, spend time with you, make things, and not have to worry about whether we'll live through tomorrow.  I didn't want this."

She smiled wanly, and leaned in.  "I want to ride Stormfly to the horizon and see what's there, see those far off places on Johann's charts.  I want to fly through the sky with you," she said, giving his chest a solid poke, "and show anyone who thinks I'm just a _girl_ that that doesn't mean _anything_ when it comes to skill.  And I'll get what I can of that.  But saying that you can't have what you want because the Norns decided to throw some obstacles in your path…" she shrugged.  "I remember a guy who wanted to be a Viking _so bad_ that he created crazy war machines to try to prove himself to the village."  She poked him in the chest again.  "I'd like him back please.  You'll get what you want, but you'll have to work for it, just like you did before."

He smiled lightly.  "Sounds good to me."  He sighed again.  "I just feel… like Hiccup the Useless again."

"I…" she looked at him, speechless.  Then, after a moment, she sat up and looked at Toothless, who gave her a quizzical look. 

Holding a warding hand up in front of the dragon, she cocked her head at Toothless.  He looked back at her quizzically and then seemed to realize that she was asking for permission.  He tilted his head and then nodded back with a _go ahead_ air.

Then she bent down and picked Hiccup up by his collar and armpit. 

He choked before he managed to get his feet under him, and, with Toothless looking at her with an utterly baffled expression that she had no trouble with reading as _What on Midgard are you doing?,_ she heaved and tossed her boyfriend into the cove's pond.

Given that it had been frozen over just a month or so ago, it was still reasonably chilly, and he had a brief moment to see the water rise up before him before his scream of surprise cut off with a splash.

Her form wasn't very good.  While she was good at throwing things, he was much heavier and much more wriggly than an ax, it was a two-handed throw, and her muscles were screaming at her from two days of polishing Stormfly.  Still, it was a good enough throw that his foot and peg cleared the edge of the pond completely. 

In her own critical judgment, in the newly created sport of Moping Boyfriend Dunking, she probably only deserved a three out of nine, maybe a four, with points mostly added for style and surprise. 

Toothless just stared at her, eyes wide, while she kept a close watch on Hiccup to make sure that he wasn't about to have a repeat of his drowning experiences.  Once was enough. 

Sputtering, Hiccup broke the surface a moment later, looking _much_ more lively.

Once they both saw that Hiccup was okay, Toothless burst out in his laugh-chortle, and rolled on his belly, although that might have been more for scratching at an itch.

 Bending down as her boyfriend spat out water and obscenities, Astrid said in a sickly-sweet tone, " _That's_ for moping around."  She grabbed him by the collar again and pulled him into a bruising kiss.  After a brief hesitation, he melted into it, wrapping his soaking wet arms around her.

After her lungs started to burn from lack of air, she broke the kiss.  He looked a trifle dazed.  And very wet.  But much warmer than he had been when they had been dunked into her father's new millpond two months previously.

"And _that's_ for being the person that you are.  You are a good, kind, and decent person, and I'm sorry that I never saw past the disasters to see that before.  I was an idiot.  But you're not 'Hiccup the Useless' anymore."  She leaned in close until their foreheads were touching.  "I won't _let_ you be that anymore."

His eyes grew extremely wide.

"So.  Now that you're _done_ moping," she said sweetly, "what are you going to do about all of this?"

"Well…" he said trailing off, and then his eyes darted downwards for a moment, and he tightened his embrace around her, "First, there's… _this."_

Holding on tightly to her, he overbalanced deliberately, and she felt herself slip on the muddy bank and tip over.

Into the shockingly cold pond.

"Hiccuuuuuup!" was all she had time to shout before they hit the water with a splash.

It was _cold._

A moment later, they were both splashing out of the water, shivering and laughing. 

"I deserved that," she said as she splashed to the edge of the pond, face red from the cold and laughter.  "But if you do that again, I'm going to make you pay!"

Stormfly and Toothless were just giving each other confused looks.  She smirked at them, imagining them as drawn by Hiccup for the new dragon book, subtitled with _Human mating dances are_ weird.

Hiccup just gave her a grin.  "Fine by me."  He looked at his muddied clothing and sighed.  "Umm… lets go and get ourselves cleaned up?"

"And warmed up," she said, as a slight breeze set her teeth to chattering. 

He nodded with a smirk and she gave him a punch, followed by a kiss, and they quickly set to gathering deadwood for a fire to warm themselves.  Once they saw the two of them working at gathering wood, the dragons helped drag over logs and branches.

Once the fire was lit, they sat huddled next to each other in front of the fire, shivering.  They had taken the saddle-blankets out from under the dragons' saddles, but they were small and barely adequate to keep them warm.

"You all right?" she asked him. 

He nodded.  "It's not as bad as it was that other time."  He shrugged and a massive shiver rippled across his body.  "Still not fun, though."

"Same here," she said, her teeth still chattering.

"Um… Astrid?" he said hesitantly after another minute.

"Yes?" she asked, leaning up against him as Toothless brought over another log and added it to the fire, looking at the pair of them worriedly.  Stormfly was curled up behind them, trying to share her body heat. 

"Uh… so, don't take this the wrong way… but… uh…"

"Hiccup.  Spit out out," she said crossly as another shiver hit her.

"We need to get out of these wet clothes if we want to warm up," he said in a rush.

She snorted a laugh.  "Oh, so that's your scheme?"

"I—no, that wasn't—I—you threw me in first!" 

She smirked and patted his cheek.  "Hiccup.  I was joking.  You're not Snotlout."

He grimaced at that, and shifted uncomfortably.  "I just… well…"  He then looked around and his eyes grew very wide.  "Oh crap, we're unchaperoned!"  He started to awkwardly get to his feet, complicated by the fact that she was half-lying on him.

She laughed.  "You _just_ noticed that?  Wow, you really _were_ moping."

"It's not funny, Astrid!  I don't want you getting your reputation ruined!"

"Huh?"

Hiccup had managed to unwedge himself out from under her with his wriggling.  "Back during Thawfest, remember that you forgot your victory medallion?"

"Yeah, you gave it to me the next morning at breakfast," she said, confused at the change in topic.  She caught hold of the back of his shirt and started dragging him back down under the blanket.  His clothing was still soaked through, and he was visibly shivering.

"Well, I—can you let go?—I actually followed you to give it back to you, and I overheard your aunt—"

Astrid groaned and _yanked_ Hiccup back down.  He sat with a thump.  "Is _that_ why you've been so awkward the last few days?!" she demanded. 

"I… um… I didn't want—"

"Hiccup!  We promised to _talk_ to each other about this kind of thing!  Partners, remember!? Here I've been wondering why you've been _so_ very careful to keep around chaperons and out in public, even when it's been aggravating you like Loki's jokes to have to deal with everyone's questions about the dragons shedding, and we've had _several_ perfect chances to sneak off somewhere!"

"But she said that they were already gossipin—"

"Oh, to Hel with the gossip!  I want my boyfriend!  Do you _really_ think that those rumors have anything to do with what we're actually _doing!?_   Trust me, you could be the perfect traditional suitor, and they'd _still_ be swapping tales about how I'm some kind of wanton woman and giggling about it!"

He just looked at her, stunned.  "Are… are you mad at me?"

She scowled at him and then huffed, arms crossed.  "I'm actually angry that you _didn't talk to me about it._   You just decided on your own how this was going to go.  And you.  Promised."

He made an inarticulate noise that sounded like he tried to both apologize and protest at the same time, and then sagged.  "I'm… I'm sorry, Astrid.  Do you forgive me?"

She turned and looked at him, eyebrows together and eyes narrowed in irritation.  "Maybe.  First, do you understand _why_ I'm upset?"

He nodded apologetically.  "Because… because I didn't treat you as a partner, but… made the choice for you."

"That's right."

"I'm sorry," he said, head bowed.

She sighed.  "Hiccup.  First… I accept your apology.  Second… okay… it's sweet that you were that concerned.  I appreciate the thought… if not the way that you _did_ it.  And third…" she smiled and pulled her naalbound shirt off. The linens she was wearing under it were still soaked and stuck to her skin, and, while she was still fully clothed… there was no question that Hiccup could see _everything_ through the wet fabric.

She _heard_ him swallow.

"So, shirts and stuff off.  We still need to dry off and warm up," she said bluntly.  "You said it, and I agree."  As he followed suit, she did her best to remain composed and serene… even as her pulse pounded in her ears and her mouth felt dry. 

She took a moment and put her shirt, his tunic, her pteruges, their boots, and both of their trousers out by the fire to dry; Hiccup took a moment, carefully not looking at her, and used some sticks to prop them up to dry faster.

That done, she looked at him from where they were sitting a few feet apart near the fire, both dressed only in their soaked linen undergarments, and said, "So.  Right now, let's see… who knows about this place?  You, me, and Fishlegs?"

He nodded.

"And if someone comes flying on by—unlikely, with all of the dragons demanding attention back at the village—we're already in a 'compromising' situation here."

She heard him swallow again.

"So.  If you tell me that you're completely happy just sitting with me next to the fire like this, I'll… well, I won't be _happy,_ but I'll accept that.  But the consequence of 'gossip' just got tossed in the midden pit.  So I want you to look at me and tell me what you want to do with me _right now,_ and how far you want to go, and I'll accept that."  She leaned in.  "But this is our first chance we've had— _ever_ —out from under the chaperons.  And I want an honest answer—not one that you're just saying to make the gossip-mongers happy.  And _I'll_ give _you_ the same honesty.  Okay?"

He nodded mutely.  "I… I… gods, Astrid, I _want_ you.  I…" he licked his lips, which she could see were dry.  "I have dreams about us…"

She smirked.  "Oh, good.  I have those too."

He blinked at that.  "I… uh… _really?_ "

She nodded, smiling.  "Oh, gods, yes.  Shall we compare them later?"  She winked.

He choked and then started to giggle slightly.  "Umh… uhbuhubuh…" he babbled.

"You don't say," she said, her smirk growing. 

"I… uh… you… how far?"  He shook his head to clear it.  "Umm… you said that you don't care about the gossip."

She shook her head.  "What are they going to say?  That I'm sleeping with my boyfriend, the Hero and Chief's heir?  If any of them did, I'd just tell them that I _wish,_ but that you're a _great_ kisser, and that I'm looking forward to it."

"I… um… okay."  He looked at her, eyes wide.  "I'm a great kisser?"

"Mind you, I don't exactly have a great deal of experience there myself—okay, none at all aside from you—but I have no complaints," she said with a smirk and a heartfelt nod.  "So… on _that_ note…  Hiccup."  She put her hand on his.  "I know that this isn't a joke to you.  So I'm going to ask, straight up.  We have privacy.  Are we going to use it for anything more than talking and kissing, or not? "

"Umm… uh…" he stammered and then swallowed hard.  "No?  Yes?  Wait, huh, umm… Not.  Uh…"  His tongue was thoroughly tied as he stared at her.  Despite herself, she snickered. 

He blinked and refocused his eyes, which had been wandering all over her, back to her face, and managed to say, in a firm tone that was honestly impressive under the circumstances,   "No.  Look, Astrid.  We'll have other chances… and we've had this time to talk."  He looked around the cove.  "The last time it was the two of us here in this cove alone… you kept me from making a mistake because I was upset.  And then I asked you to not run off and tell people what we'd done.  I…"  He drooped a bit and said with a slight smile, "Please, Astrid.  Let's keep that going and not do anything that we can't take back.  Please?"

She nodded and started to slump slightly in disappointment, only for him to say, "But… but…" he gave her an awkward smile, "that doesn't mean that we do nothing… just nothing that would make you have to lie under oath?"  He nodded his head at hers, and, after a moment, she realized that he was referring to her _kransen_ circlet… which signified that she was a virgin maiden.  "Other than that… yes?  Please?"

She nodded, smiled, and tackled him, aiming for his ticklish spots. 

He howled with laughter and retaliated.  A minute or so later, the two of them, very well tangled with one another, and feeling much more relaxed, just slumped to the ground.  "Okay, we needed that," she said hoarsely from the laughter.  Hiccup had managed to get the upper hand with those clever fingers of his, and she'd started seeing spots from laughing too hard.  How on Midgard he'd figured out that the _backs of her knees_ were ticklish, she had no idea. 

His head lying on her stomach, he said, "Um… I don't know about you, but I'm still chilly."

"Yeah… but that little war helped," she said, smirking.  She then hauled him up to her face and kissed him. 

Things progressed from there, and again, she found that she had no complaints.  And was going to have to work hard to keep a smile off of her face, especially as they had both found out _why_ people were obsessed with doing this.  There had been some moments of supreme awkwardness… but they'd laughed and gotten past them too.  And Hiccup showed her that his observation skills extended to much more than just dragons…

A while later, as they pulled their dry clothing back on, Astrid just beamed at him fondly, the last of the stars having finally faded from her vision.  "So… that was fun," she said a bit giddily.  She pulled her circlet back onto her head.  It settled back into its usual place without making her feel as if she were lying to the world… yet. 

He nodded, a dazed grin on his face.  She felt smug herself, because she'd put it there.  It was so much better than the mood he'd been in when they'd first gotten here…

She sighed.  "So… we should get back soon.  I might not care about the gossip, but there's no reason to tempt the Norns."

His smile turned into a scowl.  "Yeah.   And there'll be trouble when we get back, regardless."

She nodded.  "Snotlout." 

"Yep."

"Well, I hope you're feeling better now."

He smiled at her.  "What, that wasn't obvious?"

She laughed. "Maaaaybe."

He leaned over and kissed her.  "Love you."

"Love you too.  Come on.  I want to see you kick Snotlout's ass in an argument when _you've_ had the chance to prepare too."

* * *

**A/N:** Been looking forward to people's reactions to this chapter for a while.  What do you all think?  ^_^


	8. A Challenge

**Chapter 8: A Challenge**

_Despite popular tales to the contrary, Vikings did not constantly duel to the death over every little issue.  Indeed, they took considerable efforts to prevent unnecessary bloodshed among their communities and to ensure fairness between their members._

_Political meetings, known as Things, had elaborate rules of conduct, designed to limit the potential for violence and the sparking of feuds.  This was one of the functions of the ritual trial-by-combat, the_ holmgang _; to settle and close disputes and feuds in a hopefully nonlethal manner, yet in a way that was acceptable to the martial Norse.  This was done by means of creating the dueling area as a sacred space before the gods, defining the conflict, and rendering it such that what was 'slain' within the bounds of the demarcation was the opposing dispute.  Rather than start a brawl over a dispute at a Thing—an act that was in violation of the rules of conduct—one disputant could challenge another to a trial by combat, after which the matter was settled.  And to keep those with significant prowess from perverting the mechanics of the trial by combat against their intent, substitutions in the cases of gross mismatches were not only allowed, but encouraged._

_—Origins Of The Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631_

That night, dressed in less muddied clothing, the sweet memories of being with Astrid in the cove put to the back of his mind, Hiccup stood in the mead hall next to Stoick, feeling extremely uncomfortable.  His father was speaking first in the hastily assembled Thing, and was pretty angry.

"A year ago, we were suffering weekly dragon raids.  We _all_ remember what a toll that took on this tribe.  Then, finally, my son brokered a peace, and the last seven months have been the greatest Berk has ever known since we first sailed to this shore."

He pounded the bench around the firepit.  "And now, thanks to the glory-hungry deeds of a youth, we may face a _new_ war, one not against dragons just interested in stealing food for the one holding their eggs hostage, but against a Christian kingdom, one that has already torn down sacred groves and temples to the All-Father, one that threatens to do to us what _we_ planned to do to the Dragon's Nest."

He paused.

"WHY ARE WE GIVING THEM A REASON TO COME HERE?"

He looked at Snotlout, who cowered.  Spitelout stood next to him, expressionless.

"If they come to demand your head, boy, I will give it to them.  If you behave yourself, I may even let the rest of you join it."

Spitelout spoke up at this point.  "How has my son broken the laws to deserve such punishment?"

"He raided without permission!  Again!  Against my explicit warnings!"

"Did you swear him to an oath?"

"That was your job as parent and clan-head!"

"You said not to raid a Viking village!  He did not!  He raided a Saxon town, one that other Vikings have tried and failed to conquer!  We should be celebrating his accomplishments, not threatening them!" Spitelout proclaimed, spreading his arms wide… and turning to address the assembled tribe, not just Hiccup's dad.  "Besides!  The Saxons are weak!  Their king squabbles over his crowns!  Only a year ago, Harefoot and Harthacnut were two brothers arguing over who should lead, the seed of their father split!"  He pounded the table for emphasis, a fervent light in his eyes.  "They are and were weak and divided, more worried about their own grasp than they are about us!  We have shown our strength!  With twenty thanes, my son conquered one of their greatest strongholds outside London in an _hour_!  They will come to us with treasure and tribute and _beg_ for our allegiance!"

There was a murmur of assent and anticipation from a disturbingly large portion of the room.

"Or they will come with ships and armies and wipe us out before we trouble them again," Stoick said mildly.  "It is easy to foretell vast riches and endless glory when one is not responsible for when it goes wrong.  And I am still chief of the Hooligans."  He thumped his chest.  "I still lead, and my son is my heir.  Regardless of what some may believe or _desire_ ," he glanced significantly at the Jorgensons, "in Odin's, Tyr's, and Thor's names, as chief, I aim to lead.  And, in leading, I will _balance_ wisdom, honor, justice, and glory, for the good of us all."

There was a larger and louder assent to this—even from the traditionalists, the ones that Hiccup knew he made uncomfortable with everything that he'd done, and who still looked down on him for being scrawny.

Stoick continued.  "I have already made my great mistake there, making poor judgment from poor wisdom, not listening to one that knew better, which led to me leading us _all_ into the maw of the Green Death.  Will you presume on the generosity of the Norns to give us a _second_ such chance to avoid the noose?  Or will you depend on my son's gifts to save us once again from the outcome of such arrogance?"

There was complete and total silence. 

Stoick chuckled.  There was no humor in it.  "Aye, I thought so.  Calls for glory are easy to hear, until one remembers standing on a black beach and watching the spawn of Jormungand chase a 'useless' boy across the sky, a _useless_ ax in your hand."  He laughed again humorlessly.  "But what would my boy and his dragon be able to do against a thousand longships of the Danes, come to sack our shores?"

"We have dragons too!" Snotlout said heatedly. 

"Aye, you do.  And they have archers.  And, until last year, the Night Fury was the _only_ dragon that we had never successfully killed.  A Monstrous Nightmare, like your Hookfang, would probably manage about, hmm, say three longboats, perhaps four if you were lucky and smart.  And then they'd bring you down with bolas, javelins, and bows, even if they know _nothing_ about dragon-fighting.  We know because we've had to _fight_ dragons from longboats, boy.  And we survived.  So will any fleet."  He slapped the table.  "Is that how the story of Berk will end?  We survive the Dragon War by luck and kindness, and throw away the gift of the Norns and Forsetti out of glory-seeking!?"  He looked around the room.  "We are a _dying_ _tribe!_   In my great-grandfather's time, Berk numbered over a thousand and a half!  Now we are seven hundred and twelve!  We have more elders of fifty winters than we have children under ten!  My class of dragon fighting numbered _thirty,_ and you, my nephew, were one of _six."_

He looked around the room, Hiccup besides him.  "Thus, here is the new law: There will be no further a-viking raids by dragon riders.  We are not weak, but we are _tired_ , spent by our own long conflict.  Twenty thanes may be enough to raid a stronghold, but they are not enough to hold one, and we cannot spare a single person now, man or maid, youth or elder.  However, I will show mercy, and offer clemency for any past raiding.  If those offended by those raids come, we will offer _weregeld_ for their dead, a third from my coffers, the remainder from those who executed the raid.  If provoked, we will defend ourselves.  But we will not surrender our own to their justice, for I have heard what they do to 'pagans' who do not worship their tortured god." 

To that, the entire room vocally agreed, as Stoick pushed Hiccup forward.

"Hiccup has something else to add regarding all of this."

Hiccup looked through the room packed with his tribemates, all of them looking at him, and felt his stomach promptly drop to somewhere around his boot. 

He opened his mouth for a moment and then closed it, swallowing hard. 

And then he saw Snotlout giving him a wicked leer from where he stood leaning up against one of the room's pillars, seeing that Hiccup couldn't speak, and he felt Astrid's hand at the small of his back. 

Taking a deep breath and pulling confidence from _somewhere,_ he stood up straight and spoke.  "So… we haven't even had the dragons for a year now, first off.  And I don't want to start giving them the idea that they need to start stealing food for us like they did for the Green Death."

There was a murmur at this thought—some for, some against.  Apparently and unsurprisingly, a few people in Berk thought that it would be grand idea.  Well, he was going to work on that.

"A Viking raid on a town… glory, lots of loot, Valhalla, and so forth.  That's great.  But I know _I'd_ be pretty embarrassed if the dragons just started raiding the neighboring tribes because they thought that's just what we do, and they've slipped out of our control."  He waves vaguely into the crowd and affected his father's accent, "'Aye, so what you're telling me is that his ram jumped the fence and bred with your ewes and yeh don't want to pay his stud fee?  Why didn't yeh build the fence taller after the last time this happened?'" 

There were some laughs and a few people choked at both his impression and his reference to one of the continual little spats between Mildew and Mulch.  Mildew, for his part, had an expression on his face that suggested that he had just found half a worm in his apple. 

"Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to have to explain _that_ to a neighboring tribe?  'Aye, we didn't mean to steal your cattle.  We just had some badly behaved pets over here who hopped the fence because their owners gave them the wrong idea.  Wasn't our fault.'"  He shrugged, trying for nonchalance but overselling it somewhat. "I know if someone tried _that_ excuse on the chief, he'd just _look_ at them.  Like this." He gave his best impression of Stoick's unamused glare, being _extremely_ familiar with it. 

More than one person burst out laughing, including Gobber, and Stoick looked somewhere between amused and offended. 

"Point being, Viking raid, great.  Tradition, loot, honor, so forth.  Dragons getting the idea of going raiding on their own? …probably not so great."  He waved his arms around a bit for emphasis as he talked .  "Besides, as someone pointed out, dragons are so very much like Vikings—smart, strong, clever.  And if _they're_ doing the raiding, who gets the glory in the eyes of Freya and Odin?  The dragon, or the rider?"

_That_ hit a nerve, Hiccup was glad to see.  Hopefully they'd waste at least a year arguing it out.

"So I had an idea," he continued as nonchalantly as possible.  "Just to keep things… peaceful.  I'm going to fly around with Toothless to visit as many of the other villages in the islands, and probably the mainland too, as I can manage.  Tell them who we are, where we live, and that if there's a problem with dragons, they should tell us."  He smirked.  "You know.  Just to avoid any _misunderstandings_ about where the _glory_ should go if there's a problem," he said, looking dead on at Snotlout, who was staring back.  "But I'm not going to raid anybody, and if I come back with _anything,_ it'll hopefully be some more of the wild dragons out there that we haven't tamed yet." 

He looked around the room, trying to meet people's eyes. 

"Any questions?"

"Yes," Snotlout said, pushing forward.  "You're telling us to not be Vikings.  Well, I say that we _are._   I say that you're running away from glory like a coward."

The whole room seemed to take in a breath at once.

Hiccup just looked at Snotlout with surprise as Stoick said, "That sounded like a challenge, boy."

"Yeah.  It was."  Snotlout looked at Hiccup.  "You want to tell us to stop being Vikings!?  Then prove that you're a better one than I am.  I challenge you!   You and me!  Winner gets to set our path!"

Astrid said heatedly before Hiccup could protest, "Oh, like that will prove anything, Snotlout!"

"Yeah, it'll prove which of us is right in the eyes of the gods!"

"You've spent years calling Hiccup weak!  And he has a false foot!" she shot back.  "You won't _prove_ anything about rightness before the gods if you just use the _holmgang_ to push Hiccup out of the way!"

The crowd seemed to murmur at this as Hiccup looked around wildly.  It had, after all, only been seven months before that Hiccup had been Snotlout's bully-toy of choice.  Odin, Tyr and Thor would not smile on such a verdict.  Even the Jorgenson supporters seemed to find that point to be telling.

Snotlout was also looking around the room, and Astrid took her chance.  "You want to prove rightness before the gods?  Fine!  _Holmgang_ against _me_ for Tyr, race against Hiccup for Thor, and a test of wisdom against Hiccup for Odin!  Best of three!"

A few people shouted their approval, and others stamped their feet to indicate the same.  Hiccup felt his stomach drop.  This was what he had been afraid of. 

Snotlout suddenly looked a bit trapped, and shouted back, "Fine!  I won't go easy on you in the Holmgang!  And the race has to be on foot!"

"On foot _and_ dragon!  Or do you really think that Thor would approve of a win against someone with one foot?"  And Hiccup had just beaten Snotlout at exactly the same challenge days ago.

Stoick, who had been looking at Snotlout with displeasure, rumbled, "Aye.  If you insist on a challenge to _my_ policy, nephew, I'm not going to let you overturn it by attacking Hiccup's weak point."  He looked at the crowd of watching Vikings, settling specifically on the Jorgensons and their supporters.  "We will witness this challenge before the gods.  _And_ we will find the results binding!  _All_ of us!"

"But Snotlout against Astrid?  How is that fair?" Spitelout demanded.

"I'm sure she won't hurt him too much for the next challenge," Stoick said grimly, which made people in the crowd chortle and snicker. 

"But—" Spitelout started to protest.

"She offered herself in Hiccup's place," Stoick said.  "I will not dishonor her by refusing to accept, and neither will Hiccup."

Everyone looked at Hiccup, who looked at Astrid, who was looking at him with an  expression that was a weird mix of anger and defiance at Snotlout, and pleading with him.  After eight months together, he understood it perfectly. 

_Please.  Let me help you._

Hiccup nodded, and the crowd cheered. 

###

Three days later, Astrid watched the final preparations for the _holmgang_ and other challenges commence.  The pale hide was stretched out, the ground was scored around it, and the hazel rods were placed, as the sacred words were chanted with each tap of the hammer. 

Over the last three days, as was tradition, the soft-wood shields had been made, and both she and Snotlout had picked swords from the armory under supervision of their seconds.

The tribe assembled on the field to watch, while the dragons circled overhead, not knowing that their own fate was about to be decided.  Hiccup's way, the way of peace, versus Snotlout's way, the way of war.

She scowled.

Hiccup was going to be her second in the formal duel and would be handing her her spare shields as she needed them.  Spitelout would be doing the same for his son.  Gothi was acting as the formal witness.

She walked over to her boyfriend, who was carrying her sword.  Hiccup had sharpened it special this morning for her.  He had said that he hoped she wasn't about to kill his cousin with it… but if only one of them walked out of the _holm,_ he knew which one he wanted to be whole and hearty. 

But hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.  They didn't have the old duels anymore, the ones where anything went.  The _holmgang_ wasn't to the death.  All she had to do was wound him enough that blood dripped onto the surface of the white hide or knock him past its edge and it would be over, and then it would Hiccup's turn to face his cousin. 

Snotlout walked towards them as she gave Hiccup a peck on the cheek.  Spitelout was following a short ways behind his son. 

"I still can't believe that you're doing this," Snoutlout said to Astrid, "or that you _accepted_ it," he scowled at Hiccup. 

"And this is what's wrong with you, 'Lout" she said tauntingly.  "You're so used to hitting _on_ girls and getting hit that you're all confused on when _you're supposed to hit first._ "  Astrid smirked at him.  He thought of himself as a warrior… and yet he didn't see shieldmaids—especially the pretty ones—as a threat.  Instead, he just pawed at them, usually her, and got punched. 

"I'm not going to go easy on you just because you're a woman," he said, hefting his own blade.

"Good.  You're in enough dishonor as it is," she said angrily. 

" _I'm_ in dishonor?  How?  I'm a Viking!  I went out and proved our strength!  What has _he_ done lately?" Snotlout demanded, pointing at Hiccup behind her.  "Prove to a group of thieves that we're weak and cowardly?"  He made a face.  "Yeah, sure, they'll be _so_ impressed by _giving them back their men and their ship._ "

"And you burning an entire fortress to the ground and killing half of the garrison proves _what,_ exactly?" Astrid asked acidly. 

"That we're strong and powerful!  And that they should treat us with respect!  If I win, we're going to load up every thane we can on dragons and fly straight to London, and tell that King that there had better be some Danegeld every summer, or else."  He smirked.  "It's actually funny, because he _is_ a Dane, and he'll have to pay _us_ to keep from raiding!  Now that's justice!"

Astrid just stared at him, appalled, but managed to reply, "And when you lose, you'll do no such thing, on your own _sacred_ honor."  She wasn't actually sure that he _would_ actually hold to his oaths… but the reminder didn't hurt. 

"Yeah, yeah.  But I won't lose," he said with bravado.  He then looked her over in a way that made her want to visit the bathhouse.  "So, after this is over and we're doing things my way, why don't you and I—"

She whirled around, grabbed Hiccup by the front of his tunic, and gave him a deep kiss right then and there, while making a rude gesture at Snotlout.  A few people around them applauded and made calls of approval. 

As she enjoyed the kiss with her boyfriend, who had quickly gotten over his surprise and was returning the kiss with enthusiasm and a little nibbling on her lip, she stomped on a wild thought of breaking the kiss and telling—taunting—Snotlout that it was thanks to his raid and his verbal attack on Hiccup that her boyfriend now knew what she looked like naked.  While it would definitely be _effective_ at putting him off-balance for the duel, there was no way she was going to tell him something private like that.  The gossip that would result from it was barely even a consideration… but she didn't want to betray Hiccup's own trust.

Breaking the kiss, her cheeks flushed and breathing heavily, she just smiled pointedly at Snotlout, who was staring at her, his jaw hanging open a bit. 

Before he could say anything else, though, they were called over to the _holm_. 

It was time to begin. 

Going to their respective sides of the staked hide, they readied their swords, had their first shields handed to them by their seconds, and then approached the _holm._  

People began to chant and pound their feet or their shields, a measured beat.  Hiccup and Spitelout lifted the three shields apiece and carried them into the ring past the ropes strung between the hazel poles, next to their duelists.

The sacred words were spoken, and the two fighters entered the sacred space marked by the bounds of the white hide. 

She tensed, sword and shield at the ready, preparing to attack.  Snotlout had been the challenger, even though Astrid had somewhat challenged him in response, so she got the first blow.

As their tribesmates pounded out a steady rhythm and chanted, Astrid swung her blade with a grunt, aiming for Snotlout's right arm.  He managed to intercept with his shield, which shattered the soft wood; he cast it aside and accepted another one from his father, and then swung at Astrid, aiming for her legs.  She caught the blade on her shield, and it shattered.  Hiccup passed her a shield as she threw away her previous one.

With a nasty smile, she attacked again, and swung her sword while bashing with her shield.  He managed to intercept her blade on his shield, but her shield hit him full in the face.  It broke into useless pieces, but sent Snotlout staggering back a foot, and made him start bleeding from a cut above his eye. 

The beat and chant paused as the crowd went silent, watching to see if blood would spatter the white surface under their feet or if he would step off of it. 

Snotlout wiped at the shallow cut with his sleeve, which soaked up the blood.  He grabbed his third and final shield, as Astrid did the same; the beat resumed.  His duty in the _holmgang_ completed, Hiccup pulled back reluctantly, as did Spitelout.  A quick glance at the shield as she strapped it into place, and an idea came to her mind.

Snotlout then swung at her with an angry grunt, and she caught his blade on the shield, the dull thump swallowed by the beat from the onlookers.  With a grin of triumph, she looked at it; her idea had worked, and she had managed to catch the tip of his sword in the groove between the boards.  With a grunt of effort, she _twisted_ her arm, making the blade bend visibly before the soft wood shattered from the stress, leaving her unprotected.  The shield essentially exploded, tearing up her armwarmers, but leaving her skin unmarked. 

It was time to finish this. 

She smirked as Snotlout pulled back his blade and looked at it with irritation on his face; the last handspan of the sword had been literally _bent_ into a partial spiral.  Then, with a war cry, she attacked.  He managed to get his shield up in front of her swing, which shattered it, leaving them both equally unprotected; even better, the fury of her attack knocked him back to the very edge of the hide.

Howling, he swung his bent blade at her midsection, and she had to leap back to avoid it.  She could feel the white deer-hide still under her feet, but she couldn't be more than a handspan or two from the edge.

Before he could recover and pull back from where he'd overextended himself, she counterattacked, using the energy from her acrobatic retreat to rebound into his space.  She swung her sword into the opening that he'd left with his frenzied swing.  The edge of the blade bit into the skin of his chest, cutting a line up the side of his right arm.  A moment later, her momentum unspent, her left fist made a beautiful punch to his face for good measure.  She felt one of the bones in her hand break as his head snapped back.

Blood droplets spattered the white hide, as Snotlout, stunned by her punch, staggered back.  She watched, a savage grin on her face, as he stumbled backwards… and off the edge of the hide.  He tripped on his own feet and landed on his ass on the grass.

She had won; around her, the beat ceased and people cheered her victory. 

Breathing heavily, she looked down at the loser and said, "One down.  Ready to lose again?"

Snotlout sneered and hopped to his feet.

###

An hour later, Hiccup and Snotlout stood on the starting line by the docks, just as they had a week before, at Thawfest, prepared to run up the length of the village. 

Hiccup swallowed hard at a lump in throat.  His stump would be in agony in a few minutes, even with the extra padding that Astrid had helped him place around the brace.   She had helped him clean his stump when the scars on it had split open and bled after he'd done this exact same contest last week, and they were still tender.  But she had said that she had faith in him delivering a repeat performance before the gods.

Astrid was standing a few paces behind him, and he was utterly, unspeakably grateful that she was there.  She was his second, and while she couldn't help him with the race itself, she was going to be following him close behind to make sure that there was no cheating.  The same went for Spitelout for his son, and a few others would be watching from the air. 

The lump in his throat was still there, and he coughed, trying to dislodge it.  Snotlout looked at him and sneered, while Astrid just put a comforting hand on his shoulder—not the freshly and temporarily splinted hand, thankfully.  She'd managed to break two fingers on Snotlout's face. 

Now all he had to do was run up the whole length of the village, all the way up the several hundred paces to the doors of the mead hall where the dragons were waiting … and then he and Toothless would have to beat Snotlout and Hookfang in a race through the sea stacks and back. 

They'd done it last week, during the Thawfest…

And his stump still hurt from that.  This would be agonizing to do again. 

"Hey, Useless," Snotlout jeered at him.  "If you want to give up, just say so.  Nobody will blame you."

Hiccup looked at Snotlout… and then looked at the people hovering on dragons to watch their race.  For a moment, he remembered what it was like to grow up under the threat of having dragons descend in the night and burn your home down around you…

He clenched his fists and the lump disappeared from his throat. 

That wasn't going to happen anymore.  Not if he had anything to say about it. 

"Thanks for the offer, and I understand that you're worried about people seeing you get beaten by someone with a false foot _again,_ but we kinda have to do this.  So, even though you're my cousin, I'm afraid I have to turn down your offer to concede," he said with a straight face. 

Behind him, Astrid choked, and then started to laugh.

Snotlout just blinked at him for a moment, and then started to redden—with embarrassment or anger, Hiccup couldn't tell.  So instead, he just smiled at Snotlout, and got ready to run. 

His dad dropped the ax, and they were off.  Snotlout immediately pulled ahead, running flat out.  

Hiccup jogged along gamely, deliberately pacing himself as best he could.

His foot and peg drumming on the wood of the ramp, he just focused on moving along.  What was important was taking another step.  Not the pain in his stump as it ground against the inside of his peg.  Another step, as quickly as he could manage.  That was what mattered.

His focus wasn't so absolute, however, that he didn't hear Snotlout's running slow down, and him gasping for breath on the tier of the ramp above him, followed by Spitelout's gasped admonition to keep going. 

It sounded like _someone_ wasn't pacing himself…

Hiccup just kept focusing on putting one foot in front of the other… even as he felt the first scar split open and start to dribble blood into the protective sock of his peg. 

He inhaled sharply and just kept moving.  Yes, it hurt.  But that was an occupational hazard that he was just going to have to deal with.  His biggest worry was not the pain… but that the slippery blood would make his stump slide out of the peg's socket again.

As he reached the middle tiers of the village, there was a gasp from the watchers, and he looked up to see Hookfang take flight.  He grimaced and tried to run faster; last week, he'd reached the final bend in the pathway before Snotlout had managed to reach Hookfang.

Panting and grimacing at the pain, he ran up as quickly as he could to the mead hall, Snotlout and Hookfang already a dot in the distance.  Swearing, he hopped onto Toothless's back.  Nearby, Astrid hopped onto Stormfly to join the other observers who were already circling overhead.

"Let's go, bud!" he said, and Toothless took to the skies.  They raced along the path, outpacing the watchers who did their best to keep up.  While he would have another chance to beat Snotlout—and, being honest, he was hardly worried about Snotlout beating him at a test of wisdom—he wanted to shut his cousin down as hard and as thoroughly as possible.  That meant winning all three, even though winning this contest would be enough to seal the decision.

Toothless poured on the speed, and Hiccup crouched as close down behind his neck frill as he could.  Snotlout and Hookfang grew from a dot to a rider and dragon, along with their circling watchers.

Someone among the watchers ahead spotted them overtaking rapidly, and Hiccup saw Snotlout look back.  For a brief instant, despite the hundreds of yards still between them, it was as if they had locked gazes, and Hiccup could almost feel his cousin's panic. 

Hookfang sped up, obviously holding nothing back, and dove for the run through the sea stack maze, entering the first stone archway only a few dragon-lengths ahead of Hiccup and Toothless. 

The maze of water-sculpted stone pillars and archways blew past at high speed… although not the highest speed that Toothless was capable of.  Snotlout and Hookfang, showing greater skill than they had the week before, were working together to block each and every passing attempt by Toothless and Hiccup, aided by the bigger dragon's size. 

Snotlout's strategy was obvious—keep Hiccup and Toothless behind him until the maze exited onto the harbor… and the finish line. 

Hiccup tried to remember the routes through the maze that might let the two of them cut around Snotlout without leaving the approved route and being disqualified.  He and Astrid had done this race enough over the winter that he had grown familiar with the pillars and archways.

He remembered one side route… just as it blew past, and he grimaced in frustration.

He was rapidly running out of time…

And then he remembered his chance. 

He spotted his landmarks as best he could with Hookfang blocking most of his line of sight.  Any… moment…

Now!

Hiccup and Toothless dropped the last thirty feet until they were skimming just above the water's surface, the spray of the waves drenching them both. 

Snotlout tried to maneuver Hookfang to block them, but Hookfang howled and stayed on course.

It was his only option, really. 

The sea stacks ahead had a double archway carved through them.  One was high above the water and wide, the safe route for a dragon the size of Hookfang, and the other…

Toothless furled his wings to fit through the narrow arch, the top of which was barely above the lapping waves, and Hiccup pressed himself flat against his friend's back to keep from suddenly becoming a head shorter.  A small spine of rock jutting from the ceiling still clipped his right shoulder, and his arm went numb from the impact, and he barely managed to stay on Toothless's back as his vest and shirt—and skin—tore; the impact still nearly dragged him from the saddle.

They burst out from the other side of the archway, bare inches above the water. Toothless unfurled his wings with a snap, and flapped for speed and altitude—and pulled right in front of Hookfang and Snotlout, who howled and cursed at them… all the way to the finish line. 

###

The crowd along the cliffsides and packed along the paths of the village was cheering as Hiccup and Toothless did their victory lap.  Elsewhere in the sky, the flying observers were catching up and coming into land, also cheering.

Hiccup just waved with his left arm; his right was tingling like he'd slept on it funny… multiplied several times over.  It didn't _feel_ like he'd broken anything… but he could feel blood trickling down his back, and the salt from the sea spray was making the wound agonizing.

Well… the shirt had been getting smaller on him anyway.

Astrid and Stormfly came flying up alongside them.  She beamed at him… and then saw his back. 

Hiccup just looked at her sheepishly.  "Oops?"

"How did _that_ happen?" she asked, turning Stormfly to try to get a better look at his back.

"You know that double archway, just past Heimdall's Spire?"

She looked at him for a moment, not making the connection, and then her jaw dropped.  "You _didn't."_

"Did," he said with an unconscious shrug… which rapidly turned into a swallowed scream as his shoulder protested loudly. 

"Hiccup…!" she said, exasperated.  "You… you… argh!  One bad wave, and you two would have drowned!  It's high tide!"

He forced a smile.  "Well… it worked!"

She blinked with a grimace and clenched her unsplinted hand on Stormfly's reins.  "Go.  Land.  _Now_.  I'm getting bandages."

He nodded, smiling painfully.  She sped off to her cousin Nanna's house.  From his vantage point in the air, Hiccup watched her land next to the Hofferson healer, gesture violently in his direction, and have the shorter blond woman reach into a satchel and hand her a roll of linen bandages.  Nanna was visibly amused even at this distance, her hand covering her mouth as she grinned. 

Hiccup sighed, and he and Toothless flew down to the base of the mead hall stairs where his dad was waiting, along with Snotlout, Spitelout and a whole mess of other people.  Chestnut the Witty was there; he was going to mediate the next challenge, as a skald.  Hookfang was standing on the grass nearby, giving leery looks at the Green Death's thagomizer where it was sitting next to the staircase.

Toothless landed lightly, but it was still jarring enough to make Hiccup grimace in pain.  He dismounted and looked at his dad with a smile that he hoped was convincing enough.

Snotlout was just glaring at him, his teeth set in a grimace and his eyes narrowed in fury.  But he didn't say anything, and Hiccup just smiled weakly back. 

Astrid and Stormfly landed a few moments later, as the crowd continued to cheer.  She walked up to him and hissed as she got a close look at his back.  "You're going to need a new shirt."

"Well, I had fun.  See the scar?" he said, still on the high of beating his cousin.

She snorted.

Stoick laughed.  "Boys, come here." 

Hiccup and Snotlout walked over to where his dad was standing on the steps up to the mead hall.  Putting his hands on both of their shoulders, he called out over the crowd, "With two out of three challenges, I declare—"

"Wait!  We still have one challenge left!" Snotlout shouted. 

Stoick looked at him with a raised eyebrow as the crowd hushed.  "The challenge was best of three, boy.  You've lost two."

"I still want to complete the challenge!" Snotlout bellowed.  "I don't want anybody to claim that I couldn't do it!"

Stoick sighed and turned to Hiccup.  "You are the victor regardless, Hiccup.  I am willing to forgo the challenge if you both wish."

Hiccup looked at his cousin and sighed.  On the one hand, he wanted to give Snotlout a solid thrashing.  On the other… he'd already won.  What else did he need to prove?  Rub it in like Snotlout would?  Yeah, no thanks.  A few minutes ago, he'd thought differently, but now…?  Yeah.

"I'm not sure, but if it's so important to Snotlout, then I'll do it," he said with a nod.  "But I don't see the point."

Snotlout looked out over the crowd, put his hands on his hips, and proclaimed, "Well, I still want to complete the challenge!  I say we do it!"

"You are certain?"

"Yes, I am!"

Stoick sighed and rubbed his temples, and just gestured to Chestnut to get on with it.

Chestnut looked at the pair of them.  "Wit and Wisdom are not necessarily the same things, but I can at least make an attempt.  So, Snotlout, you have already lost the day… and yet you still wish to try to show that you are wise before everyone here?"

Snotlout sneered. "What?  Do I have to keep repeating myself?  Yes, I want to do the challenge!"

Chestnut shrugged.  "And that means you just lost it, boy."

There was a pause.

"Huh?" Both boys gaped at the skald.  Hiccup was confused, and Snotlout looked flabbergasted.

"Only a fool continues to fight after he's beaten.  Only a colossal _jotunn_ of a fool would continue to fight after he's beaten _and_ in his area of weakness.  You failed, boy.  The wise thing to do would not have been to try."

"But…"  Snotlout looked at the skald with mounting horror.  "That's not fair…"

"And neither was your original challenge.  But please, tell us what is so wise about fighting a battle already lost?"

Snotlout just babbled incredulously for a moment.  Chestnut just looked at him pityingly.  "It is better to remain silent and be _thought_ a fool… than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.  Mind you, Hiccup here didn't manage much better in wisdom by giving in to an opponent's demands when he already had won, but he at least admitted that he didn't see the point.  If you were wise, you would have recognized that literally nothing you could have said would have changed the final results to being more to your liking… and all you've done is make yourself the stubborn fool in front of everyone." 

Snotlout was just standing there, staring at him, his eyes growing wider and his jaw hanging open, piteous noises coming from within.

Behind them, people in the crowd were whispering… and starting to laugh. 

The someone—Ruffnut, it sounded like—started to sing.  _"Little pup with little paws…"_

Snotlout let out an agonized scream of fury, whirled and looked out over the crowd, his chest heaving with savage indignation. 

Someone laughed.

And he froze again. 

Hiccup heard him swallow hard, and he turned again, hands clenched at his sides, his knuckles white with rage, and stiffly marched to Hookfang.

Hiccup watched his cousin mount his dragon and fly off, and grimaced.  "Well… I guess that's that, then," he said.  He hadn't been expecting that at all… and some of him—more of him than he'd expected, really—was feeling pity and sympathy for Snotlout.  He knew so very well what it was like to be laughed at by the whole village…

A hand touched his shoulder, and he jumped in surprise… and then landed awkwardly.  With a disgusting squelching noise, his stump popped free of the peg, sending him sprawling. 

Before he could clout his head against the stairs, however, strong hands caught him, and slowly lowered him to the ground. 

He looked up to see Astrid and his dad giving him concerned looks.  Then his dad stood back up from his crouch.  "My son is the winner of the challenge!  We will follow his way with the dragons, as witnessed before the gods!"

As people cheered and applauded, Astrid sighed.  "Let's get you over to Nanna's house.  Here."  She produced the roll of linen bandages and started to wrap him up in them.  "First, stop the leaking."

Hiccup gave her a sardonic thumbs-up to keep from looking at his stump, which was covered in a layer of drying blood, the protective soft-leather sock and the additional padding soaked through.  "Red stuff on the inside, got it."

She swatted at his uninjured shoulder and then smiled fondly at him.  "Love you."

He heaved himself to a sitting position and kissed her.

###

Fishlegs stood with the twins outside of Nanna Hofferson's house as they listened to Hiccup yowl with discomfort as the healer stitched up his shoulder inside.  Toothless was thrashing his tail back and forth, and every time Hiccup made some other exclamation of pain, the slits of his eyes narrowed and he growled and hissed.  At least he was being better behaved now than he'd been during those ghastly moments when Nanna had sawn off Hiccup's shattered leg last autumn.  _That_ had needed six thanes and Stoick to hold the Night Fury down as Hiccup had screamed from the pain, even when he'd been unconscious.

This time, at least, Hiccup had managed to explain to the dragon what was going to happen, as Nanna had flatly refused to work with the Night Fury present. 

It still had been left to Fishlegs to stand in front of the door and keep Stormfly and Toothless at bay while their riders were treated inside. 

Tuffnut was giving Toothless a backscratch, which the Night Fury was conditionally accepting.  "So… um… what happens now?"

Fishlegs shrugged and said, "Ask Hiccup."

Ruffnut smirked.  "He's a touch occupied right now."

Inside the house, Nanna was scolding Hiccup, saying that if he didn't hold still, the next stitch was going someplace more sensitive.

Tuffnut snorted and then turned to Fishlegs.  "Hey, 'Legs…"

Quirking an eyebrow sardonically, Fishlegs looked up at him.  "Yes?"

The other boy gave him a smirk.  "So…"  He lowered his voice.  "You hang out with those two all of the time."  His smirk deepened.  "Have they… you know?" He winked.

Fishlegs stared at the other boy, appalled, and then Ruffnut kicked him.

"Hey!  I was just wondering!"

With a scowl, Fishlegs leaned in and said, "One, I don't know.  Two, if I _did_ know, it would be none of my business.  Three, it's _definitely_ none of yours."

Ruffnut chimed in.  "And four, _you_ get to ask _Astrid_ when she walks out of there with splints on two broken fingers."

Tuffnut suddenly had a trapped look.  "So, um… Sis, what is Hiccup doing with all of that gas from Barf?"

Fishlegs and Ruffnut shared a glance, and she quirked a questioning eyebrow, wordlessly asking if they should let her brother change the subject.  Fishlegs thought for a moment, rolling his eyes up in consideration and then gave a tiny nod. 

Rolling her eyes, Ruffnut shrugged and looked back at her brother.  "Storing it somehow," she said.  "He said something about experimenting with it."

With a shrug of his own, Fishlegs said, "He had Meatlug carve out a boulder so that it can be filled with water on the inside, like a pair of washtubs on top of each other, or a ball with a hole in the side like a well, and," he motioned with his hands, trying to express the two halves of the hollow stone ball and the wide shaft that came out of the side, "he has Barf spew the gas out underwater, so it collects up near the top, trapped by the water.  Then he has a spigot up at that point that he did something with—I think he took some sap from wild endives to help make it as airtight as possible—and that pushes the gas into bladders or canisters or things like that, for him to experiment with."

Both of the twins blinked at him. 

Ruffnut, almost despite herself, asked, "And what's he been doing with it?"

Fishlegs shrugged.  "Mostly setting things on fire by accident."

With a snort, Tuffnut said, "We could do that on purpose!"

Fishlegs rolled his eyes.  "He has this idea for a lamp that sprays out a little bit of the gas at a time so you get a small flame—"

Tuffnut yawned.  "A _small_ flame?  But where's the fun in—"

"Oh, _hey,_ Astrid!" Ruffnut said with a wide grin.  "My brother has a question for you."

Fishlegs turned to see that the door had opened behind him.  Astrid was looking at them, a pained grimace on her face.  Her broken hand was in a ludicrously oversized splint.  Judging by what he'd overheard, that was Nanna's way of making a point about not punching people in the face.

Astrid sighed and looked at Tuffnut.  "What?  I'm going to the chief's house to get Hiccup a new shirt.  Is it important?"

Tuffnut just shook his head negatively, as Stormfly came over and sniffed at the splint. 

"Hey girl.  Yes, I get to keep the hand.  It's just on loan to my cousin for educational purposes," Astrid said, stepping down the steps and starting up the hill. 

Ruffnut opened her mouth to start saying something to the other girl, and Fishlegs gave her a glare and shook his head.  "Let Tuff dig his own barrows, Ruff," he said in a low, intent tone. 

She looked at him, grimaced… and then slowly nodded. 

Fishlegs just looked up at Astrid, who was walking up the path to the top of the hill.  "So… how is he?"

Astrid turned around and gave them a tired look before doing a deadpan imitation of her cousin's acerbic tones.  "'You're lucky that you didn't break the collarbone, or your shoulder-blade.  Thanks to that thick leather epaulet you wore, it's pretty likely that the muscle isn't torn irreparably.  But if you don't stop squirming and let me sew up this muscle before you tear it worse—'"   She sighed.  "It was messy, and he's a terrible patient."

Ruffnut snorted. 

"I threatened to sit on him," Astrid said… and then blushed slightly when she realized what she'd just said.  "Um—you know what I mean.  If he didn't stop bouncing—uh…"  Turning bright red, she shut her mouth with a click. 

Ruffnut giggled evilly.  "Oh?"

Astrid, taking a deep breath, looked at Ruffnut and said, "Look.  He's hurting.  And I know where your mind went with what I just said, and that this is some kind of a joke to you.  But, no, we haven't done anything like that." 

Fishlegs gave her a polite but questioning glance, eyes pointing out towards the cove where he'd left them the other day, and she quirked an eyebrow back at him with a small shake of her head. 

Well, that answered that question.  It still wasn't his business, but… on some level, Fishlegs found himself oddly angry with Snotlout for having put Hiccup so far off of his feed that even being alone in that cove with his girlfriend for over an hour hadn't helped. 

Ruffnut caught it and looked back and forth between them.  "So… what _did_ you do?"

"I held his hands while Nanna stitched him up," Astrid said curtly. 

"Not what I meant.  What did you _do?_ "

Astrid put her fists on her waist.  "You want to know?"

"Yes?"

"We talked.  Got to know each other better.  But," she reached up and flicked at her circlet, "no, despite what you're thinking, I still can wear this."  She smirked nastily.  "Turns out that Hiccup actually _cares_ about more than just getting laid."  She quirked an eyebrow at Ruffnut.  "How about that, right?"

Ruffnut looked like she was about to say something.  Fishlegs just felt like his face was going to char and melt from the blush.

Then Ruffnut sagged and said, in a quieter voice that was very unlike her, "Yeah.  That's something." 

Astrid smiled and turned to continue up the hill.

Fishlegs looked around.  Nobody seemed to have overheard them; most of the adults were off doing the spring planting and other necessities after the morning's contests.  They couldn't stop working just because of a formal challenge, even an important one.  

As Tuffnut gave a heaving sigh of relief to not have been punched by Astrid, Fishlegs just thought to himself as he watched Astrid walk off. 

This was the difference between treating someone with respect… and not. 

He made a private note to himself that he'd do the same.  He'd find somebody someday, and, when that happened… he'd base his own behavior on Hiccup's… not Snotlout's.  And that wasn't just because, going by observed results, the two of them were happy and Snotlout was off somewhere sulking.  Astrid and Ruffnut were his friends too, and, well… Snotlout basically treated them both like… like they weren't people.  Or at least not like anyone that he respected. 

And Fishlegs knew what that was like enough to be able to commiserate… and understand what it was like to be treated that way. 

His own thoughts were interrupted by one of the younger Jorgenson kids who worked in the Broodery coming running up to him.  "Fishlegs, Fishlegs, come quick!"

"What is it, Picknose?"

"The eggs!  They're making noises!"

###

A week later, Ruffnut stood behind one of the rows of houses in the village, watching her temporary partner in pranking flap down to her. 

"Thanks, Toothless," she whispered as she took the hatchling Nightmare from his paws and slipped it under her arm. 

Toothless gave her an evil-sounding chortle and flapped off a short way, landing on a nearby rooftop to watch. 

The baby dragon in her arm cooed at her and she crooned right back at it, before slipping over to the Jorgenson's house.  Glancing from side to side, she saw that the coast was clear.  She popped open the cellar shutter and tossed in the hatchling.  It landed with a squawk and immediately made a beeline for Snotlout's bed as the nearest cover. 

"Have fun, little guy," she said with a smirk, and closed the shutter. 

Then the door to the house opened and closed, with footsteps echoing inside, and she froze, pressing herself up against the shingles.  Her ear against the wood let her hear everything inside. 

"So what's this about, Stoick?" she heard Spitelout say.

"Yeh heard Hiccup's plan.  He's going to visit some of the local villages as soon as his shoulder heals up."

"Yes, I know," Spitelout replied dryly.

"And he still hasn't been told about the village that yer son raided back in the winter.  But he's planning on visiting."  More footsteps, walking towards her, and she kept very, very still.  "So I think that we should consider not making his job harder… and I think that we should send them some compensation."

"You already—"

"Aye, I know, I passed judgment.  And I'll pay some of the cost meself, as will the Thorstons.  But—"  There was suddenly a sniffing sound.  "Do yeh smell smoke?"

Ruffnut bolted. 

Toothless flew down and she hopped onto his saddle.  A minute or so later, he had run them both back up to the mead hall, where Gobber was finishing up his net across the doorway, with Hiccup and Astrid stringing up another one across the inside of the mead hall's entrance, with a short gap between them.

"Hey there lass.  Did yeh catch him?"

She shook her head.  "No, he ran into the Jorgenson house."

"Blast," Gobber growled, just as another pair of adorable baby Gronckles—one green, one light red—made a bid for freedom through the open door, only to run into the netting.

Gobber sighed, just as Duckquack Ingerman, Fishlegs' younger brother, ran up and caught both of the runaways.  The two cute dragons prompted turned and attempted to crawl up  over him, licked at his hair and cheeks.  Everyone laughed; Duckquack sputtered through his own laughter and said, "That tickles!"  Turning, he ran back to the door that led down to the Broodery—and to the temporary dragon nursery that they'd set up down in one of the larger side chambers.   

Toothless just sat down on the steps and rolled onto his back, laughing. 

Hiccup just gave his dragon a half-amused, half-irked expression, with his lips drawn together in an exaggerated frown, but his eyes were crinkled with laughter.  "Some help you are!  You let a baby outrun you!"

Astrid snorted.  "These little guys can scuttle like lightning.  He's only the _offspring_ of lightning and death."

Toothless made a protesting noise, his expression exaggeratedly offended. 

Hiccup, cocking his head to the side, considered for a moment.  "I see the joke, but it doesn't _quite_ work.  No points."

Astrid gave an exaggerated pout at him, and he smirked. 

Ruffnut felt a pang of jealousy at their banter, especially when Astrid dropped the pout and gave Hiccup a peck on the cheek. 

A baby Timberjack scuttled across the floor, making for the door, with Fishlegs in hot pursuit.  Hiccup braced himself to tackle it, but the bigger boy caught it before it could slice its way through the netting, the way the other one had back at the door to the Broodery, at the back of the hall.  He carried it back off, scolding the dragon. 

Gobber sighed.  "Next year, I'm hanging chain netting.  These ropes aren't cutting it."

Ruffnut smirked.  "Or, rather, they're _being_ cut."

Gobber made a face at her, of the _aren't you so clever_ type.  She grinned. 

Stoick and Spitelout came walking up a minute later, Stoick holding the baby Nightmare cradled in his arms, both of them smelling lightly of woodsmoke.  "Another escapee," Spitelout said crossly.  "This one managed to set half of my son's room to smoking."

As they passed the baby dragon in through the nets, it cooed at Ruffnut, and she gave it a friendly pat.  Then a baby Nadder hopped up on a nearby table and launched itself at the netting, angling itself just right to try to pop through the holes in the net. 

It half-succeeded, and they all had a good laugh as Ruffnut carefully detangled the little dragon from the hemp rope around its neck. 

Fishlegs, having returned, sagged into a nearby chair before accepting the Nadder.  "Well, this has been interesting."

Hiccup laughed.  "Yeah, that's one word for it."

As he spoke, Tuffnut, looking a trifle singed, walked up the stairs with Barf and Belch and four wriggling escapees.  The baby Changewing was curled up around the horns of his helmet, snoozing adorably. 

"Are you sure that this isn't going to start spitting acid?" he asked, pointing at his head.

Fishlegs shrugged.  "They didn't at first.  But I think that that line in the old Dragon Manual must have been talking about hatchlings who were sleeping in their shells, like we've seen them all do, instead of actually freshly hatched ones, because there were points where I could tell that they wanted to, but couldn't."

He reached up and removed the sleepy dragon from Tuffnut's head.  It burped and a dribble of acid bubbled out of its mouth and onto the table, sending up a wisp of smoke.  Her brother's smile turned sickly. 

Stoick was trying hard not to laugh at the commotion.  "Aye, and I thought that human babies were a handful!"

Fishlegs spoke up, as Ruffnut took the baby Zippleback from her brother and gave it a bellyrub.  "They were so well-behaved at first!   They ate and slept in their shells!  Then they all decided to start going exploring at the same time!"

Astrid snorted from nearby, holding a hammer in her right hand and a nail between two of the working fingers on her left.  "At least they haven't started flying yet."

"And that's going to be all sorts of fun when they start doing that," Hiccup said with a smirk. 

Snotlout came running up from the Broodery in hot pursuit of a trio of baby dragons.  Ruffnut watched with a smirk as he did an impromptu juggling act in the back of the room, with one dragon in arm, one having wriggled free and riding on his back, and one on the floor, with the three of them trading places each time he caught the one on the floor. 

After watching the comedy act for a minute or so, she called out to him, "Hey, Snotlout!  This little fella managed to get into your room and set it on fire!" she said, patting the snoozing Nightmare from where it was curled up next to her.

He looked at her and walked over, picked up the baby dragon, and began to coo at it in baby talk.  "Aww, was oo scared of the big mean hoomins?  No, oo wasn't scared, oo went expworing, yes oo did."  He scritched the purple-and-black baby dragon, which made it purr, and leaned to bump his nose gently against its snoot.  "Did you like my place?  Did it smell like your cousin Hookfang?  Aww, who's the bravest little explorer?  Is it you?"

Ruffnut just watched, jaw hanging slightly open. 

So much for _that_ prank.

Two of the dragon hatchlings that he'd been pursuing hopped up onto his shoulders when he crouched, and the third wound its way around his feet, and he carried the four dragons back down into the Broodery space.

"So, Hiccup, what happens next?" Stoick asked. 

Ruffnut just stared at the door to the Broodery, still in a bit of shock at the utter failure of her prank.  Then, shaking it off, she moved to intercept as a few more dragons found their way up into the mead hall.  Just about every kid in the tribe and a fair number of the smaller adults were down in the Broodery now.  The hatchlings, after a week of peacefully staying in their eggshells, had decided to start exploring, and the humans had promptly tried to keep them out of trouble.  That had ended up creating an epic game of hide-and-seek in the process.  There were only about a hundred and fifty of the little dragons, but they sure could move!

Hiccup sucked in a breath.  "Well, we need to put together some kind of nursery for them, probably in the Broodery, just to keep them safe.  And then Gobber gets to make that chain netting to keep them from chopping their way out again."

"Aye, I'll get on that," Gobber said.  "And then—hey!  That tickles!"  A baby Nightmare, this one blue-and-black, was climbing up his back determinedly, and Gobber promptly danced as he tried to dislodge it. 

Mulch and Bucket came in a few minutes later carrying another net, this one full of fresh fish, and set it on the floor near the Broodery door.  The hatchlings that were already loose in the mead hall dove towards the meal and began to feast, but only a few more stragglers came up from below. 

Then Astrid laughed.  When everyone looked at her, she said, "There's still hot air coming up from below.  They can't smell it down there—it's upwind."

That made things a bit more complicated, but not by much, and Ruffnut took a bowl of fish down with her and started a walk through the stone tunnels.  By the time she had reached the bottom levels of the Broodery, she had two dozen hatchlings following her—and occasionally trying to crawl up her legs and back.  Similar processions followed the others. 

Within maybe ten more minutes at most, every single hatchling had been gathered up and were digging in on the fish.  And, like most babies, their table manners were _terrible._

Ruffnut sat and laughed at their antics as Hiccup and Fishlegs tried to count the swarm, Astrid threw fish in the air for them to catch, and Snotlout mock-wrestled and played with the ones that had finished eating.  Then she tried not to scowl as Snotlout tried to sit down next to her, a baby dragon in his lap.

She wondered how much of it was an act to impress her and Astrid… and how much of it was real. 

But, either way… he was treating the baby dragons with more respect than he did her, a thought that came to mind when she saw one of them snap at him for holding it wrong, and he apologized to the week-old reptile. 

And the fact that he could do that for the dragon… and not for her or Astrid…

Well.

That spoke for itself.

* * *

 

**A/N:** Not much to say about the story at this point, although I hope that people are enjoying it.  I do want to express my sincere gratitude to my beta readers (especially **batyatoon** ) for all of their help with refining this story and making it that much better, and to my faithful reviewers.  ^_^    

In related news, sometime in the nearish future, I'm planning on posting a secondary "fic" on this site that will be for the supplemental stuff for this story, like Dramatis Persona lists, maps, and so forth.  That'll be updated as the story progresses with the relevant bits.


	9. Odd Neighbors

**Chapter 9: Odd Neighbors**

**_Berk (Island)_ ** _—Largest island of the four Small Isles of the Alban Hebrides archipelago, and noted for its extreme geography, possessing glacier-carved high mountain peaks and an extensive array of sea caves and wave-carved coastal features.  The island is the ancestral homeland of House Haddock and the other Houses descended from the ancient Hooligan tribe.  Settled by the Hooligan Norse tribe in the early 700s CE as a longphort, to use as a base for further Viking raids against the Irish, Welsh, Alban and Saxon coastlines, the island was one of the focal points of the Dragon War, due to the tenacity and self-admitted stubbornness of the Hooligans._

_—Encyclopedia Norlandia, 7th Edition, 1642, Edinburgh, Scotland_

The small Alban village of Glenfinnan froze, like a hare in an open field as a hawk's shadow falls across it, when the dragons appeared in the sky over the mountain peaks, .

People then began to scurry about, but with the speed that the dragons were approaching, there was little they could do.  The children were hidden by their parents as best they could, while others topped off the barrels of water as they ran to and from the well in a frenzy.  But the flocks were still at pasture, and it would take more time than they had to bring them back to the barns. 

Watching the rising panic around him, the town jarl fell to his knees in the church courtyard and offered a public prayer to Christ to preserve the town—and then a private prayer to Tyr and Thor to protect his home and people.

A number of the other villagers, including the priest, Father Paul, came and joined him, kneeling before the village church.  It was partially made of stone from the fields, and, if it came down to it, they might be able to take refuge from the fires within it. 

The jarl looked up at the approaching dragons.  That they were dragons were obvious… but the incoming flight was small… he squinted and then, seeing the figures on their backs, he gasped.

"It _is_ true," he said in a terrified whisper.  Suddenly, being in front of the church felt much less safe.  While wild dragons would go for the flocks in the fields, as they had in the years past, Vikings had a distinct tendency to loot and burn churches for the relics inside. 

Not that Glenfinnan _had_ anything of such value.

But… it seemed that the rumors were true—the pagan Vikings had managed to subdue and saddle the devil beasts. 

It had been a whisper brought to town by a traveler shortly after Christmas, who had himself heard it from a man in a tavern down by the sea some ten miles away at Arisaig.  They wouldn't have given it credence, being knowledgeable, God-fearing folk, but for his show of a blackened and burned scale larger than his hand, which he had said had come from the Prince of Hell that the Vikings had vanquished in order to claim dominion over its spawn. 

And now those other Vikings were coming to their village, on the backs of devils who could spit hellfire. 

The jarl watched as the dragons circled the village leisurely.  He caught the eye of the senior warrior of the village, his ax at the ready.  Technically, while he, as the jarl, ruled the village by right of blood and could order the warriors to attack, he wasn't _stupid._

The thane looked up at the dragons… and shook his head no. 

Well.  That settled that.  They were still warriors here, but the village was small, and only a handful of men were trained to fight. 

He sighed to himself as the dragons banked… and started coming into land. 

It was not shaping up to be a good afternoon.

A few moments later, the dragons were settling onto the village commons; the villagers themselves were hiding behind walls and buildings as the beasts snorted and clawed at the ground.  He swallowed hard as he looked out onto the grassy field at the flock of dragons.

But, as jarl, it was his job to walk out and see what the demands of the dragon-riders would be.  If worse came to worst, hopefully they'd be willing just to accept the scant tribute that the village could offer.  But with the losses among the flocks over the winter, any such Danegeld would be minimal, and his hopes were not high that his home would survive the day.  If it came down to it, he'd be willing to swear the village as vassal to them in order to keep his people alive. 

So he walked out onto the grassy field.  The sheep that had been grazing there a few minutes before had been hustled into a nearby barn—that would hopefully still be standing in a few minutes.

Before he could say anything, one of the riders, astride a black winged steed, casually called out "Hello!" and waved.

The jarl blinked in surprise.  "Excuse me?"  He had expected a demand for tribute… not a friendly greeting.  But, emboldened by not being immolated, the older man approached.  "I greet you in turn… but I do not give you welcome," he said, "for I do not know you."

"Well, that's what we're here to fix.  Hi, I'm Hiccup, and this is Toothless.  We're just stopping by to get to know the neighbors."

The jarl blinked, even more stunned by the sheer absurdity of that statement.  Here he was prepared to negotiate terms for the continued existence of his community, and instead the boy was treating this as if it were a social call between two housewives when one stopped by to discuss dinner.

Trying to keep his disbelief off of his face, he said, "Getting to know the neighbors…?"

The boy gave an aggrieved sigh before speaking. "Yes.  Getting to know the neighbors."  He slumped slightly in exasperation, reminding Ivor so much of his own grandsons that it was difficult to restrain a smile.  A glance at the dragon's black and green eyes fixed that moment of humor quickly, though.  Young man or not, the dragon rider was deadly dangerous.  Even if he was failing to act like he was.  Or, alternately… that it _was_ an act to begin with. 

Not knowing Ivor's thoughts, the young man continued to speak, his tone one of long-suffering vexation.  "Why is that so hard for people to believe?  We live about, oh, ten or so leagues thataway," he pointed vaguely to the west, "and I want people to know that."  He shrugged.  "Mind if I get off Toothless here?  I don't want his back to hurt, plus I feel silly talking down to you."

The jarl felt his eyebrows rise up to what was left of his hairline, and a slightly bemused smile rose unbidden.  "Oh, certainly," he said dryly.  "Please.  Come down off your high dragon."

Without a word, the boy hopped off, and stumbled a bit.  The jarl quickly hid a look of surprise when he saw that the boy's left leg was an intricate assembly of wood and metal.  He also had a Mjolnir pendant around his neck, which was less surprising, but unusual to see on one so weedy. 

The other riders dismounted as well.  A girl with a kransen circlet in her hair hopped off another beast, while a boy and girl who were obviously twins dismounted from a double-headed dragon.  Another two boys came down from the backs of two more dragons, one boy tall and stout, the other short and squat. 

"Ah, that's better," the leader said, stretching, and then he extended a hand to the magistrate.  "Let's keep going.  Hi, I'm Hiccup Haddock.  My father is the chief of Berk.  This is Toothless, Astrid clan Hofferson, Stormfly, Fishlegs clan Ingerman, Meatlug, Ruffnut and Tuffnut clan Thorston, Barf, Belch, Snotlout clan Jorgenson and Hookfang," he said, alternating between pointing at a person and pointing at a dragon, or at least a dragon's head, in the case of the beast with two of them. 

The jarl just blinked.  "I see.  I am Jarl Ivor of Glenfinnan."  He extended his own hand, and the boy, Hiccup, shook it. 

"So, Hiccup, why are you here?"

"Well, a few reasons.  First, an apology.  Did you lose some cattle over the winter?"

Ivor froze, and then nodded slowly, eyes narrowed.  "Aye…"

"Well, _some_ people thought that the best use for a new dragon was to do to other people what we had to deal with all these years," Hiccup said; his voice was level, but his eyes flitted to the side where the Jorgenson boy was standing, looking belligerent.

Ivor had the distinct feeling that he was missing a great deal of history in that moment.

"Regardless, to get things off on the right foot," he grimaced at his own false foot and then forced a smile, "we're here to apologize.  Berk is officially sorry that some of our local idiots decided to enrich themselves at your expense, and I'm here not only to say that, but to try to pay you back as best we can.  And to say that if you have any _more_ problems with dragons—or dragon riders—call on us.  Because I… _we_ are not going to tolerate that behavior."  He turned his head.  "So… Snotlout?"

The Jorgenson boy scowled.  Hiccup stepped aside on the line between him and Ivor, surprisingly graceful for someone with a false foot.  However, instead of walking towards Ivor as Hiccup had indicated, the shorter boy turned to his leader, his shoulders hunched, eyebrows narrowed together and lips drawn together in a mulish grimace, and shoved a purse at him, a purse that _clinked_ in intriguing ways. Hiccup just pushed it back.  "Not to me.  To him."

With a put-upon scowl, the Jorgenson boy practically slammed the purse into Ivor's hands and walked off back to his dragon. 

Hiccup just sighed. 

"Could you see that that gets to the people who owned the cattle and sheep that were stolen?" he asked. 

Ivor went to open the purse, only to find that it was sewn shut.  "Not wanting to tempt thieves, I take it?"

Hiccup quirked an eyebrow and nodded slightly, and produced a knife from a side sheath, and offered the hilt to Ivor.  Ivor took it, slit open the bag, and handed the knife back to the boy. 

His composure then failed him for a moment when he saw that the bag was filled with copper and silver coins, enough to replace the cattle and sheep that had been stolen, with some extra.  Fighting to keep his voice level, he said, "Well, I'll see what I can do.  If nothing else, this will help when we next pay taxes, so thank you."

"Glad to hear it.  Second thing was to introduce ourselves.  To everyone, I mean."  He shrugged, spreading his hands widely.  "As you might have noticed…" he indicated the villagers who were watching from behind every building and object around the commons; heads were peeking out more and more frequently as their talk wore on, "people are kinda scared of us.  On the idea that if you know something, it's not as scary… I'm hoping to introduce ourselves around a bit, so that we're _neighbors_ , not the 'scary monster riders by the sea,' and so that people can feel like they know us," he said.

Ivor quirked an eyebrow at the boy, uncertain if he was serious or not, but managed to voice a reasonably level-toned, "Seems reasonable."   Inwardly, he was… skeptical.  The quiet shuffling of dozens of people holding their breath and watching being the loudest noise aside from the dragons and their riders, and he was getting glares from the Jorgenson boy every so often, when the shorter boy apparently thought that Ivor wasn't looking.  If not the red-and-black dragon that he was riding, Ivor would have been amused and perhaps told the young man to go chop some firewood until he calmed down. 

"And, as part of that… maybe get people used to the dragons," Hiccup said.  "They're really friendly."

Ivor didn't say anything beyond an eloquent skeptical expression that he usually reserved for mediating drunken arguments between his villagers. 

Much like the youths he had last used that expression upon, Hiccup sighed with dampened hope.  "Well, it's worth a try."  The boy shrugged.  "At the very least, can you tell your people that we won't bite them?  Or burn them, or anything like that?  We're here to be nice."

Ivor gave the boy another critical look of skepticism.  "I have it on your honor, and by the gods that you worship, that you will not attack this place?"

"You do."

Ivor looked at the young man and considered.  Try as he might, he couldn't see any sane way in which the young man's actions were the prelude to his home being burned down around him.  For certain, there might be some convoluted and ludicrous scheme at work here—perhaps claiming hospitality and then claiming insult—but that seemed to be so complicated a means as to be laughable.  Such deeds were more the purview of a skald's tale of deadly dances between feuding lords… not that of a poor and vulnerable village standing in the face of dragon riders.  Especially with the coin that had been paid…

If anything, Ivor was certain that, if this was some ploy in an ongoing feud between Hiccup and the Jorgenson boy, he and his home were the tool, not the work. 

And… on further consideration…

Being the tool of the man who paid for stolen cattle and professed a desire for peace was a better option than being the weapon of someone who was giving Ivor angry glares as only the truest of hot-heads could manage.

So he smiled.  "Well, at the very least, you have come a long way, and with gifts and reparations."  He called out to the hidden villagers. "They swear to be peaceful!  Come, we can show at least _some_ hospitality to these unexpected guests!"

For the span of several slow breaths, there was near-complete silence.

Then there was the distinct sound of someone scurrying to a new hiding place.

Ivor sighed.  "People of Glenfinnan!" he called out.  "They are our guests!  They've sworn on their honor to be peaceful!  Let us not shame ourselves!"

A group of young boys, a few years younger than the dragon-rider in front of him, emerged from behind a stack of barrels a bit sheepishly, holding knives that they quickly put away.  More of the villagers followed, appearing from doorways and behind haystacks… a hiding place that made Ivor again question the sense of the village brewer.  Hiding in a pile of hay… around dragons…  Ivor shook his head and resolved to talk to the man as more of his people emerged from their hiding places.

The group of young men approached the dragon-riders cautiously, and Ivor hid a smirk.  They were obviously terrified, but none of them wanted to show it in front of the other boys.

Ivor just bowed politely to his new guests, and said, "Sir Hiccup, these are my grandson Jacob and his friends."

###

Hiccup looked at the younger boys and smiled.  As they approached hesitantly, he called out to them, "Hey guys, anyone interested in flying on a dragon?"

One of the boys looking at his friends to his right and left, and Hiccup could practically see him screw up his courage to the sticking point and walk forward.  "Sure…?"

With a grin, Hiccup hopped onto Toothless's saddle and extended his hand.  "Here, hop on."

The boy looked at Toothless, with his clean black hide and wide green eyes, looked at Hiccup, looked at Astrid for a brief moment, then at the spike-festooned Deadly Nadder, then back at Astrid, then back at Stormfly and then Toothless before wordlessly accepting Hiccup's proffered hand. 

As he climbed into the saddle, the boy looked around hesitantly, as if doubting the intelligence of his decision.  "Ready?" Hiccup asked.

A hard swallow was the entirety of his answer.

"All right.  Toothless?  Shall we?  Gently."

Toothless seemed to consider that for a brief moment, cocking his head back and forth.  Hiccup, knowing his friend's liking for practical jokes on those that he considered deserving, just said, " _He_ hasn't hit me with the butt of an ax, bud."

The dragon considered that for a moment, rocking his head back and forth in thought, and then gave a little chuckle.  The boy tensed behind Hiccup, and then Toothless took a leisurely downbeat, raising them into the air.  They started with circling over the village, Toothless made a resigned toss of the head, which Hiccup had learned was draconic equivalent of a deadpan shrug, clearly wanting to show off and being rather bored with the fledgling stuff. 

The boy, however, was in awe.  "I've seen it from the peaks, herding goats and sheep, but…"  He trailed off, as they began to fly higher and higher, the mountains of Alba beginning to stretch out before them.  A distant loch glimmered in a valley between two ridges to the east, and the sea stretched to the horizon to the west.

"Any place that you want to see?" Hiccup asked, smiling, and the boy pointed to one of the nearby mountaintops. 

"All right!"  Hiccup leaned back in the saddle and pointed Toothless towards the peak.  After a moment, Toothless muttered something and twitched a bit.  Hiccup thought for a moment and then asked plainly, "So… Toothless wants to show off.  Just don't be scared, okay?"

"Uh…" and that was as far as he got before Toothless began to race.  Once he had built up a head of speed, he started to dive, and the ground came at them at high speed. 

The boy was screaming in Hiccup's ear. 

As he could start making out the individual trees hugging the side of the mountain, Hiccup had a moment of remembering his first ride with a passenger.  "At least he isn't spinning this time!"

And… he had spoken too soon.

"Toothless!" he chided as the boy screamed, either in terror or exhilaration, behind him.

There was a rumble, and the ride smoothed out as they approached the base of the mountain peak.  The boy was gasping for air behind him, clutching on tight to Hiccup.

"Dear God in Heaven," he managed to cough out.  "He's _crazy_."

"Nah, just bored.  It was a bit of a flight to get to your village," Hiccup said back, nonchalantly.  Toothless could have made the flight in half the time it had taken, but they'd been slowed by Meatlug and Barf and Belch.  "This is like you or me going for a run around the village after having to sit all day or having to pull stumps."  He leaned over and said into Toothless's ear, "Don't worry, bud, you'll get plenty of chances to show off today."

They soared up the side of the mountain and over the peak, the boy looking down and over the side as the stone passed far below, transfixed.

"…I tried to hike up that once, when I was watching the goat herd.  I… uh… didn't make it."

Hiccup grinned.  "Enjoying the view?"

"Yeah, oh yeah.  Wow.  Is that the sea?"

"Yep.  Berk is in that direction," Hiccup pointed westward, towards the islands. 

"I've never seen it before.  I've spent my whole life between those mountains…" the boy said in awe.

Hiccup smiled.  "I know what you mean!  But the world is big, and there's so much to see!"

The boy laughed, and they banked up through some clouds.  He shuddered behind Hiccup from the chill.  "They're wet!  Like fog!"

"I think they _are_ fog!" he called back.  "Fog must be clouds that get too heavy and hug the ground or something."

They banked back towards the village, the boy eagerly leaning over the side and pointing out landmarks below, occasionally quieting and glancing back at the mountain peak as he realized how small his world had been until now.

As Toothless touched down in the village commons, the boy slid off the saddle, looking at Toothless in awe, and patted the dragon on the flank. 

"Thank you," he said to Hiccup, a wide and amazed grin on his face.  The other boys were staring in wonderment.

Hiccup just grinned.  "You're welcome."

With that, the ice seemed to have be broken, and for the next hour or two of the day, they gave dragon rides around the valley and village.  Toothless got to show off, skimming the waves of the lake that went up to the village, Loch Shiel, dancing around the mountain peaks, and, in one case, helping a young man a few years older than him pay a visit to the neighboring village, Kinlocheil, a few miles away, to visit a girl that he was courting.  _That_ raised a stir when he arrived, and Hiccup wished him the best of luck, and a safe walk back.  He and Toothless then paid a visit to Beinn Nibheis, which was supposedly the tallest peak in all of Alba, and looked out over the Highlands. 

Astrid, Stormfly and her own passengers, a pair of young maidens from the village, joined them, and the six of them looked out over the mountains and valleys that rose and fell like stone waves.  One of the young women fell to her knees and offered a fervent prayer in awe at the sight, and then thanked Astrid and Stormfly for bringing her up here.

Even Ivor took two rides as the afternoon wore on, although his flight was much more practical; he wanted to closely examine a potential pasturage that the village would hopefully expand to in the next year, and taking a look from the air gave him a different perspective on where to put the pathways and the like. 

Meanwhile, Snotlout was trying, unsuccessfully, to convince the village maidens to fly on Hookfang's back.  Thankfully, none of them were taking him up on the offer, and were going with Astrid and the twins instead.  Barf and Belch, it turned out, while not fast, could carry five or six people on their back and still fly without problems.  And the twins were thankfully behaving themselves when it came to pranks.  The biggest issue they'd had was tossing one young lout off of the Zippleback and into the loch when he started posturing about threatening their dragon. 

Fishlegs and Meatlug, on the other hand, were being helpful.  A few inconvenient boulders in the fields were being carried off by the Gronckle, and when they were too big for her to lift, she just demonstrated the strength of Gronckle jaws by cracking the rocks down to manageable size.  And that made a big impression.  People were watching as she reduced a poorly located boulder the size of a large tent down to rubble and cleared the field in an hour.  There were gasps as she worked, and, as the last piece was carried off to help build up the stockade fence for the sheep, there was applause. 

Hiccup just beamed at Fishlegs and Meatlug for it.  Fishlegs grinned right back and went to help with some more of the local construction needs. 

After the hours passed, Ivor took him aside.  "So… young Hiccup.  I have a question for you."

Hiccup nodded.  "Yes?"

"What now?"

Quirking an eyebrow, Hiccup balled his fists and stretched out his back by pushing at the bottom of his spine.  "Now… what?  We're going to fly off to a couple of other villages in the area, greet people, let them know that we're in the area and where to find us…"

"Where else are you planning on going?" the jarl asked.

"Umm… still figuring that out.  Caol, Laggan, Inverness, Elgin… places like that," he said, ticking off on his fingers as he listed a few of the larger towns and villages scattered around the highlands. 

"And you'll be telling them the same things as you told us?"

Hiccup nodded, feeling like there was something that he was missing… but said, "Yes.  If anyone has any problems with dragons, to let us know.  We're trying to keep the peace around here."

"And what about problems that aren't dragon-related?" Ivor asked. 

Hiccup gave him an odd look.  "What, like helping with the fields and stuff like that?"  He shrugged.  "I don't see a problem with that.  We've been using the dragons for helping out at home, and I see no reason why we can't help…  Sure.  If you have any problems, let me know."

Ivor had a satisfied look on his face that seemed… odd to Hiccup, and extended a hand to shake.  "Sounds fine to me.  Thank you, young man."

Hiccup nodded and shook the man's hand.  "You're… welcome?" 

Ivor smiled and patted him on the shoulder, and gave him a quick tour of the village.  Astrid suddenly caught his eye, and she was frowning at him for some reason, but one of the girls standing next to her politely tapped her on the shoulder and asked for a final ride on Stormfly before they flew off. 

Just as Ivor finished showing him around, an older woman hesitantly walked up to him.  "Pardon me… my lord dragon tamer…" she said uncertainly, as Hiccup sighed internally. 

"Yes, ma'am?"

"You said that you were going to Laggan?"

"Yes…?" Hiccup said, giving her a questioning look.  That was one of the villages he had mentioned to Ivor that they were planning on visiting next; it was maybe twenty-five miles distant as the dragon flew, according to the rather poor map Hiccup had.  Supposedly, according to gossip, there was a large Tidal-class dragon in the loch to the north that he wanted to check out.  

She thrust a package forward.  "Could you take this to there? My daughter married a young man there nearly two years ago, and, well, if you're already going…"  She looked at him with worry and hope.

Hiccup shrugged and took the package, which felt moderately well packed, wrapped in leather and twine and freshly sealed with wax.  

"Certainly," he said, smiling.  "What's her name?"

"Beitris.  Beitris Murdagdoittor."

Hiccup smiled and managed to wrangle the package into his saddlebags.  "I'll do my best to deliver it to her hands," he said.  "You have my word." 

She beamed at him, and gave him a hesitant pat on the shoulder.  "You seem like a good lad.  How did you end up consorting with devils?"

Hiccup sighed.  "They're not devils.  Or demons.  They're very smart animals, and are very kind and nurturing."

He pointed towards where Barf and Belch were playing with the village's children, who had gotten over their fear of the dragons quickly, and were treating the Zippleback as a climbing toy, much to the dragon's dual amusement. 

"Does that look infernal to you?"

"Aye, I suppose not," she said concedingly.  "Just unnatural, I suppose.  If God had intended for man to fly, he would have made us with wings."

Hiccup shrugged.  "By that same idea, I could point out that if the gods intended us to be able to walk around in the winter, they would have given us sheep's wool and a cow's hide."

"…Aye, I suppose," she said, and changed the subject.  "I thank you again for taking me package to me daughter."

Hiccup just smiled.  "Not a problem.  Thank you for giving me your trust.  I'll do my best to fulfill it."

"Hiccup, come on!  Time's a-wasting!" Snotlout called irritably. 

Hiccup just smiled and hopped on Toothless' saddle.  Snotlout was clearly irked at his lack of success with the local ladyfolk.  "Goodbye!" he waved, and they took flight.  

###

As the village receded into the distance behind them, Astrid pulled up Stormfly next to Toothless and Hiccup.

"Hiccup!  I need to talk to you about this!" she called over the wind streaming past them.

"What's wrong?" he called back, inching Toothless closer so they wouldn't have to shout.

As they reached conversational distance, with the dragons only needing to flap their wings occasionally, she sighed and said, "Look, this sounded like a great idea back on Berk, but it's not going to work."

"Huh?" Hiccup looked confused, and a bit put off.  "What do you mean?  It's working fine!"

"No, Hiccup, it _isn't._ "  She steeled herself with a deep breath and said, "Look, there were a few people that were listening, and we got them interested, and we helped them out…"  She made an angry gesture as she tried to get her thoughts in order.  "But you weren't paying attention!  Not to all of them!  Not to what they were saying, or how they were acting!"  She clenched her fists, the splints on her left hand hurting, but she bulled past the pain and said, "The rest of their tribe was terrified!  They only let the children out to play with Barf and Belch when we asked, and their mothers were terrified.  They were _all_ terrified!  They were making sure that they had firewatch people by the water barrels all the time, and when Meatlug cracked that boulder, half of the warriors looked at their weapons like they were useless!"  Hiccup looked like he wanted to say something, but she just kept going.  "They were frightened of our dragons!  And I can't blame them!"

"But the dragons are peaceful now!"

"Hiccup, they're peaceful to _us,_ but we're Vikings!  For all they know, we were just out scouting, and we're going to pull a Snotlout and do an old-fashioned Viking raid on dragonback!"

"That's crazy!" Hiccup said heatedly. 

Her face set, she continued.  "Hiccup, you just see your friend when you look at Toothless.  _They_ see a crazy Viking on the back of a living weapon, saying that he just wants to be nice!  I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of them back there are talking about how much tribute they can afford in order to keep you 'being nice' the _next_ time you show up on Toothless!" 

"Are you saying that they're _expecting_ me to start extorting them!?" Hiccup shot back angrily.

"Hiccup, you completely _missed_ that Ivor was asking you if he was our vassal now!  And who _else_ we were going to vassalizing!"

He just stared at her, aghast, and said, "No, no, he was asking for help with—"

"'Non-dragon problems!'  Like a raiding party from his neighbors!  Hiccup, that's not a 'let's be good neighbors' question, that's a vassal trying to figure out what he can call on from his lord!  As far as Ivor is concerned—"

"But I didn't promise that!"

"You _did!_   You promised that Berk would help!"

"And I didn't demand anything, so how can they be our vassals!?"

"Put yourself in their place, Hiccup!  You're not on Berk, you don't have a long tradition of fighting dragons, and a bunch of Vikings that _do_ have that tradition come flying in on dragons and saying that they just want to be peaceful!?  Would _you_ believe them?"

"Yeah, I would!  Look at Berk!  We had a 'long tradition of fighting dragons', and now just about everybody in the tribe has a dragon friend!  If they see us and see that we're being friendly, why _wouldn't_ they believe it!?  They have no reason to believe that we're not being honest!"

Astrid threw up her hands in frustration.  "Hiccup, listen to me!  I was watching the group of them back there!  We didn't meet more than half of the village!  Mothers were hiding their youngest children from us!  Men were keeping axes and bows at the ready!  They were scared out of their minds that a wrong move from them would end with us burning their homes to the ground—"

"But I would never do that!"

"THEY DON'T KNOW YOU!" Astrid shouted.

Hiccup's face soured, and he clicked Toothless' harness and banked away without another word.

Astrid, gritting her teeth, watched him go, sliding off to the other side of the formation, where he took up position behind Fishlegs and Meatlug.  With a sigh, she and Stormfly assumed the lead position.  The twins were cracking jokes until she glared at them, which made them shut up, or at least quiet down.  Snotlout, amazingly, wasn't taking the opportunity to hit on her either. 

They flew on over the Highlands below, Astrid's heart feeling like a lump in her chest.


	10. Whetstones

**Chapter 10: Whetstones**

_Perhaps the second most mythologized human figure to come out of the Norse domestication of dragons is the Hero's father, Stoick the Vast, a.k.a. Stoick the Lawgiver, Stoick the Wise, Odin's Spear-carrier, and other such titles.  Primary sources from his personal contemporaries are minimal, with most of the surviving sources being from the perspective of his son and others of his generation.  While the legends generally agree on the broad strokes of his life, the details are shrouded in mutually exclusive legends and myth.  This especially pertains to the periods of his life preceding the ascendance of his son; mythologized and mutually contradictory accounts of his childhood, young adulthood, and ancestry are common.  Even specific points that many of these accounts agree on have an odor of myth.  For example, it is unknown if he truly did 'pop a dragon's head clean off of its neck' as a toddler, as is claimed by legend.  His later accomplishments are known with more certainty, but the blank slate of his life prior to the birth of his son has resulted in endless embellishments of his youth, which makes determining the truth a near impossibility._

_This is not helped by the fact that the man had a literally larger-than-life stature; in an era in which the average height of an adult man was sixty-eight-and-one-quarter inches (173.4 cm), Stoick, from modern analysis of his remains and attested from numerous primary sources, is confirmed to have measured eighty-one-and-a-half inches (207 cm) in height, with a build to match._

_Additionally, other romanticized aspects of his life are well-substantiated, rendering the sorting of truth from fiction to be more difficult.  Perhaps the single most famous example of this is his famous devotion to his wife, Valka.  As the cultural expectation of a high ranking Norseman of the era, even on Berk, was to be polygamous, Stoick's attested monogamy has been the subject of significant romanticization…_

_—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd._

With an impressed whistle, King Mac Bethad looked at the wooden coffer filled with neatly bagged dragons' teeth.  He reached in, picked out a bag at random, and opened the drawstrings.  A pile of sharp ivory teeth the length of his hand lay inside the bag. 

Lips pursed thoughtfully, he palmed one of the teeth, feeling its dense weight in his hand, and then closed the bag and replaced it in the chest.  Playing with the tooth like a worrystone, he looked up at his spymaster, Taskill, and the three men that he'd handpicked to scout the Hooligans' Thaw Festival, Alan, Iain, and Gregor.  They'd gone in the guise of merchants, as Mac Bethad had decided against opening formal recognition of the chief with an official envoy. 

They'd returned the day before yesterday, having taken their time in returning, having had to lay over on Manau for four days due to spring thunderstorms.  Then Taskill, in his habitual suspicion, had taken several precautions against them being noticed entering the citadel, and that had added some more delays. 

But now it was time to find out more than hearsay and the growing legends of the Dragon Riders of Berk. 

He, his wife Gruoch, and several of his most trusted advisers were currently in his private chambers, with armed guards standing at the doors between them and the outside.  Over Taskill's protests, the window shutters had been opened, with curtains to muffle the sound.  Privacy was all well-and-good, but nearly a dozen people in the small room would quickly render the space to stifling, and the courtyard below was private.  Raghnell, his steward, was taking advantage of the daylight to take notes, which Taskill had grudgingly allowed. 

He examined the three spies, who were looking distinctly uncomfortable at having an audience with their king.  Pleasantly bland, with nothing noteworthy about their appearances, they were stout sorts who would not stand out on the deck of a ship or in the ranks of an army or crowd.  The only aspect of note was that their eyes were alight with intelligence, looking around noting details, even as they sat nervously before him, their sovereign. 

He poured a draught of ale for himself and another for his wife from the small cask sitting on the nearby table, sat in the straw-padded chair next to her, and nodded to the men.

"I know that normally Taskill would be the one to direct such questionings and would then report to me.  However, under the circumstances, I thought it best that we all be present.  I know that I will have questions."  He waved to his spymaster.  "Taskill, if you would?"

The dour man nodded and looked at the trio.  He had been… less than happy when Mac Bethad had leaned on him for this special session, although he understood it, and had reluctantly agreed to it. 

"All right then, boys.  Let's start with the basics.  Tell us about the place itself.  Alan, you first."

The spy nodded and said, "Not much to tell.  It's up in the Hebrides, north of the kingdom proper.  Small village, built into one of the smaller islands.  Sheep, cattle, wild boars in the forest, fishing in the sea; pretty much a sleepy fishing village with a few hundred people, except for the dragons."

"Is it defensible?"

The three men looked at each other and nodded.  Gregor spoke up.  "As much as any place without a wall is defensible.  The coast is rocky, mostly cliffs and the like.  They've already built into one of the few sheltered harbor spaces, and it's behind a bunch of sea stacks and shoals.  If anyone tried to take a big fleet in there, they'd lose ships to collisions and beachings."

"What do they have for defenses?"

"Some catapults, but the dragons did a number on those.  Plus I think every adult in the village is a fighter on some level, from what we got.  Call it about four or five hundred warriors total."  There were looks around the room at that.  A formidable force, but nothing that Mac Bethad's own forces couldn't defeat in an afternoon's battle.  Presuming, of course, that said battle happened _on the ground_. 

"Every adult?  But… how does that work?" Gruoch said, honest puzzlement in her voice.  "Or, rather, who _does_ the work, if they don't have carls and thralls to do the labor?"

"Milady Queen, as strange as it sounds, from what we saw and were told, they got rid of the thane, carl, thrall system; as far as we could tell, everyone there is some weird mix of thane and carl—they fight, but they also work.  Even the Chieftain."

There were raised eyebrows at this.  Mac Bethad found the very idea incomprehensible.  Oh, certainly, he owned farms and other lands, but they were worked by serfs and thralls.  He himself was too occupied with affairs of state to spend his time on the fields. 

"Did you find out more about that?"

"Aye.  Turns out what thralls they _did_ have got freed four or five generations ago, if they were willing to fight when the dragon attacks picked up.  And they all did.  Or, at least, that's what a very drunk Viking told me over some wine that we brought."

Mac Bethad cocked his head in thought.  "Bizarre, but I can see the thought behind it.  But… Vikings without thralls?  How strange."

"Our thoughts exactly, sire," the spy Iain said.  "Some of the contests we saw were very… well, they weren't for _warriors,_ but for carls and the like, and it was surreal to see Vikings treat the outcome of a contest of carrying sheep with the same weight as a more martial competition."

Mac Bethad took a drink of his ale and absently played with the dragon's tooth in the other hand.  After a moment, he nodded.  "I can see the thread of it, though.  Hmm.  Well, continue."

With a nod of acknowledgment, Taskill asked, "How big is the village?"

"A few dozen houses at most.  Maybe as many as a hundred or slightly more scattered across the island for the farms.  They had to keep rebuilding them because of dragons burning down the houses for generations," Gregor said.

Alan spoke up.  "They're built out on this staggered cliff area with some light pasturage immediately around the village; there's a big stone peak in the area, almost a pillar, perhaps a hundred or two hundred feet in height, and they've built their great hall into a cave at the base.  They have a dragon-fighting arena from their old days built into another peak nearby.  That one also has a hollow at the base that they built into.  They used to use it to hone their skills against captured dragons, and train new warriors, but now it's just used as a place to practice riding."

"Interesting…" Taskill made a note.  "Anything else on the village?"

"Well, there is one thing that I found of interest—" Iain spoke up, and Gregor shook his head.

"Yes, Iain?" Taskill said.  "Gregor, let me be the judge of things of interest."

Gregor nodded, chastened, and Iain said, "Well, two things that I found interesting was that they have a wealth of iron from trade, selling the corpses of the dragons they killed, but they didn't just spend all of their wealth on metal.  They also bought dyes and paints and the like."  He nodded towards the chest of teeth.  "I got that off of the Hero himself when he came to my stall in the festival market, and they were just as interested in the ink as they were the weapons.  Actually, regarding the Hero—"

Taskill interrupted.  "One thing at a time.  We will get to him shortly.  But I don't want to get off topic.  You mentioned iron and dyes and paints.  What did they use those for?"

"Well, the iron was all over the village.  Weapons, of course, but also they used it for building—they put bands around the bases of their signal fires to reinforce them—and their fighting arena had a chain net to keep the dragons inside.  But… even though the houses were all new, they were all splendidly carved and decorated."  He nodded towards a decorative wall hanging on the chamber wall.  "That would be normal there in most of the homes.  Even the iron banding on the houses and such were decorated.  It was actually… quite… pretty."

Mac Bethad raised an eyebrow.  "Interesting…  but I wonder why you raised the point?"

"Well, sire… I asked about it.  Nothing too direct, but when I said that it was an awful deal of work to do when the dragons kept burning down the houses and all of that decoration, one of them told me that that was the _point._   That they did it because they were stubborn.  It might have been _easier_ to stop making beautiful houses… but that would have been an admission of defeat _._   Of something that they'd had taken away.  So they kept carving and painting and decorating, just to shout their defiance in the face of their enemies."

Mac Bethad looked at the tooth that he was still idly playing with, and nodded in acknowledgment.  "Aye.  That is a good point.  Thank you for raising it."

Iain smiled and bowed his head.  "Thank you sire."

Taskill let the moment last for a count of three, and then continued.  "Anything else about the village itself?  I would have preferred that previous point to have been saved for the villagers, but I see the connection."

The three looked at each other and shook their heads.  "No, not really.  They have no fortifications, no walls of any significance.  It's just…" Gregor spread his hands with a questioning look, "it's just a small fishing village with a bunch of hard-headed, hard-drinking Vikings who live off the sea, bow down to pagan idols, and are too stubborn to leave."  He gave a helpless shrug.  "If not for the dragons, it would be nearly unexceptional.  We must have passed a dozen like it on the shores between here and there."

"Well," Taskill said dryly, "we'll get to the dragons in a moment.  What about the people, as Iain has already started us on the topic?"

"Well, I talked with a fair few, when I worked the stall."  Iain shrugged.  "Five major clans—Haddock, Hofferson, Ingerman, Jorgenson, Thorston, each with a clan head.  Haddock is the chieftain's clan, and the smallest of the five, due to casualties from the war and sheer rotten luck, from what I heard.  There are also a fair number of freedmen and clan outsiders, although I didn't learn too much on how they handle that sort of thing.  Call it seven hundred people in total, maybe a hundred and twenty per clan."

"And how are they?"

"They're thick-headed, thick-bodied, ax-swinging Vikings with a weakness for pretty things.  Without the dragons, _also_ not that exceptional, all things considered."  Iain looked at the other two.  "With one… notable exception."

"The Hero," Mac Bethad said in a low, anticipatory voice, leaning in.  Now came the truly interesting parts.  "Tell us about him."

"Aye, my lord," Alan said, shifting in his chair uncomfortably.  "Just… we're telling you truth as best we can, and swear before God that we're not lying.  Please understand that."

Mac Bethad gave them a magnanimous wave and said, "Please, continue."

"Well, first thing is, they have some very _odd_ naming traditions there—"

"Which are fortunately dying out," Gregor muttered under his breath.

 "—so they give their children… silly names to frighten off monsters."

"Didn't work," observed Iain. 

"But you know how traditions can be," Alan said, moving resolutely ahead.  "So… the Hero's name is… Hiccup."

The entire other side of the room blinked in unison. 

"Repeat that?" Taskill said, regaining his composure first.

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock, the _Third,_ " Gregor said with a mournful look.  "Apparently they liked the name so much that they used it twice already."

Mac Bethad looked at the three men, who were looking as if they had been sat down in the dentist's chair against their will, and the man with the bloodstained apron was approaching them with his pulling tongs.  They were all serious men, not given to idle jesting, and, well, he needed them.  He sighed, and the three men relaxed as one.  "You did warn us," he said.  "I am not going to kill my messengers.  Pray, continue."  He paused for a moment.  "Continue speaking, that is.  Not praying.  I will be patient."

"Aye, my lord," Alan said.  "Well, he's very much not like the rest of them."

"How so?" Taskill asked. 

"In every way," Gregor said.  "He is small, weak, and has no skill at arms."

"Then how did he defeat the Night Fury in the first place?" Mac Bethad asked.  "I was given to understand that it was an epic battle, worthy of song."

Alan shook his head.  "The boy—and he _is_ a boy, rising sixteen, apparently, and just starting to grow like a weed—apparently made some war machine worthy of Archimedes and _shot_ the dragon out of the sky with it."

"Truly?" Mac Bethad asked, surprised.  That hadn't been the tale told. 

Alan nodded.  "Truly, my lord.  And when I say 'worthy of Archimedes,' I mean it.  The boy is a _genius._ "

Iain held up his hand and started ticking off on his fingers.  "While I was there, I saw riding tack specialized for each breed of dragon.  I've had to deal with enough harness- and saddle-makers to know how difficult it is simply to craft new saddles for horses, and at least _they_ have the courtesy of all having the same body shape and size."

Gregor nodded in agreement.  "I got a peek inside of his workroom in the village smithy.  Lining the shelves and covering the walls were designs and models of war machines and various arcane devices whose functions I could not guess at."

Iain picked back up.  "In the practical department, though, he has already devised a method to harness dozens of dragons _together_ to lift heavy objects.  I grew up on a farm, and I know what an accomplishment _that_ is, having had to manage the yokes of separate beasts so that they all pull together.  From what I saw, his mind is even more dangerous than his pets."

Mac Bethad raised his eyebrow at this.  More dangerous than dragons?  He'd been expecting a warrior—dangerous, but in a known way—not whatever this boy apparently was, and felt himself shifting as quickly as he could.  "That is a bold claim.  Do you truly feel that he is that dangerous?"

"Aye, sire," Iain said.  "I saw a mind whose intellect shone like the sun at mid-day.  In a matter of two weeks, he designed, built and _perfected_ a replacement tail for his dragon that allows it to fly with his aid after its injury.  If you knew of a smith who could make a man a metal hand nearly indistinguishable from his flesh and blood, would you not find him a marvel if he were beholden to you, and a danger if he were not?"

"Aye, I suppose I would.  What is this about the tail?"

"He injured the dragon with his weapon such that it could not fly, and when it was lamed, managed to tame it and befriend it.  The beast is _very_ intelligent itself; I saw that it understood the spoken word clearly, and found myself wishing that my hounds could understand my wishes half as clearly."

"We will get to discussing the beast in a minute," Taskill said testily.  "About the boy-hero… he is still a boy.  Is he well-favored?  Handsome?  Young men are susceptible to flattery, no matter how bright they may be.  Would he find it suspicious if some outsider woman found him of interest?"

Gregor winced.  "You're not going to have much in the way of luck there, sir."

"Why not?  Prefers boys?"

"No… not that we could tell, but he has a woman already, from the tribe.  A beauty his own age, and the enchantment there is quite mutual.  They were quite devoted to each other." 

"Feh.  Young love.  It fades with time.  We could remove the girl and put one of our own in her place, he wouldn't notice a difference so long as there's a warm one… or two or three, in his bed," Taskill said dismissively.

The three shared a glance and Iain said hesitantly, "I rather doubt that, my lord.  But, as you say…"

"Eh, I suppose.  Besides, if it _is_ young love, the best way to turn him against us mercilessly would be to be caught doing the removal."  Taskill shrugged.  "Let some other fool take that risk, and we'll attempt to move in if there an opportunity."  He made another note.  "What is the girl's name, at least?" 

"Astrid Hákonsdoittor, clan Hofferson.  She displayed great prowess during the competitions.  I would _not_ want to face her on a field of battle," Gregor said, shuddering.  "She reminds me of a shieldmaid I once had to fight.  I survived because I fled before she could cut my hamstrings.  Potent and vicious."

Iain smirked.  "And she has the Damascus knife now, sire," he said to Mac Bethad. 

The king quirked an eyebrow and toyed with the dragon's tooth a bit more.  "Oh?"  He'd once liked that knife, but he'd given it up to flesh out the spies' wares for their cover as merchants.  It had been war booty from the clash with his cousin's army last summer; they'd taken it off of one of his cousin's honor guard, whose father had served in the Varangian Guard and had originally brought the blade home with him.  Mac Bethad had once coveted the weapon in more peaceful times, but now it just reminded him of his dead kinsman, and had given it up with a will. 

"Aye.  When they came through the market…"  Iain smiled.  "Well, to be quite honest, it was rather sweet, seeing the boy and his girl.  I offered the jewels, but she was more interested in the weapons."  He cocked his head towards the chest that the tooth had come from.  "We got interrupted by the boy whose dragon was taken by Adalwin's men, but the Hero came back the next day and bought the entire lot.  Paints, inks, parchments and the like for himself, and weapons for his ladylove.  While I sold out the entire stock that we brought with us to the tribe in general, all of the teeth there were from him."

Mac Bethad looked at the chest.  "That's not everything?"

"No, sire.  We have some copper and silver and the like that we're using to pay for other expenses, but—"

"That's a small fortune!" Mac Bethad said, still looking at the innocent-seeming chest.  "And he paid that for, what?"

"Fourteen pots of ink, a ream of parchment, some other odds and ends, a quiver of arrows, that yew longbow and the Damascus knife," Iain said, counting off.  "Didn't even try to haggle.  And then we saw him give them to her, the night after they caught Adalwin's men."  He waggled his eyebrows.  "She seemed pleased."

Mac Bethad snorted.  "Well, may she get more joy from that blade than I did."

Taskill, looking irked, took back the reins of the conversation.  "Getting back to the boy, what levers _do_ we have on him?"

"He is devoted to his tribe, that is for certain.  You've heard about the attempted theft?"

Mac Bethad and Taskill nodded.  "Rumor's already spread, aye."

"Well, I was right there when the boy who was attacked and his dragon stolen came running up to Hiccup and Astrid," Iain said.  He snorted.  "Name of Fishlegs."  He rolled his eyes.  "Regardless of the absurdity of his name, he only survived out of sheer luck.  While we were waiting on the healer, I managed to pump him for some more information, and he didn't even notice, he was so panicked and pained.  But Hiccup proceeded to muster every single dragon rider he could manage and flew out within the hour, and scoured the sea looking for the thieves.  And, when they were caught, he forwent vengeance to send a statement."

"That would be the dropping of that ship in King Adalwin's bailey, yes?"

"Aye, milord.  They found it _funny_ , back on Berk.  They took _pride_ in the fact that they had so overpowered Adalwin's forces that they need not even kill any of them."

"That's not what we've heard.  From what Adalwin is claiming, they sacked half of his city."

"No, sire, they didn't.  They flew out, dragging the boat behind them to skip across the waves, made the entire crossing from Berk to Vedrarfjord in a day, and then dragged up the ship and placed it neatly in Adalwin's bailey with nary a drop of blood spilled.  I had it straight from six that went on the expedition, and they were all laughing at the memory of the expression on Adalwin's face.  They were like the seasoned old warrior on the training field—you know, the one who shows the young recruit that old age and experience beats youth and enthusiasm, with a side dish of knocking the blades from their hand and knocking them face-first into the muck."  He made a face.  Mac Bethad was fairly certain he remembered that old warrior as well, and nodded in acknowledgment.  "They had Adalwin dead to rights, and, rather than kill him, they left him there with a ship in his fort, and left saying that next time they wouldn't be so nice."

"Well.  If we engage them, we will have to make sure that that is the _last_ time, then, won't we?"

" _Aye,_ milord.  The boy is a peacemonger, but his father is still the chief, and _he_ is not."

There were eyebrows raised at this.  "The boy truly is a peacemonger?  A _Viking_ peacemonger?"  Mac Bethad found the very idea absurd.  He knew something of the Norse pagan religion, its last vestiges holding on in the north of his kingdom.  The closest that the Vikings had to a god of peace was Baldr the Beautiful.  And if he recalled correctly, to show exactly what they thought of the idea, the other gods amused themselves by throwing sharp things at him to watch them bounce—until one didn't, and he was sent to their distinctly unpleasant goddess of death for failing to die in battle. 

"Well…" Gregor hedged.  "As much as one of them _could_ be.  Better to say that he has odd philosophical notions regarding life's value, and doesn't think with his ax.  Which, as I understand, is why he now rides a dragon."

"I see," Mac Bethad said dryly.  "Anything else of significance about him?"

"Well, there's the _small_ bit of the _dragon…_ "

Taskill just gave Iain a stony look.  Several people, despite the seriousness of the moment, chuckled. 

"No, not really, milord.  Not that we saw or heard about.  A year ago, he was the village screwup, the pariah.  His father could get people to agree with his actions simply by threatening them with having to watch over the boy.  Now he's their golden child, and very few would hear anything against him."

"'Very few' implies that there are some," Taskill noted.  "Expand."

"Well, there are the village hermits and diehard dragon haters.  Apparently the most prominent one is an elder named Mildew, who believes that the only good dragon is a dead one.  He's potentially a useful contact for subverting the village from the inside if we need to, and we've already started cultivating him."

"Good, good.  Anyone else?"

"There's another clan that's looking to supplant the chief and his son, the Jorgensons.  They have a blood tie through the chief's sister, and a boy the same age as Hiccup, named Snotlout."  There were a few snorts at that.  "Apparently, until last year, the boy and his father considered his future chiefdom to be a certain thing, and now… not so much.   So they're doing everything they can to undermine the chief.  The boy Snotlout is a proper Viking—dumb, thick, brash, loud, aggressive, easily manipulated.  Thinks with his weapon and thews."

"I see.  What are his prospects for actually gaining the chiefdom?"

"Now?  Low, I'd say.  His cousin would have to be both discredited and killed to manage that.  He is also just not _cunning_ enough to be able to outsmart his cousin.  And there's really no love lost between them.  They're allies now, but it reminds me much of how it was between you and your cousin a year ago, my lord.  But with the roles reversed."

Mac Bethad considered that for a moment.  Matters between him and his royal cousin had been… strained.  At best.  "Aye.  I see.  So you are trying to say that we should back the winning horse?"

"Aye, milord," Gregor said, with evident relief.

"All right.  But we will also try to to cultivate both horses in this race," Mac Bethad said.  "Accidents _do_ happen.  Like what happened to my cousin.  Battlefields are no respecters of persons, royal or not."  His mind drifted back to the Damascus dagger, once coveted as exotic, and then just a reminder of the moment where he had taken it from a dead man's hands, his cousin's body nearby.

"Aye."

"Anyone else of significance in the village?"

"The chief.  Stoick the Vast is his moniker.  Widower for about fifteen years, according to rumor."

Taskill perked up at this, making Mac Bethad roll his eyes.  He had no doubts as to the loyalty of his spymaster, but the man tended towards a few preferred stratagems, a fact that occasionally exasperated the king.  "Widower, eh?  Any—"

All three spies shook their heads in unison.  "Nay, sir," Iain said, "He wears his wife's breastplate for his _helmet._   Part of the reason he never disowned the boy, despite him being a screwup, was that his son was all that he had left of his wife.  Apparently people repeatedly told him to disown the boy and remarry to try again."  He shrugged.  "He never even took a concubine, even though as a Viking chief it's unusual for him to not have one or two."

Gregor added, "And most of the clan heads have their own concubines, too.  The Hofferson clan head apparently has two that have been with him and his wife for so long that people forgot that they're actually concubines and not actually wives, which caused a right bit of confusion when they came to the stall."  He rubbed at his chin in thought.  "I didn't get any details there on their laws, but I can say that Stoick being a widower for this long is by _choice._ "  Another shrug.  "So… you could try, but I wouldn't place coin on _that_ horse."

"I see," Taskill said coldly.  "Pity."  He made a note on the parchment as Mac Bethad hid a chuckle behind a drink from his tankard.  "Continue."

"Not much more to say, there.  He's a Viking chief.  He rules by strength and right of blood, and at least tries to be fair to his own people.  And he's got lots of strength to spare.  During the festival, he sat himself down for the arm-wrestling contests and didn't lose a single one."

"Broke a table, though," Alan noted.

"Better to say that the table _burst_ because he and his opponent crushed it for leverage," Gregor said, eyes distant with recollection.

Mac Bethad quirked an eyebrow.  "Raghnall, make a note.  No dueling the Viking chief."

"Aye, sire," said the steward dryly.

"Anything else regarding the chief?" Taskill asked the spies.

They looked at each other and nodded, and Alan spoke up.  "Just a bit.  He has some advisers, but his word is still law.  His marshal is his brother-in-law, and his steward is the village blacksmith and mentor for his son.  If he has a formal privy council, we didn't see evidence of it.  There's a pagan priestess, but we didn't see much of her.  No chancellor, no spymaster that we saw, no lesser appointments.  Just a small, if pretty, village with really… _exotic_ livestock."

"Aye, aye, we can talk about the dragons now," Taskill said irritably.  "Get started with the He… the boy _Hiccup's_ dragon."

"Well, it's a Night Fury for certain, first off," said Alan.  "I've heard that demon whistle before, so there was no doubting that."

Mac Bethad winced, recalling a dark night filled with the screams of men, and said, "And a vicious, brutal beast I imagine it is, too."

"Uh… not truly, sire.  If anything, it's… playful.  Like a laphound."

Mac Bethad simply looked at the spy, knowing that skepticism was written on his face.  In the back of his mind, long-ago cries of pain and the smell of burned flesh were being recalled unwillingly. 

To Alan's credit, he continued resolutely in the face of his monarch's expression.  "I saw the beast follow his master like a loyal hound, up to and including following an order to 'stay', and it played pranks on another dragon during the festival.  It came, it heeled, it licked the face of its master when they won ribbons together…"  he shrugged.  "I wish my own dogs were as well-behaved."

"And the dragon certainly looked fearsome enough, which may be a point for that mild temperament," Iain spoke up.  "Much like how the biggest dogs may have the mildest dispositions.  They _know_ that they have nothing to prove to the yapping puppies at their feet.  And it had a sense of humor."  He snorted.  "The lad was trading teeth with me for my wares, and tells me that he has a tooth from a dragon named Toothless.  I looked at the dragon, and it didn't _have_ any teeth—until it popped them right out of the _gums,_ grabbed the fish like a striking snake, ate it, and then smirked at me."

The king looked at them and said in as even a tone as he could muster, "The dragon's name is _Toothless."_

"Aye, sire," Iain said.  "And a right playful temperament it has."

"I recall being under attack by one once.  That fire is _not_ a mild temperament," Mac Bethad said, still in the same forced-even tone.

"Aye, sire, but that may be exactly the point.  Who barks louder?  The inexperienced little pup, or the wise old hound?"

Mac Bethad considered and then said, "I take your point.  Continue."

Gregor nodded.  "Well, the beast is loyal, and very smart.  It understands the speech of man fairly clearly, and it and its rider work together as only the best horsemen and mounts can.  I watched their racing and acrobatics at the Festival, and they could… move as one.  Every obstacle dodged with deceptive ease.  It was… magnificent."

Mac Bethad gave a nod.  His men did sound impressed, and he would have to ask Taskill later on how much of a departure this was from their normal temperament. "I see.  But one dragon rider is still only one man, regardless of his skill.  How many dragons does the village have, both with riders and unmounted?"

The three spies looked at each for a moment and then looked back.  "Probably a good two thirds to three quarters of the villagers have their own mounts at this point," Gregor stated, "if not somewhat more.  Call it five hundred mounts, at the least."

"Five _hundred!?_ " his marshal burst out in shock.  Mac Bethad was also stunned, his mind's eye imagining a flock of five hundred Viking-ridden dragons descending on his lands.

"Aye, milord. From what I gathered, the biggest bottleneck is that Hiccup and his mentor and perhaps a handful of others are the only saddle-makers in the village, or near enough as to make no difference, so most are still going with rope halters.  But, likely by this time next year, each member of the village that wants to ride a dragon will be able to."

"I see.  And how many dragons _without_ riders do they have?"

"Of the ones that can be ridden? At the _very_ least, another three or four _thousand,_ milord."

This caused an uproar.  Everyone in the room started talking at once, and it took Mac Bethad a solid minute to restore order.

"That is more dragons than Harthacnut has Thingmen in his _army._ How can they afford to feed them all?"  The current King of England had inherited his father's and half-brother's standing army of three thousand Norse warriors, and the _heregeld_ tax needed to pay them was slowly draining England dry. 

Gregor looked miserable, as did the other two.  "No idea, sire, but we counted the flock as it roosted on the island peaks.  Unless they were somehow engaging in a deception to inflate the numbers, there are at least that many.  Possibly more, and that's not counting the smaller beasts."  He grimaced.  "And, officially, they're the possessions of Stoick and Hiccup, as the chieftain's family.  As the attempted poachers found out."

"I see," said Mac Bethad coldly.  "Well.  Anything else?"

"No, my lord."

"Good.  You have done well.  You are not to blame for the news you have brought.  We are indebted to you, and will have more work for you shortly.  You are dismissed.  Keep yourselves near at hand in case there are further questions."

The three spies rose from their chairs and fled the room, his chamberlain escorting them to a room elsewhere in the fort where they could refresh themselves, as the King of Alba and his council began to discuss the information brought by the spies and debate what to do next. 

###

Stoick looked around the empty house.  Thornado was burbling behind the back of the house, enjoying his fish dinner, but other than that, his home was empty.  Hiccup and Toothless were off somewhere, and every creak of the wooden walls seemed to echo.

Stoick was known as the Vast.  But in the here and now, after days of his boy and the cacophony that surrounded him being gone, he felt very small, and very alone. 

The last seven months had, in many ways, been the happiest of his life since his wife had passed all those years before.  He had connected with his son.  His people were at peace, and were safe and growing prosperous.  The old ways of fighting could be put safely away, like an old warrior's ax and shield on the wall, ready to be taken up again, but gathering dust until needed. 

His son had even found love, and Stoick felt his face soften at the memory of walking in and seeing the two of them staring into each other's eyes, so taken up by each other that he had gone unnoticed.  He had just stood there and committed the sight to memory, placing it alongside other treasured memories of his own time when he had been the subject of such adoration. 

And now, with them gone on his son's mission of peace…

It was so very quiet. 

He took another draught of ale and sighed.

From the time he was a boy, he had known who he was, and who he had to become.  He had grown and changed himself to fit that mold.  Stoick the Vast, Chieftain of Berk, seventh of his line, the shield and bulwark between his people and the hostile world, the one to make the hard choices and face the responsibility, so that others need not. 

He had led from the front, facing every danger, shirking no responsibility so that his tribe would be safe.  The glory had been only secondary, when it mattered at all.  For what glory could a leader claim when his people starved, their homes burned around them? 

For a time, it had all been so clear.  Vikings.  Dragons.  Mortal enemies to the last, no retreat, no surrender, just death on all sides. 

He had killed hundreds, possibly thousands of dragons over his life.  They blurred before his eyes.  Nadders.  Whispering Deaths.  Thunderdrums.  Gronckles.  Monstrous Nightmares.  Zipplebacks.

He had been so proud.  Each foe felled was another beast that could not threaten his people.  Each carcass had been transmuted into coin that could buy food and supplies.  Berk had possessed thirty longboats at this time last year, a veritable fleet, built on the bodies of dead dragons.  He, a chieftain of a small village, had possessed more ships than the King of England's Thingmen, because of the dragons.

And then the Green Death had burned them all.

With a grunt, he stood from his chair and poured himself a fresh flagon of ale.

As he drank, he stewed on his own lack of knowledge, his thoughts rambling through unhappy pastures.  Specifically… the knowledge that the dragons he had killed had been every bit as much victims as his own people had, had been thralls in nearly every way, with the threat of steal or die hanging over their heads…

He had hated them his entire life, _loathed_ them since Valka's death… and now… they were his friends.  But… even that… the knowledge that they had been enthralled, and that he had been killing not warriors… but frightened slaves…  He was disgusted with himself.  Even though such a self-indictment was unfair, and he _knew_ that it was unfair. 

Despite the upheavals and changes they brought… despite the demands of a lifetime fighting them… he would not… _could not_ hate them any longer.  Not hardly.  The seething fury he'd once felt upon seeing a dragon had dwindled, guttered, and gone out in the face of other knowledge.  The old ways there were dead and buried… and good riddance to them. 

He looked at his flagon and sighed.  Then downed the rest. 

It was too quiet here.  A man should not be alone with either his thoughts or a barrel of ale, and here he was with both.  He got to his feet.  While someone would almost certain pester him with some minor problem if he so much as set one foot into the mead hall, at least there would be people there, and sound, and life. 

Here there were just memories and quiet. 

###

King Henry of the Franks, third of his royal house of Capet, stared aghast at the report that his spymaster had marked as important.

Of _course_ things couldn't be going well.  No, that would make his work too _easy._

No, clearly, just to make things more difficult, the Vikings had managed to tame dragons.  And they were using them in _raids,_ including one that reportedly had ended with them dropping an entire longship in the middle of one of the Eire kings' forts a few weeks back, shortly after Easter.  _That_ story was spreading like wildfire, according to his spymaster, who had it confirmed from no less than nine distinct sources.  _And_ they had looted the fort at Brycgstow and burned it to the ground with dragonfire, killing half of the garrison.  Harthacnut was reportedly furious.

And, of course, if the Normans in the north of his ostensible kingdom decided to appeal to their distant kin for fire-breathing mounts of their own, they might very well get them.  Which would spell the end of the Capet dynasty's God-granted mandate over the Kingdom of Francia. 

On the other hand… if the Vikings could be induced to raid those self-same kin in the Duchy of Normandy, or others of his supposed vassals… it could perhaps even the odds a bit for him, here in his own (admittedly somewhat pitiful) stronghold holdings.  His most significant issue was extending his authority over his fractious vassals, who had armies and castles of their own.  He had a piece of paper that said that he had authority over them, while their arms and holdings gave them a dissenting opinion. 

But if those assets were to be taken off of the board… perhaps he could finally assert his authority.

Yes.  That could be so very helpful.

He scrawled a response note on the piece of paper to his spymaster.  His orders were to find who had control over the dragons—as, according to the rumors, only a single dynasty had discovered the secret of controlling the beasts—and to see if they were willing to do a spot of mercenary work…

###

Astrid blinked awake as Stormfly nuzzled at her sleeping furs.  "I'm awake, girl, I'm awake," she said, stretching and yawning, grateful to be awaken from near-nightmares.  They were fading rapidly, but the image of Hiccup looking at her with a contemptuous expression and walking away from her probably wasn't going to fade that quickly. 

She sat up and looked around as she stretched.  The dragon riders had found a small loch yesterday and had decided to land then rather than fly onward.  Making camp had been pretty easy; Meatlug had just eaten some rocks and spat out the glowing stones that they had roasted their fish on, and the riders had just unfurled their sleeping furs on the ground near the warmth, with their dragons curled up next to them.  A net and some dragon-assisted fishing took care of the food situation.  Some leather tents were available against rain, if needed.  They had gotten it down to a pretty good arrangement by now, over the last few outings, although most of those had been to the Dragon Nest. 

Of course, from Astrid's perspective, there were two things currently wrong with it.

Toothless and Hiccup had settled down on the opposite side of the fire, rather than next to her and Stormfly. 

She scowled at herself and made a fist, and almost pounded it into her other hand, but managed to remember the splints on her fingers in time.  Of course, she had handled the argument yesterday poorly too.  He'd felt like she was attacking him, and, of course, he hadn't _listened_ to what she was trying to say. 

It was just so _frustrating._   Hiccup's ideals were wonderful, and she loved him for them.  The more she got to know him, the more she was impressed at not just how good of a man he was for her, but how good of a person he was for the world.  He reminded her of Baldr, god of peace… and wondered if she'd end up being his mistletoe.  He had been so right before, when he accused her of thinking with her ax.  Peace was not her way… but it was the way that Stoick had endorsed, the way that she had _fought_ Snotlout for.  And wasn't _that_ ironic? 

She scowled at her thoughts as she hopped to her feet and started working out the kinks in her back and legs with some stretches.  At times like this, when they had some argument or other… well, tact wasn't her calling.  Peacemongering, likewise.  She was a _shieldmaid,_ consecrated to Freyja and Sif.  Her way was that of the battlefield, the shield and ax. 

And… well, now… and last night, in between her thoughts as she'd been trying to think and fall asleep… she was fighting off the thought of wondering why he wanted _her._ Why her peaceful boyfriend wanted a violence-prone shieldmaiden like herself. 

Last night, even as she had laid awake in her bedroll, thinking to herself, her mind had treated her to a litany of unwelcome memories. 

Every jesting insult, every snub, every punch, every pinch… every time she had hurt him, even as a joke, had paid a visit, casting themselves in the worst light possible, even as she stubbornly tried to stay focused on how to heal this rift before it grew. 

The memories had whispered to her that he would hate her, that he would leave her, that she had spent their entire lives treating him like crap, that he would wake up and realize that he had made a mistake in coming after her that day in the cove…

She tried to ignore those thoughts, but they kept coming. 

Intrusive. 

Unwanted.

But _persistent._

Instead of wallowing in them, though… tempting though it was… she just tried to think of how _she_ could fix this.  Maybe the art of persuasion and diplomacy were not hers… but she could damn well try.  Maybe she might not be his match in that area, but she wasn't going to give up on him, or herself.  This might be their worst argument yet in their relationship… but she wasn't giving up on him… or giving him up without a fight.

She grimaced. 

Okay, maybe that wasn't the best way to express that thought at the moment. 

But it was who she was. 

Maybe on a diplomatic mission like this, she was, perhaps, less than useful…

She blinked away the thought with another grimace.  No, that was hardly the case.  The villagers the day before had been one over-aggressive or inquisitive dragon away from a panic-driven attack on them, and, if it had come to that, she _would_ have been needed. 

She just wished that Hiccup could _see_ that.  Well, it would be her job then to open his eyes and help him see.  For while Odin had blessed him with a top-notch mind, for certain, he hadn't automatically gotten the wisdom to go with it.  She grimaced at the thought as well.  On the other hand, given what Odin had had to do in order to get his own wisdom, maybe that was for the best.  Giving Hiccup a drink, or two, or more likely three of the Mead of Suttungr was one thing, but she liked her boy with both eyes.  He'd lost enough parts already.

Stretches finished, she started rolling up her sleeping furs, lost in her own thoughts, and feeling a bit frustrated with her boyfriend.  Which is why she missed his distinctive steps approaching her.

"Astrid?" he said hesitantly behind her.

She turned.  Hiccup was a few feet away, his body language being pretty much identical to when he was approaching an untamed dragon.  Inwardly, she sighed.  On the other hand, she hadn't had to chase him down either.  That gave her heart.  And it said something that he, a teenaged boy with an appetite currently like that of a bottomless pit, was coming to have what could only be an uncomfortable conversation before they even had breakfast.  That could only be a good sign, right? Right?

Muttering a brief prayer to Forsetti, son of Baldr, the mediator, for his blessings, she said simply, "Yes, Hiccup?" and then sat down on her rolled up furs.  Thinking that she should try to be conciliatory, she patted the roll next to her.  "Here, sit down.  We need to talk."

Awkwardly, he sat down next to her, trying not to touch her as he did so. 

The silence lengthened, becoming more and more awkward as it grew. 

Then both of them spoke up at once. 

"Hiccup, I'm sorry for shouting."

"Astrid, I'm sorry for not listening."

There was a pause as both of them looked at each other and they both smiled.

"You go first."

"You go first."

Someone off to the side, which sounded like one of the twins, laughed, and they both glared.  Tuffnut just raised his hands in a warding gesture and walked off.

Hiccup smiled weakly at her as they turned back to face each other, and Stormfly and Toothless, sensing the awkwardness of the moment, just curled around the pair and raised their wings, giving the two riders at least the semblance of privacy. 

"Astrid, I'm sorry.  I wasn't thinking.  You were right.  I mean, we have Mildew and other people like him on Berk, and all I had to picture was an entire crowd of people like him, and then I thought about what you had said and remembered how Johann's sailors acted—"

"Hiccup, breathe," she said, smiling slightly. 

Inhaling sharply, he looked at her with a sad smile.  "I just wanted to say that I was sorry that I didn't listen, because you were right.  For every person that was being friendly yesterday, there were ten or twenty more standing back."  His smile grew a touch more lopsided.  "And I had an idea that might help people get used to the dragons and show that Berk isn't interested in—"

He quieted as she put her hand over his mouth, a smile on her face. 

"First.  Hiccup, I accept your apology.  Do you accept mine?  I'm sorry I lost my temper at you."

He nodded. 

She gave a happy sigh and hugged him.  "Hiccup, of course I want everything to work out.  I don't want to trade one war for another one."  She broke the embrace and held him by his shoulders, looking at him, her feet tucked underneath her.  "But you can't just _hope_ that it'll work out, that you can just show up on dragonback and say 'Hi, this is Toothless the Night Fury!  He doesn't blow up siege weapons anymore!' and expect them to believe you.  You have to _work_ at it.  If you want something, you have to actually spend the time and effort _doing_ it, working towards it."  She patted her ax, lying on the ground next to her.  "People are like axes, Hiccup."

He quirked an eyebrow.  "Come again?  Sharp, and you like to throw them into trees?"

"No…" she said, drawing out the word.  She had thought of this _at length_ the previous night, trying to find an example to compare that would work for him.  She had thought of it as sparring, like how you fought other people to practice and get better.  But that comparison wouldn't work on the crafting-minded Hiccup, and she had thought for hours on how to say this to him.

"People are like axes, or like Toothless' riding gear, or anything else you and Gobber make in the smithy."  She picked up her ax and presented the flat to Hiccup, the long-ago marks of Gobber's hammer visible even in the polished surface.  "Gobber and you had to pound this into shape with fire and hammers.  You had to keep going back, working it over again and again, fire, anvil, hammer, fire, anvil, hammer, fire, anvil, hammer, and then, when the shape was right, you then had to sharpen it and get the edge into just the right shape in order to be able to cut things, and then I had to keep it sharp."  She placed the weapon back on the ground and put her hand on Hiccup's knee, just above his metal leg. 

"My ax, Toothless' harness, your leg… like everything you make in that forge, you have to keep remaking them, keep them in the shape that they're supposed to be.  You _don't_ get to do a poor job of knocking it into a 'good enough' shape and expect it to work as well, would you?  You wouldn't expect a dull ax that you haven't sharpened to be able to do—," she rose fluidly to her feet while grabbing her ax, and then flung it into a nearby tree, all in the same smooth motion.  The ax sunk in with a solid _thunk!_ and held there fast.  "—that as well as the one I keep sharp?  Would you?"  Hiccup just looked at her, his eyes wide, as she sat back down gracefully. 

"Hiccup?" she said after a moment, hoping that the ax throw hadn't been a mistake.  Stormfly was giving her a look of irritation for the startled moment when the ax had flown.

"Uh… wow.  Thinking." 

She grinned at him.  "Take your time," she said, and rubbed at his left calf a bit, feeling the tension of the remaining muscle below the scar tissue relax a bit at her touch. 

A few moments later, he said in a mildly dazed tone, "Dear gods, I am so lucky to be with you."

She smirked.  "And don't you forget it."

"I won't," he said reverently. 

"Good."  She turned and took his arm.  "Hiccup, that was always your biggest problem, back before you met Toothless.  You would come up with these grand ideas, and then go out to try to do them, but without _thinking!_   And thinking is your strongest area!"  She laughed lightly.  "You would be hoping, _expecting!_ that your intentions would make it work, without any help from your brains."  She snorted and poked him in the forehead.  "Toothless's tail was the first time where you couldn't get away with doing that and leave someone else to clean up the mess, so you had to keep trying until you got it right."  She patted Toothless on the chin, and he purred.

Hiccup just slumped into her lap, and she used her other hand to play with his hair.  Speaking down to him as he laid there, he said, "Okay, I'm really, really lucky.  Wow.  Uh…"

She just grinned at him and said, "So, now, you have this other idea.  That's great, and I'm not joking.  I honestly want to hear every single bit that you've thought of for it."  Her grin shifted to a smirk.  "And then I'm going to chop it all to pieces.   I'm going to keep asking 'what if _this_ happens, or _that_ happens' until it falls apart.  And then you're going to put it back together.  And we'll keep doing that, until it is the right shape.  Your job is to build something that I can't take to pieces or bend out of shape.  And then we'll do it.  Got it?"

He nodded, looking a trifle dazed. 

She bent and gave him a kiss.  "Come on.  Let's break our fast and get going.  We're wasting daylight."  She pushed him to his feet and hopped to her own. 

As she walked off to the firepit, Stormfly at her side, she heard Hiccup say to Toothless behind her, "Dat da dah, I'm dead," and her grin bloomed.

It soured a moment later as Ruffnut chimed in, "Yeah, you'll actually have to use your brain enough to keep her happy." 

Then Tuffnut snorted.  "It's probably the only way he can keep her happ—"  The sound of a small one of Toothless' fire blasts echoed briefly, as Tuffnut yelped and could be heard running away, shouting, "Oh, I hurt, I very much hurt!" 

She turned back to look at Toothless, who was giving an innocent, "Me?  Who, me?" wide-eyed expression while Hiccup laughed. 

Half an hour later, they had taken flight again.  As they took up formation to fly to the next place on their list, Astrid was thinking warmly of those moments, like in the cove a few weeks ago, when Hiccup had proven Tuffnut so very, very wrong. 

Hiccup had shown her, during their rare moments of privacy over the last few months, that he paid very close attention to how to make her _very_ happy.  And he was very, very good with his hands.  And now she _really_ understood some of those stories about Freyja a bit better, because, wow.

And being the competitive kind of person that she was, she had done her best to make him happy, too. 

So far, it was working out _nice,_ in every way that she could conceive of, and that was even with not having gone too far.  Yet.  She smirked.  Given how much joy they'd given each other so far… she had to admit that she was looking forward to that.  Oh yes…

Watching the mountains and valleys pass below them, she sighed happily to herself.  Oh, yes… she was so very happy with him.  Even with little… heh, _hiccups_ like their argument.

It didn't help that, during the long winter and some of the cold rainy days in spring, as was unofficial tradition, her mother and her friends gathered together to complain about their husbands as they spun thread and yarn, wove cloth, and made clothing.  Even her own father, who she held in high regard, was apparently not totally immune… if better than normal.  She remembered growing up and overhearing them complain about men not listening, or not thinking, or being interested in only one thing.  And it had shaped her; she'd just shrugged and decided that she wasn't interested, thank you very much; why compete with other women over men when they were all the same?  She'd rather just compete with the men and kick their behinds to show them that she was better than them.  And that had colored her thinking for years. 

And now, with Hiccup in her life… she had felt nothing but pity for the other women as she laid on the floor of her lofted bedroom, listening to the past season's complaints.  Because _her_ man wasn't like that.  And there was a degree of smug and a degree of pity in it, and a degree of fear and sadness.  Smug that she had gotten to him first… and pity because Snotlout was closer to the average.  And the fear… Just thinking of how her own sharp focus on her own status and skill had almost cost her this unexpected happiness was enough to bring that one up.  She still occasionally thought in disbelief at just how lucky she was, because she had never noticed his attraction to her, and had rejected him as the village pariah.  It was a train of thought that occurred to her semi-often in such moments.

That other girl that she _could_ have been. The one that was first ranked in dragon training.  Slayer of a Monstrous Nightmare before the assembled eyes of the village.  Member of a proud tradition of Hofferson dragonslayers.  Respected shieldmaiden, and renowned warrior.

Astrid the dragon rider just looked at that other path and felt… pity for that other girl that she could have been.  She would have been content with the path that she had laid out for herself and called it happiness.  But she wouldn't have known what she had learned.  Learned what it felt like to soar through the clouds.  Learned how to fly on dragonback.  To see the sun rising above the sea thousands of feet below.  To feel the wind streaming through her hair.  To race around the sky for the pure joy of it.  To move at speeds no human had before imagined.  To have a friend that could _give_ you those experiences, and share them with you—and she wasn't sure if she was referring to Hiccup or to Stormfly when she thought of them.  In those ways, that other girl… lacked. 

But she had her friends now, both human and dragon.  And maybe she was second in dragon-riding, after Hiccup, but it was a close second, and she wasn't giving him any room to breath easy there.  And she would happily start up a new tradition of Hofferson dragon-riders, and she had her love's respect for her skills and insights.  Others would follow if she had anything to say about it.

Didn't mean that she was going to give Hiccup a free pass when he wasn't thinking, though.  He was smarter than her, and sometimes she just looked at him after unraveling one of his trains of thought with a small degree of awe.  But, just like her, he wasn't going to get to just be lazy.  Nope.  Not if she had anything to say about it. 

And she did.


	11. Norse-By-Norse-West

**Summer, 1041**

~~~~~~

**Chapter 11: Norse By Norse-West**

_…due to the actions of merchants, couriers, and word of mouth, it is generally assumed that knowledge of Hiccup Haddock's victory over the Green Death, and the associated domestication of the Nest's dragons, had reached all of the major and minor capitals of Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor within a year of the event, eighteen months at most._

_Most of these feudal sovereigns and lesser lords reacted dismissively, especially at first, when evidence was minimal, while others, especially those who had seen evidence at first- or second-hand, reacted to the emerging power as a threat to appease or suppress.  And a rare few acted otherwise…_

_—Origins Of The Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631_

"I… got it!" Hiccup grabbed the compass from its spot on the shelf with a grunt of effort.  Putting the drawing tool down on the desk, he then looked at his sleeves, now barely past the elbows, and sighed.  Another shirt outgrown for sure.  And this one had been his roomiest.  And, as a result, his last.  The straightedge continued to sit on the shelf, mocking him, now out of reach thanks to his too-small, heavily-patched and well-worn work shirt holding him back—literally, as it was too tight around the shoulders, neck, and his entire torso. 

The village tailors had just laughed at him and said that it was normal, and that they'd have some new clothes for him soon.

He hoped so.  Putting on his pants in the morning was starting to become an exercise in pain, and he had already made himself a new leather belt.  On the plus side, if there was a flood, his pants would be perfect.  But the absolutely worst part right now was trying to _walk._

Sighing, he stood up to grab the straightedge, and immediately staggered, as his left foot felt like it didn't meet the floor properly.  Catching himself against his desk, he sighed again.

Astrid just chortled from her seat nearby, looking over a sheet of figures.  "Did you grow another inch since you sat down?" she asked, laughter hiding in her tone.  She found his growth spurt to be utterly hilarious, especially since she'd endured her own over a year previously.  But Hiccup's sixteenth natal day had come a week before the Summer Solstice, and it had been like the starting flag for a race, as suddenly none of his clothing would fit.

Hiccup rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue.  "Probably.  Clearly my body decided to put all of its effort towards growing out the one leg instead of both," he said, waving his arms around to indicate his lower half.  That didn't work so well, as the sleeves that had once been roomy were now rather binding. 

A soft tearing noise issued from around his shoulders as the worn seams around the patches popped, and Astrid just laughed harder.  Hiccup paused and sighed, trying to look over his own shoulders to inspect the damage. 

Unfortunately, between his leg, his peg, his ill-fitting clothes, and not being used to being taller, he overbalanced a bit.

With a clatter, he fell solidly on his rear.  As he gave a gasp from the impact, whacking his head against the side of the desk, he heard more ripping noises. 

Then the first stick of writing charcoal rolled down the length of the desk and whacked him on the head.  It was followed by the pointy end of the compass, and then one of the stone washers that he was using as a parchment weight.

"Ow!"

Astrid, in tears from laughing so hard, hopped to her feet and rescued him from being walloped by the rest of his drafting tools. 

Placing the stone washers and other bits off to the side, where they weren't in danger of hitting her boyfriend on his brain, she then looked down at him, and burst out laughing again.

He looked up at her.  "What now?"

"Your shirt…" she said, pointing, laughing so hard that she was starting to turn red from lack of breath.

He tried to contort himself in order to look, which had two results.  First, it did not work, and second, there was another tearing noise, which made Astrid's laughter reach new heights.  She leaned against the desk as she struggled to breathe. 

Trying to haul himself to his feet, he found that he lacked leverage.  He was stuck, quite nicely, between the furniture in the small room.  Astrid was just turning bright red, verging on purple, her fist pounding on his desk, gasping for air.

"A little help here?" he said, looking up at her.  He tried to roll a touch to the side in order to start to get to his feet.  But his shirt was apparently caught on something, like a nail or splinter in the wall… and he felt and heard his shirt tear further.  And that was apparently enough abuse, as stitches that were already under tension from his growing shoulders started popping in sequence. Suddenly, his back felt very breezy and unconfined. 

"Oh, _perfect_ ," he said, as Astrid thumped to the floor, face bright red, still laughing. 

He got the last laugh, however, as one of his prototypes—the ballista—fell off the shelf that it was on and fired, hitting Astrid in the stomach.  The blunt arrow didn't have _much_ force, but it had enough to score a solid hit and knock a bit of the wind out of her. 

She gasped and flailed for a second, sending the arrow flying into a stack of carved pieces of wood off to the side, and she started hiccuping, her breath coming in spasms.  Hiccup started laughing, and, realizing what was going on, she laughed too.

It didn't last long, however.  The precarious stack of carved wooden pieces hit by the arrow—oddball components left from his prototypes—teetered, tipped and then tumbled in a clatter of oak and pine.  And, this being Hiccup's workroom, there were piles of little things everywhere…

One of the larger pieces—an experimental quick-release for a catapult, carved from oak—tumbled across the floor as the pair of them laughed.  It hit the small table upon which there was an unevenly piled stack of books.  They wobbled back and forth for a moment agonizingly… and then, reaching the point of no return, tipped over and clouted the laughing teens on the floor. 

Astrid yelped and jerked in surprise as a copy of Herodotus's _Histories_ , borrowed from the Ingerman library, whacked her on the head.  Next to her, Hiccup managed to avoid getting walloped by one of his own journals.  His girlfriend's jump, however, resulted in her kicking another table, which upset a stack of sealed metal jars that Hiccup had been experimenting with.

One of the jars rolled off the table and hit the ground.  A spray of greenish Zippleback gas that Hiccup had laboriously compressed into the jar jetted out from a crack, and both of their eyes widened as they looked from it to the candles lighting the room. 

"Uh oh."

Astrid reacted first, swinging her leg and kicking the jar away…

Only for the jar to hit the wall of the room and crack open entirely.  The rest of the gas inside the canister spread out across the floor in an instant, with more tendrils of gas expanding upwards.

The two of them had just enough time to look at each other with a mutual expression of impending doom before the gas reached the candles.

Without even thinking, Astrid jumped onto Hiccup to shield him.

###

Out in the main smithy, Gobber was merrily working on parts for Hiccup's big project, while also wondering what was so funny.  It didn't _sound_ like they were up to anything naughty… but he resolved to actually fulfill his chaperon duties and check in on them as soon as he was done with his current spar.  If nothing else, he'd like to hear the joke.

Then there was the sound of many things falling over, followed quickly by a flash and boom. 

As the sound of their coughing came through the door, he shrugged and kept hammering.  This wasn't the first time such noises had issued from Hiccup's workroom.  It wasn't even the first time this _week._

"Either of yeh dead?" he asked diffidently. 

"No," came the answer a few moments later.

Off to the side, Toothless and Stormfly stuck their noses into the building, clearly checking in on their riders with concern. 

"Building on fire again?"

There was a longer pause, as Toothless walked in.

"No…?"  There was some shuffling inside. 

Gobber kept shaping the spar at the anvil nonchalantly.  Whatever the lad and lass were up to, he wasn't going to intrude now.  He wondered idly if they'd figured out yet that, as far as he was concerned, they could be all over each other in there, and he'd swear up and down that they'd been perfectly chaste if asked. 

Probably not.  That would require them having actually done something for him to perjure himself.  And, as far as he'd been able to tell, they were being disgustingly honorable about it—at least around him. 

Pity that.  It figured that the boy had to always be the exception.

As he mused, he watched Toothless walk up to the door to Hiccup's space and pushed it open with his nose.

That gave Gobber a perfect view of Hiccup, the lad's hair smoking slightly, his shirt torn halfway open and smoldering, lying flat on his back, and Astrid, her shirt and pteruges _also_ smoking slightly, crouched over him, her hair askew.  She was breathing heavily, which was interrupted by a spasming hiccup.

Gobber took one look and felt a grin sprout.  "Aye there lad, that's more like it!" he teased.

The two of them looked at each other and a moment of comprehension crossed their faces.  Astrid leapt off of him like he was on fire, and they both started babbling.

"It's not what it looks like!"

"One of the Zippleback canisters cracked open!"

"We weren't doing anything!"

Gobber laughed and gave them a knowing smirk, even as he looked them over, and eyed the cracked cannister lying by the wall.

"All right, all right, I believe yeh."  He smiled and quirked an eyebrow.  "But, lad, lass… oi.  What an image."  He started to chortle.

Hiccup got a desperate look in his eye.  "Please don't tell anyone?"

"Tell them what?  That I found the two of yeh looking like yeh had just given bed-breaking devotion to Freyja?"

Hiccup blushed magnificently, and Gobber chortled. 

Astrid just hiccuped, and folded her arms crossly.  "Gobber!  Stop teasing him!"

"But why?" Gobber said innocently, dunking the spar into the quenching bucket.

She glared at him—although its efficacy was undermined by her giving another hiccup.

With a shrug, he placed the spar off to the side and nodded.  "All right, lass.  I'll leave the poor boy alone.  I noticed that yeh jumped to protect him from the fire, so I guess that this is more of the same."

"Too right," she said crisply. 

With a shrug of acknowledgment, Gobber just reached over and plucked at the pathetic remains of Hiccup's shirt.  "That's going to be fun to explain, though.  Lad, just take that off and put it in the rag pile."

With a sigh, Hiccup did as he was told.

Gobber tried to keep the chortle from escaping as Astrid looked at the lad's bare back and bit her lip, blushing slightly.

Inside, though, he did crow in support.  While he only had an aesthetic appreciation for Astrid's looks, oh, the two of them…

Well, he was happy, and proud.

As Hiccup turned around, Gobber said mildly, "Now, Hiccup, could I ask yeh to _please_ just put those Zippleback jars someplace safe?  Again?"

Hiccup nodded, and went to gather them up.  A moment later, he stuck his head outside of the workroom.  "Uh… Gobber?  Do you have a spare tunic I could borrow?"

"Nah, I don't," he said back.

"What should I do then?"

Gobber shrugged and gave a wicked chortle.  "Well, the lass here ain't complaining.  I guess you'll have to go without."

"Gobber!"

He kept chortling and smirking, as Astrid seemed like she couldn't decide between hitting him and agreeing with him. 

###

As the wind blew through the smith's courtyard a short while later, Hiccup shivered, even though it was a beautiful summer day, with children and dragons playing nearby (supervised by Astrid's aunt Cecelia).  Even the summer breeze was cool enough to raise goosebumps, and he gave some serious consideration to running up to his house and stealing one of his dad's shirts.  His old shirt would only be useful as either cleaning rags or patch donations.  Behind him, Astrid and Gobber were fitting the leather satchel over the iron spars that would give it structure; he'd been shooed off by his girlfriend on the grounds that she needed to know how it would go together without him. 

Running his hands through his hair and ignoring Gobber's soft chortling behind him, he looked over the model dummies that he'd put together over the winter as something thudded to the ground near his feet.  Glancing, he saw a shuttlecock lying in the dirt, and a bunch of the kids—some of his cousins, including Snotlout's younger sister Snitwit, plus a few of Astrid's cousins—standing near the fence, looking sheepish.  With a smile, he bent and tossed it back to them.

They called out a thanks, and as they returned to their game of battledore, he returned to his contemplation of the model dummies, considering possible improvements.  He'd built only three so far—one Nightmare, one Nadder, and one Gronckle—after having had the idea that day when he'd made Astrid's ax holster.  He'd realized that he could make the job of testing the saddles much easier and safer if he had something better than a basic sawhorse to put the saddle on.  A few months of work had resulted in the dragon-leather dummies, which could be adjusted to an individual dragon's measurements.  Little notched bars of metal on the inside of the dummies could be moved along holding pegs to make the adjustments, making it much more comfortable for the dragons when making saddles for them.

Gobber, having seen the idea, and having a good idea of dragon anatomy, was working on making more of the dummies for each of the types.  But that wasn't what they were doing now. 

As he walked up to the Nadder dummy with one of Stormfly's old saddles strapped to it, his hands absently massaging his sore lower back, Ruffnut ambled past, talking to Hazelnut and Aodh.  She was holding one of her saddles for Barf, with a tear visibly opening in the strap, and put it on the repair stack as they chatted. 

Ruffnut paused her talk with her cousin and in-law as she walked up to the smithy, and looked Hiccup up and down, her thumb under her chin and her other fingers curled under her lip.  Then she turned to Astrid and gave her a sardonic smile and a thumbs-up.

Hiccup blushed and considered grabbing one of the saddle blankets, just for the coverage… but that would make it worse. 

Astrid just smirked in response, before leaning over and putting her arm around Hiccup's shoulders.  Quirking an eyebrow, she gave Ruffnut a possessive smile. 

Hiccup groaned a little bit as Cecelia Hofferson looked at the pair of them disapprovingly—especially at him.  Ever since Thawfest, Astrid's aunt had been giving him a stinkeye every time she'd seen him.  Annoyingly, though, she hadn't given him a lecture like she'd given Astrid… and part of him was wishing that she would, so that he could give her a piece of his mind, though the rest of him was quite happy that she hadn't.

Gobber, who _still_ _hadn't stopped chortling_ since Hiccup's shirt had been reduced to polishing rags, handed him the thin leather and metal satchel that they'd been working on, fully assembled.

Hiccup examined it; the leatherworking was plain, but that was all right—this one was just the latest experimental version.  "That came out nicely, I think," he said, turning it over in his hands, noticing the button and loop that they had made, designed to be sealed with wax and stamped.  "Let's see if it works."  He slid under the dummy Nadder model to the modified harness that was wrapped around it.  A quick twist and the sockets on the back of the satchel caught nicely onto the projection studs on the harness strap.  Hiccup released the spring bar a moment later, and the satchel shifted tightly into place.  Hiccup stepped back and motioned to Astrid. 

"Astrid, could you do the honors?"

She grinned, which was interrupted by a small hiccup, before stepping forward and grabbing onto the satchel, trying to shake it loose without hitting the spring bar. 

While she worked at it, hopping up and down, shaking the thing side to side, and every other motion she could think of short of grabbing on and attempting to hang from it, people stopped to watch; a couple of the kids were even calling out suggestions. 

Hiccup watched and took notes, even as he really wanted to run up the hill to get a shirt.  Between the breeze and the attention some people were giving them, he was getting uncomfortable.

The dragons were just watching the humans' antics, clearly mystified.  Stormfly and Toothless kept exchanging looks that wordlessly said, _Do you know what they're doing?  Because I sure don't._

Five minutes later, Astrid pulled away from the satchel and shrugged.  "I can't get it loose, and if that won't break it off, then the sorts of flying that Stormfly can pull shouldn't knock it loose either."

Hiccup and Gobber grinned.  "Alright then," Gobber said.  "But we still have another test to do.  Hiccup?"

He shrugged, and when he heard Ruffnut whistle appreciatively and teasingly behind him, remembered that he was still shirtless, and blushed.  Ignoring it as best he could, he walked forward and lifted the spring bar. 

The satchel popped free without a worry. 

Holding the bag in one hand, he gave a shout of victory.  "It worked! Haha, it worked!"  He tossed the satchel to Gobber.  "We're going to need every one of those that we can make.  Can you get started?" 

"Aye, lad.  Why don't you put on a shirt now?"

"Oh.  Right." 

Ruffnut's voice called teasingly, "Aww.  Did Astrid play too rough?"

Hiccup turned and looked at Gobber, who had just sprouted an evil grin and opened his mouth.  "Not one word."  Gobber opened a bit wider.  "No!"

"Aww, she did!"

Hiccup looked at Ruffnut and sighed.  "I was working with Barf and Belch's gas and set my shirt on fire.  Okay?"

"Then why is Astrid blushing?"

Hiccup sighed.  "Because you're giving both of us a hard time."  He walked away through the crowd towards his house.  "Now, if you'll excuse me…"

###

Toothless looked up and then lay back down on the warm stone, as did Stormfly, as Hiccup walked off.  Astrid, pointedly ignoring the twin, just started popping the satchel on and off the saddle harness with the spring bar again and again. 

So far, Hiccup's latest plan was looking like it would work just fine.  Given all of the work that she had put into helping him refine it, she was pleased.

Now, they just had to finish it, and introduce it.

In the month or so since they'd gotten back from their tour around the Highlands, they'd been working pretty much continuously on Hiccup's creations. 

Well… mostly continuously. 

She smiled to herself in memory.  Last week the two of them had managed to sneak off together, when Gobber, as their current chaperon, had been called off to meet with one of the freshly arrived Alban merchants.  They'd taken the opportunity and vanished into the depths of the village storage tunnels for some truly heroic kissing and a bit more… exploration. 

And it turned out that Hiccup's clever fingers were good for all _sorts_ of… _delicate_ work.

Ruffnut walked up to her, looking at the satchel, as Astrid kept popping onto and off of the harness stud.  Gobber had told her to keep count to see how many times it could work before wearing out the latch. 

"Doesn't look like much," she said, clearly probing for a reaction.

Astrid shrugged and smirked. _Twenty-two_.  "Neither did he, remember?"  _Twenty-three._

"…Point taken."  Ruffnut glanced up the hill to where Hiccup was visible walking to his house.  "But he's looking much better now."  She shook her head.  "You got lucky there."

"Jealous, Ruff?"  _Twenty-four._

Ruffnut looked at her with a scowl.  "Of him?  No!"

 _Twenty-five._   Astrid just gave her a wink to match the one that Ruff had given her before.

The other girl managed to maintain a straight face long enough for Astrid to pop the satchel on and off the harness eight more times before she cracked. 

"Well… not of _him,_ but of _you._   Both of you."  Ruffnut scowled and groaned before looking around.  Most of the adults who had been watching the satchel test had gone off elsewhere by now, and Ruffnut just said bluntly, "I'm jealous of how you two go together, not of… well, yeah, you _two_ are cute, but that's the thing—it's you _two._   He'd bore my brains out with all of that," she waved at the satchel, currently on its thirty-eighth time on-and-off the harness, "but you find it interesting."  She laughed bitterly.  "Imagine me having that with Fishlegs?  Or," she shuddered, " _Snotlout?_ "

Astrid grimaced and nodded.  "Yeah…  I don't know, Ruff."  She made herself smile to push past the grimace at the image.  _Forty-three._   "Well… it's not like you'll be limited to just them.  How many visitors have we had this past month?  Maybe one of the neighboring tribes might have someone for you.  Wasn't there that one guy over in Alba that you thought was cute when we visited?"

"Yeah…" Ruffnut slouched.  "And Tuffnut went to talk with him."

Astrid winced.  "Didn't go well?"

"Nope."

With a grimace, Astrid cast about for a happier topic.  Sadly, outside of sagas and pranks, Ruffnut didn't exactly have a great many interests, and they had few interests in common.  "Um… so… I had an idea the other day for something for Barf and Belch to try to do."

Ruffnut quirked an eyebrow at the transparent change in topic, and nodded.  "Oh?"

"Yeah… remember how the gas can knock people out?"

Ruffnut nodded and cocked her head quizzically. 

"Well… I wanted to see how fast that works, just in case we get into another situation where we have thieves holding dragons at the edge of their axes."

"Oh.  Um… are you… volunteering?"

Astrid shrugged.  "I might as well.  Plus a few of the adults, just in case size makes a difference.  But, well…"  She gave a sweeping gesture of her left hand, "well, it would have made a big difference during that standoff— _if_ we knew how fast it would work."  Then, looking at her hand, she rolled her eyes as she realized she'd just copied one of her boyfriend's mannerisms that she teased him about. 

"Yeah, that makes sense."  Ruffnut smirked.  "But then we wouldn't have gotten to see the look on that king's face when you gave him back his ship!"  Her smirk widened.  "That was a _great_ prank!"

Astrid snorted.  _Sixty-one._   "Glad that it met your approval."

"I wonder if they've gotten it out of his courtyard yet," Ruffnut mused. 

Raising an eyebrow and smirking, Astrid chortled.  "According to the merchants, they ended up taking down part of the fort wall and putting the ship on rollers to get it down to the river.  Took them nearly two weeks."

Ruffnut cackled.  "Nice!"

###

A few days later, Hiccup walked into the mead hall with Toothless at his side, and spotted his father, Gobber and Astrid already seated at the head table, with Stormfly sitting on one of the small furs next to it.  Snagging a bowl of beef stew with parsnips and mushrooms for himself, and a platter of fish for Toothless, he made his way over to them, and took his seat. 

His father and his teacher were polishing off a roast chicken, while Astrid was waving around a drumstick as a pointer, talking to the two.

"…So the good news is, we won't have to keep going for fresh fish next winter in order to keep the dragons fed," she said. 

Hiccup hopped in.  "Oh?  Did the tests work out?"

She nodded, taking a bite out of her drumstick.  "Yep."  She chewed and said around the piece of chicken, "and you were wrong, by the way."

"Oh?" he said, putting the platter of fish aside for Toothless, who immediately tucked in with enthusiasm and a distinct lack of table manners.  

"Yep.  You were betting that they liked roasted or smoked meat," she said, swallowing her bite.  "But it turns out that most of the dragons like their meat _brined._   We put some in vinegar, or pickled it, and got some fermented fish going too, just to try everything, along with the smoked and roasted, and they really really liked the ones that we had put in vinegar and pickled." 

Gobber spoke up, "Although I have to question the tastes of anyone that likes the taste of rotten fish soaked in spoiled beer." 

She rolled her eyes and continued, "So, as I was saying to your father," who nodded, his mouth full of roast chicken, "we won't need to depend entirely on winter fishing to keep the dragons fed, because the fish doesn't have to be fresh.  Also, not all of them like fish."

Hiccup nodded.  "Go on?" 

"Well, the dragons are like people."

"Sharp and you like to throw them into trees?"

She snorted, while the two men exchanged mystified looks.  "No, that's just the Timberjacks.  They're all individuals, and they don't all like the same things.  Stormfly here," and she patted her dragon's flank, "likes chicken, especially pickled chicken that's then roasted."  She took another bite of her drumstick.  "With rosemary." 

Hiccup laughed.  "You spoil her."

She gave a mock-serious scowl.  "Me?  Spoil my dragon?  Aren't you Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, who picks all of the cod out of the basket so that Toothless can have all the salmon?"

He pointed his spoon at her.  "Okay, point."  He turned to Toothless.  "What do you say, bud?  Would you like to try Astrid's cooking?"

Toothless looked at Astrid, looked at Hiccup, looked back at Astrid, and then comically cowered. 

"Okay, okay, she won't be the one cooking it."  Toothless perked up and gave a nod. 

"Hey!" Astrid protested.  "I'm not _that_ bad of a cook!"

Stormfly gave what could only be a sarcastic cough.  Astrid turned to her dragon.  "You stay out of this."  The dragon chattered, cocked her head, and gave a bird-like chortle, then stood up and walked off to sit next to Astrid's mother a few tables over, who smiled and gave the dragon a bite off her plate. 

Gobber hastily took a swig of his ale to cover his grin, and Stoick covered his own smile with his hand.  Hiccup just innocently scratched Toothless behind the ear.  Astrid looked at the three men and huffed for a moment, before giving a laugh herself. 

"Okay, maybe I'm not beyond the 'put it on a stick over the fire' skill," she admitted.  Pointing her drumstick at Hiccup, she grinned and said in a mock-serious tone, "You are going to pay for that later, mister."

Gobber laughed.  "Oh, you're in trouble now, boy!"

Stoick's eyes were gleaming with laughter as he resolutely chewed, trying desperately to keep a straight face. 

"Anyway," she said firmly, "we found that most of the dragons like fish, while some like chicken or goose or duck, and only a few actually like beef or mutton or pork." 

"Hmm," Stoick said.  "That just… feels odd, after so many years of having our flocks raided."

"I guess the Green Death wasn't that much of a picky eater," Hiccup said. 

"Guess not," Gobber said.  He looked at Astrid and pointed his hook at her.  "Just don't get them started on people-meat again."

"Uh… no problem," she said weakly. 

At that moment, the town horn blew, the sound coming in through the open mead hall doors.  Three notes.  Incoming ships. 

A few people looked up towards the doors, but most stuck to their meals.  Over the last few months since the Thawfest, visitors had gone from being exciting novelties that came once a season to regularities that showed up every few days.  There were two ships in harbor at the moment already, merchants from Cornwall and Wales. 

Hiccup started spooning in the stew to placate his rumbling stomach as he idly wondered who the visitors were.  If they were merchants, he hoped that they had paper or parchment; he'd run out again.  Well, they'd arrive in an hour or two; with the patrols five miles out, they hadn't had any surprise visitors in months.

Then in through the doors came running one of the lookouts—Ragnvaldr, a clanless freedman who had come to Berk years before.  "Stoick!  We just spotted a half dozen ships making way towards Berk," he said, moving towards the table.  "Ross went on Leatherwing to go challenge them and told me to come tell you."

Hiccup looked at his nearly full bowl and sighed, making to put his spoon down next to it.  His father looked at him and said, "Eat, Hiccup.  You won't help us any by starving yourself."

Gobber laughed.  "Don't tell him to finish it too quick!  We'd have to nail down the bowl to keep it from being sucked in!"

Hiccup just gave his mentor a level look and firmly picked back up his spoon, ignoring the two older men and his girlfriend's laughter at his expense. 

Sobering, Stoick turned back to the lookout.  "Thank you, Ragnvaldr.  Return to your post and we'll be out shortly.  Pass the word to saddle Thornado, and get Toothless's," he glanced at Astrid, whose expression essentially dared the older man to try to leave her behind, "and Stormfly's tack ready."

"Aye, chief."  The lookout turned and walked out smartly.

Stoick stood and addressed the mead hall.  "It seems that we will be having guests again.  I know that this is… unusual for us, but I think we can all guess the reason."

Some wit in the back of the room called out, "Aye, we caught a two headed fish last week!  Clearly they want a look!"

Someone else called back, "Too late, the Zipplebacks ate it already!"

Stoick looked amused, and said, "Aye, clearly, that's it.  Someone get a salmon and half a cod and stitch them together, quick."  He sobered after a moment and said, "But, jesting aside, we will see what they want, and react accordingly.  Do not worry, and go about your day as you will."

Hiccup, ignoring the banter, was resolutely spooning in stew, and kept at it until his spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl. His stomach growled a few moments later, and, sighing, he got up and went back for seconds, as had been his habit since his growth spurt had hit its stride.  In the last three months, he'd grown over two finger-widths in height, and was now slightly taller than Astrid, much to their mutual amusement. 

The extra baggy clothing that the tailors had made for him wasn't helping him cut a dashing figure though.  He had needed to roll up the cuffs of his new pants a fair ways in order to keep  them from tripping him, and the tailors had promised that they'd hem them… _after_ he was done growing. 

So he'd gone from bursting the seams of his clothes to swimming in them.  Astrid had started amusing herself by grabbing the loose folds of his clothing to drag him off somewhere (which he wasn't complaining about, because it usually involved them having private time for heavy kissing). 

The next bowlful was empty before he even realized it, and Gobber was making nailing motions next to him.  Shooting his mentor an unamused look, he got up and walked away from the table to put the bowl into the wash basket, trying not to cast wistful looks at the cauldron with potential third helpings in it.  Later, the dirty dishes would be taken down to the Scauldron cove by the docks, where the seawater-loving dragons stayed.  There the Tidal-class dragons would use their boiling-water breath to scour the plates and bowls clean, in exchange for fish, a back-scratch, and some dragon-nip. 

The kitchen staff of the mead hall had been ready to bend down and kiss his shoe when Hiccup had come up with _that_ one a month and a half ago, shortly after they'd come back from their trip around the Highlands.  Lopsides Jorgenson, the junior dishwasher, had actually burst into grateful tears when he'd demonstrated that the days of scrubbing pots were more or less over. 

He'd just been feeling embarrassed by all of the extra work he was making for them with his newly improved appetite, and, well, it had worked out nicely that time.

The Scauldrons found it amusing, and had apparently started to make a game out of it.  At least Hiccup assumed it was a game; it looked to him like they were competing to see which of them could hit the most number of dishes with a single water-spout, and he had noticed that the ones that tried and failed were basically teased by the other sea-dragons.

As for the cooks…

Well, they were showing their gratitude and extra time by making little delicacies for him, which he was inhaling as only a teenager on a growth spurt could. 

He left the mead hall, Astrid and Toothless at his sides.  Five minutes later, they were in the air, and spotted Stoick on Thornado's back circling over the sea stacks.  Joining up with him, they were quickly directed towards the incoming ships by Ragnvaldr. 

Spotting the ships was easy; even though the ocean was vast, ships were polite enough to have wakes that conveniently made little arrows to point at themselves from above, obvious against the deep blue-green waters of the sea.

Astrid's cousin Ross flew up on his dragon, a friendly Nightmare named Leatherwing, to meet them as they approached. 

"They say they are a delegation from the King of Norway!" he called.  "I didn't see any weapons beyond what you'd expect!"

"Good job, Ross!" Stoick called out to him.  "We'll go to greet them; hang back and keep watch, and go for aid if things go poorly!"

"Aye, chief!"

They banked and approached the ships, Toothless and Stormfly flanking Thornado, their riders hugging their backs. 

"I don't see any weapons at the ready," Stoick called out to the two teens.  "Let's go in closer."

Hiccup and Astrid nodded, and they circled closer to the longboats. 

Stoick cupped his hands and bellowed, "HELLO THE SHIPS!  WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS IN THESE WATERS!?"

The crews of the ships, which had been watching them intently, moved aside as a man in a rich tunic stepped forward and bellowed back, "We already told the other dragon rider!  We are a delegation under a flag of truce and peace from our king, Magnus the Good of Norway, on our way to the isle of Berk!  We wish to meet with your chieftain!"

They moved in closer, and hovered nearby, ready to dodge if necessary, and Stoick bellowed back, "Aye, and here I am!  Why do you need so large a company to meet under a flag of truce!?"

"The crossing of the North Sea is dangerous, and we felt it best to do as a group.  Besides, we sail into a region infested with dragons that are still wild, or so we understood!" the man on deck called back. 

Stoick chewed that over for a moment.  "That is fair!" he acknowledged.  "I will meet with you at our mead hall.  You are on course for our shore.  I offer you sacred hospitality; all those with good will to our home may enter it!  Do you accept?"

"Aye!"

"Then I will see you soon!  You are roughly a league out from our harbor!  I will send out a pilot to guide you in past the sea stacks!"

"We thank you for your kindness and hospitality!"

With that exchange done, the three riders set off for home, and a pilot was dispatched to bring in the foreign ships past the maze of sea stacks.

###

An hour or so later, Astrid stood with her boyfriend atop Berk's bluffs as her chief and his advisers watched the seas below and discussed what to do.  Astrid watched them talking as she fussed, as best she could, over Hiccup's formal attire—a new overtunic made from blue linen and embroidered with dancing dragons, and a neatly made boot and pair of pants—as it gave her something to do while they waited… and it wasn't like she could make them look _worse_.  It was his first time wearing it, and they were so ill-fitting he looked like a child wearing his father's clothes, even though the tailors swore that he'd fit into it in another year; they'd made the seams such that they could be let out easily, but he was still practically swimming in it.  Hiccup, for his part, was smiling at her with a raised eyebrow as she tried to get his tunic to lay properly over the undertunic, and she fought down a blush as she remembered pulling on his other new tunic a few days before to pull him off someplace private, for _other_ bits of clothing to get pulled on (and off…).   She gave him a quelling look and went back to trying to get his shirt to behave.

"Well.  Six ships from the boy-king of Norway," Spitelout said thoughtfully as they watched from Berk's heights as the ships appeared out of the sea-mist.  "We _are_ moving up in the world, aren't we?"

"Aye," Stoick said, and scowled.  "What do you think, Spitelout?"

Spitelout shrugged.  "I'm the marshal, Stoick.  You want to talk cracking heads, that I can do.  You want to talk about seeing what's inside those heads, you'll have to find someone else for that job." 

"Well, I'll work on that," Stoick said with a resigned look.  "Before, never had much reason for it.  There was us, there were the neighbor tribes, and there were the traders.  Now…" he nodded his head at the ships moving in towards his harbor, "now I'm thinking that I might need to put some thought into it."

"Aye, you do.  If we're going to be dining with kings, we need someone that speaks their language.  Perhaps literally."

"True, but for now, you and Gobber will just have to make up for it.  I want you two down at the docks to meet them with me and Hiccup for the formal meeting, as steward and marshal."

Spitelout looked like he wanted to spit.  "Gobber?  How are you going to keep him from talking about his undies?"

"Leave that to me."

As she listened, she kept fussing over and adjusting Hiccup's shirt, the belt, how the neatly-hemmed fur draped over his shoulders, knowing that the ill-fit of the clothing wasn't something that she would be able to fix, but it gave her something to do in her nervousness.  She was _strongly_ aware that this was _not_ her strong suit.  Fighting, she knew.  Organizing people, she knew.  Dragons, she knew better than anyone aside from Hiccup or Fishlegs. 

Diplomacy?  Noble titles?  Uh, no thank you, I'll be over here. 

Thawfest had been bad enough, but at least there it had been as part of a formal event.  Now… what did she do?  Did she do anything?  Was she under Spitelout's command?  Or Hiccup's?  Was she even any use as a shieldmaiden, when Hiccup had shown just how overpowering dragonriders could be against regular warriors?

And she didn't know.

So she redid the stays on his shirt for the sixth time, just to give her fingers something to do, as the chief talked. 

Then Hiccup, who had been basking like a cat being stroked, spoke up.  "I want Astrid there too.  If nothing else, she's got a good eye for detail."

Spitelout looked at both of them with skepticism.  "Boy, I understand wanting to impress the girl, but we're going to be meeting with a foreign viking lord's men, and it's _them_ we need to impress.  Bringing your…" he swallowed a few words, Astrid could tell, and she doubted that any of them were complimentary, " _lady_ with you just because you… That is _not_ going to impress them.  Gobber, at least, has the _excuse_ of having an official position as steward."

Hiccup smiled crookedly and shrugged.  "All right.  I mean, there's the bit where she's already a trained warrior and could be part of the honor guard, or, if you _don't_ think that she's 'good enough' at fighting," his tone made his opinion of _that_ attitude perfectly clear, "then there's still the part where having non-shieldmaids present shows good intent towards peace.  But, hey, you're right.  We're trying to impress them."  He turned to Stoick.  "So, dad, if we're talking about starting to appoint people for handling things, I'd like to nominate Astrid as our Master of the Dragon."

Everyone froze for a moment, except for Hiccup, and Astrid clamped down on a squeak before it could escape and embarrass her.

"She knows more about dragons than just about anybody else, both theory and practice.  She's already deeply involved in the details of the job, as she told you earlier, and I need someone to work with, and Fishlegs is too deeply involved in other projects. _And_ we can stop looking like barbarians as much to the mainlanders; they have a Master Of The Horse position for their courts, so we can use that system pretty much direct."  He looked his father dead in the eye and said, completely straightforward, "What do you think?"

Stoick smiled just as crookedly as his son had, and said, "Sounds like a fine idea." He turned to Astrid and said, "Consider the report you gave me earlier to have been your audition." She just stood there, still a bit stunned.  "If, of course, you want the job."

She blinked and said, "One moment, I need to think it over." And then dragged Hiccup by the lapels of his vest off to the side, and hissed in his ear, "I have no godsdamn clue what to do, and what in Midgard are you thinking!?"

His response was so very Hiccup. 

"I want someone who knows dragons with me as this keeps getting more and more crazy with time, and you're the best person for the job," he said bluntly.  "I trust you with _my_ life, and with Toothless's.  Fishlegs is good, but I need him for other things, like managing the Broodery and Rookery and the day-to-day stuff for the dragons that he _excels_ at.  Honestly, I want _him_ to be working with you and Gobber on the stuff at home, and when Gobber retires, give _him_ the job of Steward.  But you're already doing the stuff that you'd be doing anyway—help train the new dragons and new riders, help manage the dragons and their needs, and things like that.  Really, I'm just getting _you_ the name that comes with what you've already been _doing._ "

Astrid just looked at him, stunned.

"And the fact that I'm your girlfriend…"

"Only has anything to do with it because you were already doing that stuff because we're always with each other."

"Uh…" she turned to Stoick and the others, who were displaying varying degrees of politeness in pretending not to listen.  "I accept."

"Good.  Welcome, Mistr… _Master_ Hákonsdoittor," Stoick said, grinning at her, and then turning to his son with a gleam in his eye.  "Oh, and Hiccup, it occurs to me that I need a herald.  Someone to go out and do the talking to other people instead of having them come to me."  He _smiled,_ in a way that reminded her of her parents coming up with a fitting punishment for her earlier escapades.  "You're it."

Hiccup blinked.

"I, uh…"

"Great, that's settled," Stoick said, smiling, and pointed at the incoming ships.  "Looks like they're almost here.  Come, down to the docks." 

He walked off, trailed by Spitelout and Gobber, while Hiccup just stood there, stunned.  He looked helpless at Astrid, who shrugged and followed her chieftain, before turning back and saying, "You have _no_ right to say anything, Hiccup.  C'mon.  You need to be down there _anyway._ "

A bit numbly, he took her hand and they walked down the stairs to the docks, Toothless and Stormfly following close behind.  He only stumbled a little bit today; thanks to his growth spurt, his current false foot had reached the limit of how far he could adjust the height.  At this rate, he was already designing a new one, and would probably need it by next week—or have to deal with a leg that was shorter on one side than the other. 

As they turned down to the path to the docks, she turned to him and abruptly said, "Did you really mean all of that?"

Placing his feet carefully, he looked up and said, "All of what?"

"The Master of Dragon things.  You're not just saying it to make me happy?"

Hiccup sighed, rubbed at his face, and said flatly, "Okay.  Who else would I give the job to?  Snotlout?  The _twins?_   Fishlegs is busy managing the dragons—making sure they get fed, have a place to sleep, whose eggs belong to who, watching and raising the hatchlings, and scribing notes.  Do you _really_ think he has time to experiment to see what kinds of food the dragons like, or keeping an eye on our leather supplies, or helping with saddle construction, or training new riders, or organizing lookout watches, or handling disagreements between riders—all of which you've been _doing already?"_

She blinked.  And then chewed over everything that he just had said.

"Have… have I _really_ been doing that much?"

Hiccup snorted.  "Didn't even notice, did you?"

"I… it all just kind of grew up around me."

"Yeah, it did.  And that's why I think you deserved the job.  This was just my best chance to bring it up to my dad."

They reached the docks, and the ships were coming in.  Astrid was suddenly aware that she was still dressed in _her_ everyday clothing, and not in formal dress.  She didn't even _have_ a formal dress that wasn't just for the blots and other holy ceremonies.  Her last one had met an unfortunate end back around Yule, thanks to Stormfly's frustration about her injury.

Hiccup just leaned over.  "You okay?"

"Just feeling massively underdressed," she whispered.

"Oh, don't worry about it.  You _work._   It's us chunky nobles who have to be turned out like a prize goose for the high table's meal."

She laughed, and he let go of her hand with a sad smile.  "All right, here we go.  Remember.  For all things and people dragon-related and not me or dad, you're the boss now."

She looked at him and smiled, and then, when what he said sank in, she went, "Hey, wait a minute…!" with suddenly wide eyes.

Hiccup just smiled and walked away, as she suddenly realized how much authority Hiccup had just given her.  How many times over the last few months had she _needed_ that, when people wouldn't listen, or listened only because she was his girlfriend?  A pair of Jorgensons had actually said to her face last week that she wasn't Hiccup or Stoick and didn't have the authority to get them to listen.

Oh. 

Wow.

As the lead ship pulled into dock and was tied to the quay, she worked on composing herself. 

One of the men aboard the ship stood to the side of the gangplank as the fellow in the sharp tunic walked forward, and spoke aloud. 

"His noble highness, Chief of Rygjafylki _,_ Yngvarr Arlaksson the Merry!"

A few warriors, carrying shields and with axes holstered at their waists or backs, hurried down the gangplank, making a display of martial might.  It was undercut by them giving awed or worried looks at the two dragons, who looked mystified at first at all of the humans running around and not-quite-brandishing weapons at each other.  That lasted for a few moments, and then Toothless made a draconic chitter to her friend.  She had no idea what he was saying in specifics, but, given the expression on Stormfly's face, she guessed that he was making a comment about territorial displays.  Stormfly coughed in laughter, drawing alarmed looks from the honor guard. 

Chief Yngvarr stepped forward off of the gangplank, looking around with a smile on his face, and beamed at the assembled Hooligans.  Astrid braced herself as that grin swept across her with approval.  She'd only just met the fellow, and that only technically, and she already felt both intimidated and a bit fond of him, to be honest.  Especially when he saw the dragons and visibly had to restrain himself from walking over to them.

"Hello!" he said, turning back to Stoick and his assembled people. Hiccup coughed and, as his first active act as herald, introduced his father, himself, Spitelout, Gobber, and ended with, "Master of the Dragons, Astrid Hákonsdoittor, of the Hofferson clan."

She did her best to look confident, as if she'd held her appointment for more than ten minutes.  She also did her best to tamp down on the little gibbering screaming voice in the back of her head yammering about how she was a fraud and to run away as fast as possible  She wasn't going to mess up.  She was going to be _good_ at this.  Hiccup believed in her ability to do this.  She wasn't going to let him down.  Maybe diplomacy wasn't her calling… but she could damn well try. 

The foreign chieftain beamed at them, and then looked at Hiccup "I think you forgot a few," he said with a slightly chiding tone, nodding at the dragons. 

Hiccup grinned, clearly liking the man, and said, "And these are Toothless the Night Fury, who is my friend, and Stormfly the Deadly Nadder, who is Astrid's friend."

"Splendid!" Yngvarr grinned, and then turned to Stoick.  "I bring greetings and invitations from my own sworn king and chief, Magnus the Good, from his court. I volunteered for this, and am most interested in meeting your dragons!"

His enthusiasm was infectious _,_ and Astrid found herself smiling back at him.  Not her type, but she had the distinct feeling that he had to beat the ladies off with a stick. 

"Well, first, I think we need to discuss your men," Stoick said mildly.  "We are a bit lacking in billets for them, but they are welcome to camp on the main island, and may carry their personal weapons with them, though I will have to ask that full kit be left aboard the ships.  Beyond that, my offer of hospitality is open to them as well.  They may draw food from the common pot and wood from the common piles.  Is that acceptable?"

"Aye, Chief Stoick," Yngvarr said, smiling at him.  "I accept your offer of hospitality on behalf of my men."  He extended his forearms, palm up, and Stoick did the same, palm down; her chief and the foreign one each clasped the other man's arms, hand to forearm, and shook.  It was vaguely comical, as Stoick was a good head taller and much brawnier than Yngvarr, but the other chief was lanky in a way that bespoke _speed_ , and Astrid found herself wondering if she would have the opportunity to spar with him. 

Then she scolded herself for falling back on old habits.  He was a diplomat.  While she pushed herself for every training opportunity that she could get for herself, that was an inappropriate thought.  Just because he looked like he knew his way around in a melee didn't mean that she should assume that she could get him to teach her a few tricks to add to her fighting array.  Naughty Astrid.  You're the Master of the Dragon right now, not just a shieldmaiden.  Decorum!  Hospitality!  Try to keep that in mind.  If anything, she'd probably get to spar with one of his guardsmen, as a show of prowess, but that wasn't the same…

The entire group began walking up the pathway to the docks, and Yngvarr wanted to know _all_ about the dragons as they walked, his eyes shining as he looked around in glee; Stoick, Gobber, and Spitelout went on ahead as Hiccup and Astrid explained names and breeds.

As they walked slowly up the path, Yngvarr was looking every which way to try to see as much as he could.  When a quartet of Gronckles flew by overhead, carrying some wooden beams for the new construction, he goggled, his eyes wide and his grin wider. 

"Dear heaven," he said, as he watched a Timberjack across the bay methodically slicing tree trunks into more beams and boards under the direction of its human rider.  "They are truly tamed, are they not?"

"Yep," Hiccup said, smiling.  "And most of them enjoy having something to do.  Although we've got a few that are lazy like anything."

"Very much like people, then," the chief observed with a smile.  He turned to Astrid.  "That one, over there, with the two heads?  What are they called?"

"Hideous Zipplebacks," she said with an answering grin.  She could see why he had earned his epithet—he was so bursting with enthusiasm that it was hard not to smile in response.  She just hoped that it was genuine, and not a false face.  "And, no, the heads don't necessarily get along."

"How do you ride them, then?"

"Either like a pair of harnessed horses, or with a coordinated pair of riders," she said.  "We actually have a pair of twins who ride one… although, since the _twins_ don't always get along, the heads don't always manage either."

"Amazing.  Simply amazing."  Before he could say anything else, one of the hatchling  Nadders flew awkwardly nearby into the side of a house, and staggered to its feet.  Like all babies, it was adorable, and it swayed hesitantly on its two legs, and lurched into their path, making a grumbling noise that Astrid had zero problems translating to the effect of, _Mommy?  Mommy?  Who put that wall there?_

Yngvarr cried out in joy and turned to look at the toddling dragon.  The dragon blinked back at him, cocking its head in confusion, and then it shook its head before steadying on its feet and rambling up to the group of them, coming to a stop in front of Hiccup and Yngvarr.

Kneeling down to pat the knee-high purple and green dragon on the nose, which it primly accepted, Yngvarr looked up at Astrid and Hiccup.  "Is it all right?  It's not hurt, is it?"  Behind him, his guardsmen were watching, some in fear, others in awe. 

"Nah, Nadders are tough," Astrid said with a grin.  "I recognize that one.  She's a little escape artist called Pinhead.  The rest of the hatchlings should still be in the nursery unless she led another breakout."  The baby dragon cooed, and walked away from the foreign chief in mid-pat, beelining for the fish urn.

Hand still poised to pat, he looked vaguely hurt for a moment, and then laughed.  "I just remembered my mother's cats _,_ " he said, hopping back to his feet in a smooth motion that really made Astrid want to get him on the sparring floor, despite her resolutions otherwise. 

Training Hiccup here and there in helping him use his peg with agility was one thing, but it was all basic stuff, and he needed someone to push him to actually walk on it and build up the muscles and callouses that he would need to use it regularly; left to his own devices, he'd be spending most of his time either in the forge or on Toothless's back, and he needed someone to push him to run and climb on the peg.  But it wasn't any more interesting for her than it was for him, and while she still trained regularly against other tribesmates… the opportunity to get to spar against someone new—to learn their tricks and methods and test herself against them… it was so tempting. 

With a flap, Pinhead launched herself into the urn of fish—which, thankfully, was not as stinky as it had once been.  Astrid had come up with the idea of deepening the urns, waterproofing them, and filling them with water.  Now that it was summer and the catch was good, they would fly a net full of writhing fish straight up from the water to fill the urns, and the dragons seemed to find the live meals much more enjoyable than the stinking dead ones.  Yngvarr looked wistfully at the tiny feasting dragon swimming in the water after the fish as they walked on by.  It wasn't until they reached the next bend in the path that he turned to look forward again.  She laughed lightly, especially as his guardsmen were gawking just as obviously as their lord.  "Don't worry about her, sir.  I'll send someone to catch her and take her back where she belongs in a bit."

While the guardsmen gaped, they were attracting a fair amount of attention themselves.  While it was after the dinner hour, most people were still out, either working or socializing, as the summer sun only coyly dipped below the horizon for a few hours each night.  They still had hours left to go before night would fall, and there was a fair amount of bustle still going on, and the ships coming in hadn't exactly been overlooked. 

They finally managed to enter the meadhall after several more introductions to inquisitive dragons; in particular, her mother's Nadder, Sunflower, had flown over to investigate, and had proceeded to give Yngvarr a full-body sniff, much to the alarm of the more twitchy members of his guard, and had magnanimously accepted some neck scritches. 

The mead hall steps finally behind them, Hiccup entered first and announced Yngvarr, who was watching with a knowing smile.  As Yngvarr and his men entered the room, Astrid hurried over to one of the side pillars to get a good view, Hiccup and their dragons joining her a moment later. 

Yngvarr approached Stoick's throne and bowed respectfully.  "My lord Stoick, The Vast, of Berk, I bring you greetings and tidings from my own lord and master, King Magnus the Good of Norway, who recognizes you as a brother lord.  He has sent me from his court across the North Sea to greet you and honor you and your son for your grand accomplishments.  I have gifts to deliver in his name, and a boon to request in the same."

Stoick nodded.  "Please.  We don't stand on ceremony overmuch here.  Please, continue."

Yngvarr nodded and straightened, beaming.  "I am tasked by my lord king to deliver a gift." Stoick cocked his head expectantly and nodded.  Yngvarr's smile widened.  "You asked why we traveled with such a large group?  I am tasked to deliver three of those ships to _you_ , my lord, and travel home safely on the remaining three.  You may pick any three of them that you wish."

Stoick's bushy eyebrows rose.  Astrid felt her jaw drop and Hiccup somehow managed to trip over his own foot and peg where he stood, and they silently staggered against one another until she could prop him back upright. 

"That… is an impressive gift."

"Your fief is an impressive holding," Yvgnarr said honestly. 

"You said that your king craved a boon.  What is it?"

Yngvarr gave a slight bow and spoke.  "There is a touch of explanation needed.  A year ago, I had the honor of accompanying my lord on campaign against King Harthacnut of the Danes and English.  In the hopes that we might prevent the shedding of the blood of brother Vikings, we, his nobles, worked with our opposite number to arrange a meeting between the two of them at the Göta Älv, the river that marks the border between our two kingdoms.  There, they agreed that whichever of them predeceased the other would gain the holds and vassals of his brother king, and reforge Cnut the Great's North Sea Empire once again." 

He bowed.  "It is my hope and desire to see if peace can be forged once again, but, instead of between rivals, between allies.   Thus I ask, on behalf of my king, if you, or your heir and herald, would be willing to accompany me back to meet and negotiate with my own king, with a suitable entourage as befitting your status or his.  I am willing to stay here as hostage, if you deem it necessary."

Stoick's eyes rose.  Astrid's eyes widened.  Hiccup fell back against the pillar with a thud, and she unceremoniously hauled him back upright again. 

"That is a significant boon to request, my lord."

"Aye, my lord.  But is peace not worth pursuit?  My lord king offers friendship and perhaps an alliance."  He looked Stoick straight in the eye.  "Perhaps even friendship beyond the bonds of realms.  Your heir and my king are of a similar age.  He is currently rising seventeen, a kind and just youth.  While the demands of kingship have ended my lord's childhood prematurely, there is still the possibility of boon companionship between them."

With that, he bowed.  Hiccup looked stunned, and Astrid knew him well enough to guess why.  A year ago, nobody wanted to be his friend, and now, essentially, a boy-king had asked him if he could come over and play. 

She suddenly had to tamp down on a bout of giggles at the image.  The Master of the Dragon did not giggle. 

Even if she _really_ wanted to.

And she wanted to go on this trip too.  Oh, she so wanted to go.  Maybe she wasn't the best diplomat… but getting to see the homeland of the Norse?  Yes, please.

Stoick composed himself for a moment, and looked at the foreign chief.  "May I ask what your king's intentions are, before I commit myself or my heir?"

"Aye, my lord.  My lord is young, and has the fullness of time, and wisdom beyond his years.  He works to cement his hold now, not expand it.  Our primary worries are those who threaten our realm.  We have no designs on your home as vassals, and recognize the foolishness of contemplating the attempt, unlike others whose words we have heard of.  We would rather bind together with the silken bonds of friendship over that of the sword and chain.  For proof, I would simply point to the fact that my lord abandoned justified vengeance for the death of his own father in the pursuit of peace.  We pursued battle against Harthacnut because he is a cruel and vicious lord, and abandoned it when he no longer threatened us."

Yvgnarr straightened, only to bow once more.  "I know that I am asking much, and have said much.  With your leave, I and my men will begin to make camp on the island as you offered, and leave you to consider our offer.  Our gift is not contingent on your response, and all I ask is that you take time to consider.  Indeed, I beg you to think it over fully, and do not come to a rash choice."

At that, Stoick nodded.  "Aye.  You have my leave."

Yvgnarr smoothly rose from his bow and left the mead hall, smiling at Hiccup and Astrid as he left with his honor guard, before pausing at the door, a bemused expression on his face. 

"Excuse me, but I have just realized one slight issue," he said.

"Aye?" Stoick said with a skeptical look.

" _Where_ are we to make camp, exactly?"

Stoick laughed, his tension evaporating.  "Aye, aye.  Spitelout, direct them, would you?"

With that, the people already in the hall immediately began to talk.

Astrid just looked at Hiccup, her eyes wide.  His expression was a mirror to her own. 

They both turned and looked at Stoick together.

Stoick laughed.  "I will think it over, Hiccup.  Don't you worry.  But, before I even begin, I have to ask you first: do you wish to go?  It is a risk, of that there is no question."

Hiccup shrugged and grinned widely.  "We're Vikings, dad.  It's an occupational hazard." 

Astrid smirked and rolled her eyes at her boyfriend.  Sure, dangers were occupational hazards for Vikings, but that was raids and fighting and combat.  Or, in other words, her area.  She was still figuring out how dangerous _his_ area, of peace and treaties and friendships, could be. 

Stoick grinned and nodded.  "All right then.  I will consider it."  He waved to the door.  "Go.  And make sure our guests do not bother the dragons, and that the dragons don't bother them."

Hiccup nodded, and, together, he and Astrid left the hall, then hopped on their dragons, grinning widely.

He turned to her.  "You're coming with me to Norway, right?"

Astrid gave Stormfly the gentle poke that meant to pour on the speed.  "Just try and stop me!  Race you to the campsite!"

"Hey, wait up!"

* * *

 

 **A/N:** And now things start to kick into high gear...


	12. First Time For Everything

**Chapter 12: First Time For Everything**

_The premise that Magnus the Good's diplomatic overtures to Berk was the instigation to ending the Hooligan Tribe's unofficial policy of noninterference and isolationism has been debated repeatedly over the centuries in academic circles, to the point where it is a traditional topic for undergraduate papers in the subject.  Regardless of the specific perspective taken, however, the facts simply remain that Hiccup Haddock's state visit to Norway was the first time that the Hero of Berk traveled to another court and was greeted as an equal by a monarch, and that in the aftermath, Berk began to take a larger role in international affairs, in the economic, political, religious, and militaristic spheres._

_—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd._

 Nearly three weeks later, Hiccup, Astrid, the twins, Snotlout, and a half-dozen other riders and their dragons stood on the decks of the small fleet, watching the peaks of the Norwegian mountains around the capital of Nidaros as they moved up through the fjord.  A smaller and faster oarboat was skimming across the water ahead of them to alert the king of their arrival.  While the smaller boat would never survive out in the open sea, it was much, much faster than the larger longboats. 

Hiccup watched the oarmen row to the beat of the drum and sighed happily.  The trip had been long.  And boring.  And occasionally terrifying when the storms had come.  But now it was nearly over. 

Thank Njord.

Over the course of the trip, Hiccup had learned two things.  First, Viking or not, he hated sea travel, and second, related to the first, if he ever had possessed sea legs, they'd clearly had been amputated with his left calf. 

So he'd just ridden Toothless for hours in circles around the little fleet, which probably hadn't helped with his sea travel issues.  But it was do that or go stir crazy on a small longboat.

Okay, they hadn't been _that_ small, at least by longboat standards, but a cranky dragon at sea would make any longboat seem tiny to the humans sharing the trip.  And keeping dragons from flying was a sure way to make them cranky.  So Hiccup and Toothless had gone flying every day.

Around the fleet.

And around.

And _around_. 

They'd been lucky, though, in comparison with the others.  Toothless, at least, could fly straight off of the deck of the longboats, and not all of the dragons could, meaning that they could only fly when they'd been able to go ashore at night.  Overall, it hadn't been a major issue when rounding the north coast of Alba, or when working their way up the coast of Norway.  Crossing the North Sea had been the worst part, really.  Five _days_ at sea out of sight of land, where half of the dragons couldn't fly from the ships, and day three had featured a summer thunderstorm that had been utterly terrifying.  He wasn't ashamed to admit that he had been clutching Astrid for dear life as the jotunn Aegir had lifted the seas into waves that reached above the heights of houses.  Astrid hadn't been much better, and they'd done what they were told by the sailors—mostly involving staying out of the way—with fervor. 

Other than the storm, though, the trip had mostly been boring and tedious, even with Yngvarr having regaled them with tales of harrowing sea crossings—right before bed, of course.  Everyone had a single sea-chest for their belongings; his had been filled with clothing and supplies, and he'd been scratching his creative itches through whittling toys for Astrid and Toothless.  The chests were used as the rowing benches when the wind died, as otherwise there was no place to sit aboard the ship.  The food was tough and tasteless, either dried, salted, smoked, or brined, and somehow worse than Berk winter provisions through some arcane act of salty blandness.  And of course, on the days that they could fly, Hiccup, Toothless, and the other riders and their dragons had paced the fleet in order to give the sailors room to work and the dragons the chance to stretch their wings.  But flying around and around in circles had driven Toothless and the other dragons varying degrees of batty.  And it wasn't like they could have simply gone off on their own, not without risking getting separated from the fleet as it moved.  Sure, the longboats were slow compared to dragons, but they still moved, and it wouldn't be hard at all to miss them, especially towards the end of the day.

So they'd flown around in endless circles, spotting villages and other longboats, and, having nothing else to do, practiced their riding. 

But now, at least, that part was over. 

As the city by the river started coming into view, Hiccup decided that he'd had enough of waiting, and hopped on Toothless's back for takeoff.  The sailors darted back, and, with a strong downbeat, Toothless took to the air.  Musing, Hiccup gave a truly magnificent smirking grin as an idea occurred to him and then directed his friend to one of the neighboring ships.  Landing next to Yngvarr where he stood on the prow, he waved to the foreign chief and said, "Would it be a horrible breach of protocol if we flew on ahead for a big entrance?"

Yngvarr grinned at him, and Hiccup was reminded that the man was barely ten years older than him.  "I don't think that there's protocol for arriving on dragonback, honestly.  So how could it be a breach, if there aren't rules against it?"

Hiccup just extended his hand to the older man, trying to hide his anticipatory grin.  A click of a few buckles and Yngvarr, eyes crinkling and mouth set in a wide grin, was harnessed behind him.  The motion was smooth as only daily practice from more than two weeks at sea could make it, as they'd taken him for regular rides too (with the excuse being that they were checking for the weather.  Which had, of course, necessitated acrobatics through the clouds, and much cheering and whooping.  Otherwise, they might accidentally sneak up on Thor, of course.  Fun had _nothing_ to do with it.  Nope.  Nothing). 

The ships were directed to the banks of the fjord, and, ten minutes later, all ten dragons were in the air, heading towards the capital city of Norway .  A Night Fury, four Deadly Nadders, three Monstrous Nightmares, and two Hideous Zipplebacks flew through the sky of the Thround Fjord.  Behind them, the longboats were being pushed back into the water behind them. 

Toothless took the lead of the diamond formation, and Hiccup looked back to check over the others' positions and called instructions to dress the formation.  They were here to put on a show, after all.

And they'd taken the fastest dragons capable of extended flights… just in case.  Back on Berk, before they'd even left, Fishlegs hadn't needed much convincing to stay behind, which is to say hadn't needed any.  He was quite happy to stay in Berk and keep an eye on things, and didn't very much enjoy the thought of a long sea voyage, claiming that it would upset Meatlug after her abduction.  Gone unsaid in that discussion was that a Gronckle would have been a liability to the group if they'd needed to run for it.  So his older brother and sister, Horsefeathers and Fishwings, had come instead to represent their clan, flying their Nadder and Nightmare.

As they flew over the city, Hiccup looked down below them.  It was much larger than Berk, which wasn't at _all_ a surprise.  Nidaros was the country's capital, and he could see many houses, a central market, and a solid wooden fort standing up over the city on a hill, up against the river headland.  Near the docks, a large crowd of people were assembling, and they were pointing up, either in awe or fear, Hiccup could not tell which.  The small oarship that had greeted them was visible alongside a pier nearby.

Yngvarr pointed, "There!" and started unbuckling himself as Toothless banked down toward the assembled crowd.  Some of the people started to panic as the dragons came in and landed on the quay in quick succession.  Some people screamed, while others cheered, especially as Yngvarr smoothly dismounted before the last dragon landed.  He stood, bowed, and boomed in his best projecting voice, "My lord, King Magnus the Good, may I present to you the Hope and Heir of the Chiefdom of Berk, Dragon Tamer Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third and his brave mount Toothless!"

There was a stunned moment before people began applauding, and it built and built, until the entire crowd was clapping with enthusiasm.

After a good thirty seconds of this, Yngvarr held up a hand, and the noise slowly died down. Hiccup looked around the crowd as they calmed.  The king was easy to pick out, based on Yngvarr's descriptions.  The crown didn't hurt either, though.  He was about the same height as Hiccup, long blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin, and was wearing a fine tunic, dyed a deep blue, with a matching cape.  Hiccup knew from Yngvarr's descriptions that he was only a year or so older than Hiccup was. 

And he was grinning madly and clapping more enthusiastically than any three of the other people in the crowd. 

The crowd, including the king, having finally quieted, Yngvarr made the rest of the introductions, working his way down the list of Hooligans and their dragons in order of precedence.  That put Snotlout and Hookfang behind Astrid and Stormfly, as she had a title and he didn't, but he was ahead of everyone else, as Hiccup's cousin. 

Then Yngvarr turned and repeated the introductions the other way.

"Sir Haddock, may I present to you my sworn lord and king Magnus the Good, and his court?"

Hiccup dismounted and bowed to Yngvarr and the king.  "Please do, my good sir," he said. 

Then the king, who had been fidgeting through their introductions, stepped forward and held up a forestalling hand.  "Jarl Yngvarr, my good man, I think we can hold off the formalities for now."  He then turned to Hiccup and beamed at him.  Stepping forward, he paused for a brief moment, and then said to Hiccup, grinning widely, "Welcome!  Welcome!  A thousand times welcome!  Thank you for coming, Sir Hiccup!"  He looked Toothless in the eye and his grin, already wide, practically glowed.  "If I didn't see it with my own two eyes, I don't know if I would believe it."  He looked back to Hiccup.  "That was simply amazing!  I find myself all aquiver in awe at this!"  He turned back to look at Toothless, who cocked his head quizzically.  "I'm looking a dragon in the face!  How amazing!"  Toothless leaned in and gave a deep sniff, and then sneezed.  The king looked delighted. 

Yngvarr coughed lightly off to the side, and the king blinked. "Oh, yes.  Right.  Sir Hiccup, We welcome you and your retinue to our shores!  Please, accept mine and my household's hospitality!"

Hiccup bowed formally, as Yngvarr had taught him, and said, "We accept!  Thank you for your hospitality, King Magnus!"

And with that, the circus began to move.  Handling organization of everything was the first issue.  The ships would land soon enough and the luggage would be hauled up to the quarters at the fort.  There was also a welcoming feast, which was already being laid on for the honored guests for the evening meal.  At the mention of the feast by the king, Hiccup cringed inside, remembering the agonies of last autumn's saga presentation and the visitors at Thawfest. 

Thankfully, once Magnus's steward stepped forward, introduced himself as Mark Leosson, and started to inquire about what provisions the dragons would need, Astrid did the same, and introduced herself as Berk's Master of the Dragon.  Leosson looked skeptical for a moment at her title, which made Hiccup grimace, but, with a supporting look and nod from Yngvarr, the steward quelled and began to nod as she told him that they'd need fish, and _lots_ of them. 

Meanwhile, most of the crowd were oohing and ahhing over the dragons, or at least approaching them; Hiccup suspected that some of them were more afraid of appearing cowardly than they were of the dragons.  The Nadders were preening at the attention, the Zipplebacks were amusing themselves by confusing people, the Nightmares were enjoying themselves by acting inscrutable and watching the humans react, while Toothless was looking around in curiosity at all of the new people and new smells. 

That nearly turned into a disaster as Magnus went to mount a rather skittish horse while talking with Yngvarr, and Toothless decided that he wanted to take a closer look at the animal.

Who, of course, bolted as the wide-eyed black dragon pounced towards the horse in order to sniff at it.

Magnus fell off of the saddle, having been only half-mounted, and landed on Yngvarr; the pair of them hit with a meaty thud on the wooden pier. 

Hiccup watched the horse whinny and gallop away through the crowd, as people yelped and jumped out of its way, and took a moment to sag in sheer exasperation at his friend.  As the horse cleared the crowd and poured on the speed, Toothless turned back to him with a half-sheepish, half-expectant look.

With a sigh, Hiccup stepped forward and scolded his friend, "No, I'm not going to help you chase it down so that you can get a better look."  Toothless looked crestfallen.

Yngvarr laughed and, thus reminded, Hiccup turned and extended both hands to the two men on the ground.  "I'm so sorry.  I should have—"

Magnus grabbed his hand and pulled himself to his feet.  Shaking his head and blinking, he laughed, cutting Hiccup's apology off.  "That, I should have seen coming."  He turned to Yngvarr.  "Send someone to go catch that jittery horse."

As Yngvarr nodded, Magnus turned back to Hiccup.  "As your steed has frightened off mine, I request the honor of borrowing yours," he asked with a wink.

Hiccup nodded.  "I'll be happy to give you a ride, your Highness, but I need to manage Toothless's harness."

Having also been helped to his feet, Yngvarr chimed in.  "Toothless is a curious beast, in both meanings, my lord.  If this is the least trouble he gets in over our visit, I will count myself as happy.  But he needs his rider—if for no other reason, because you are not trained."

Magnus gave his vassal a sour look for a moment and then turned to Hiccup.  "Well, Sir Hiccup?" he asked lightly.  "Can we?"

Toothless was doing his level best to look completely innocent and blameless, and fooling no one.   

Hiccup glared at him; he knew that his friend understood, at least on some level, the idea of what a king was, and this could have started a war if Magnus had been hurt or declared this as an insult.  Toothless gave him a contrite look and, mollified, Hiccup turned and nodded to the king.  "If you are willing to trust me, then I have no problem flying you anywhere you want, your Majesty."

The king shrugged.  "If you wanted me dead, I'd be a burned corpse right now from dragonfire.  I doubt that I have anything to fear from you." He hesitantly held up a hand for Toothless to sniff.  Toothless, his eyes dilated and friendly, sniffed and then licked the royal hand, making Magnus laugh.

Hiccup just shook his head and hopped on Toothless's saddle, and then extended a hand to the king.  As Magnus slid into the saddle, he reflected that now Toothless had given flights to both kings and shepherds. 

He looked around as he showed the king how to use the same braces that Yngvarr had used during the flight, and then Toothless braced for takeoff. 

Having been watching the entire scene, Astrid caught his eyes, and then rolled her own and gave him a fond smile, before turning back to talking with the steward.  Snotlout was showing off Hookfang to a group of young women in the audience, causing Hiccup to internally sigh.  The twins were hopping back on Barf and Belch, looking like they were getting ready to give him an escort.  The other riders were also getting ready, either to fly up to the fort or just walk. 

They waved to everyone.  A few of the courtiers seemed to suddenly realize what was about to happen, and started to voice protests, but Magnus clapped Hiccup on the shoulder and called out, "Let's go!"

And with that, they were flying straight up, the king holding tight around Hiccup despite the belaying lines and harness, and he whooped in exhilaration.   As they leveled out from the initial takeover, he cheered and waved his arms about, his fists nearly clouting Hiccup on the ear in his enthusiasm.

Hiccup turned back to the king and called, "Do you want to fly straight there, or enjoy ourselves first?"

"You need to ask?!  I've been looking forward to this since I first heard about you four months ago!"

"All right then!"  Hiccup, grinning, leaned forward and said to Toothless, "Bud, let's show a king what we can do!"

Toothless gave a bark of happiness, and they were _off._   Two weeks of flying circles around a boat had clearly driven him just as stir-crazy as the humans, and he did his best to make up for it all in one go.

They climbed above the clouds to see the low afternoon sun painting the cloudtops golden.

They dived to skim the water, Toothless's diving screech echoing across the fjord.

They circled the mountain-tops at speed, racing the twins as they and their dragon attempted to follow.

They splashed through the waters of the fjord, danced above the waters of the river, flew loops and spun in rolls just for the sheer joy of it, the young king cheering every step of the way, often calling out his own suggestions for what to do next.  The twins did their best to keep pace, but Toothless outraced them with ease.

Finally, as they noticed the foot-bound procession approaching the castle, they reluctantly landed in the courtyard, watching worried courtiers dart towards them, scolding their young king at taking such risks. 

Their admonishments simply bounced off of Magnus's grin as he dismounted and patted Toothless on the nose, practically hopping from one foot to the other in his enthusiasm.

His courtiers had to practically drag him away in order to prepare him for the feast.  As the doorway closed behind him, Hiccup and Toothless shared a bemused look.  Meanwhile, the twins were circling the fort, just for the sheer fun of it.

Then the door opened again, and the royal blond head poked back outside, complete with a wide grin, before someone grabbed Magnus by the lapels of his now-seawater-soaked vest and dragged him off for a scrubbing. 

Hiccup and Toothless shared another look, and both burst out laughing.

The gates opened, and the rest of the dragons, riders, and courtiers that had been down at the docks came in.  Hiccup cupped his hands and hollered to the Thorstons to land as the fortress courtyard began to buzz with activity, as stout men carried their trunks past, the dragons trundled in at the sides of their riders, orders and instructions were shouted, and ordered chaos reigned for a moment.

In the midst of it all, Astrid sauntered up to Hiccup, and said in an amused tone, "Did you boys have fun?"

Hiccup just beamed at her, and Toothless gave a happy bark.

"Good," she said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek.  "They'll have fish for the dragons for tonight, and we're all expected to be at this welcoming feast in, oh, three hours.  And, before you ask, yes, we can have baths before, to wash the sea stink off."

Hiccup gave a grateful sigh.  Two weeks aboard ship had made them all _quite_ fragrant, and he was just thankful that they'd put in at a town with a bath-hall the week before. 

"And they're giving us a wing of the fort's housing, with some of the bigger rooms to put the dragons in.  They _didn't_ want to put them in the stables.  Horses. Hay.  Nadder sneezes.  Not a good combination."

Hiccup nodded enthusiastically to that one. 

She grinned at him and slipped closer to whisper, " _Our_ rooms will be right next to each other."

Hiccup did a double-take, and then grinned at her, as she gave him a smoldering look of her own. "I see."

As the courtiers descended, dragging them off to their rooms, baths, and preparations for the night's feast, Hiccup just kept returning to that look _._

###

Hiccup and Astrid entered the great hall of the fort at the head of the formal line of visitors, flanked by their dragons and dressed in their best finery.  Hiccup looked at his girlfriend appreciatively; she'd had new formal clothing made before they'd left, and she looked _amazing_ in it.  A deep blue and red dress over a white linen underdress, tied around her waist with a bright yellow belt, an ankle-length fur cape, and then three long necklaces that came down to the middle of her chest, including a Mjolnir pendant that he'd made for her. 

As the others filed into the great hall behind them, also paired with their own mounts, Hiccup just had an impression of a large open space.  A small fire, obviously more for light than heat, burned in the hearth in the center of the room, along with tallow candles spaced out on the tables.  Beyond that, it felt very much like the mead hall back in Berk, except that it was made of wood and not hollowed-out stone.  Giant pillars supported the ceiling, and two long tables ran the length of the room, with giant bowls set out for the dragons on the floors behind the trestle-tables.  According to Astrid, Magnus had wanted to put the bowls, filched from the kitchens, on the tables—but she'd made the point that the tables would get crushed by the dragons' weight. 

Having already been instructed by the courtiers, he bowed to the king and walked up to the high table, Toothless, Astrid and Stormfly following behind him.  Meanwhile, the other riders took their own seats at the lower tables. 

Hiccup was just glad that he had managed to get Astrid that official appointment.  He had told her the absolute truth—she was his strong right hand, and he depended on her for just about everything dragon-related, and it had been irritating him all year that he couldn't give her the recognition that she deserved. 

And now she would get to sit right where she belonged.  Not only next to him, but right where she could answer details about dragons, instead of being relegated to the lower tables.

Reaching the high table, he was introduced to the various members of Magnus's court.  Starting with his regent and working their way down the length of the table, Hiccup shook hands and desperately tried to commit all of the names and face to memory.  He prayed to Bragi that he would remember them all—and to Forsetti that the consequences wouldn't be severe if (when) he forgot someone.  Because while this was nice and everything, he hadn't missed the axes and swords held by the thanes that stood against the walls, or the number of towns that had lined the coast on their trip north.  Berk might have dragons, but they had numbers.

As they finally took their seats next to Magnus, Michael Henriksson, the courtier that had been introduced as the priest stood and blessed the meal.   Or at least Hiccup assumed that he did, not understanding the language being spoken _at all._   It sounded pretty, at least, but he was going to have to find out what the fellow was saying.  He at least looked to be a friendly sort. 

Once the blessing concluded, people started digging in.  The food was rich, with odd meats that Hiccup had never tasted before, and some weird tastes that burned his lips and tongue.  Hiccup was just glad that they had managed to keep Snotlout separated from Wulfhild, Magnus's older half-sister.  He _liked_ the boy king, and didn't want to have to defend Snotlout from a duel or worry about a declaration of war.  She was seated opposite them, next to her brother, and the resemblance was obvious.  Both of them were blonds, but while he was around Hiccup's height and had the build of a warrior trained to the sword and shield, she was short and curvy, neatly fitting under her brother's chin when standing.

As they ate, discussion, of course, turned to the dragons, sitting behind them at the center of the table, the kitchen kettles loaded with fish on the floor behind them.  He could smell the broiled vinegary scent of the fish from where he sat.  Wulfhild turned to him and Astrid and beamed at them; while not in the same degree of intensity as her brother, it was clearly a family trait. 

"I haven't seen him this happy since we had that skald come through back around the spring thaw," she said, indicating her younger brother with a shake of her head.

"Oh, dear sister, you _must_ go out riding with them at some point," Magnus said with enthusiasm.  "I am forever spoiled for horses.  I could see the sea, the mountains, the fjords…" he shook his head, his expression beatific.  "I can't agree with what some people say—they're not demonic, not when they can give mere man a view like that of an angel!"  He took a hearty swallow of his ale.  "And the only temptation that Toothless here has to offer is that of enjoyment—not domination," he said with a look at his priest.

Hiccup cocked his head.  "Huh?"

"Oh.  You must still follow the old ways," Magnus said, still beaming at him.  "Never mind that, I respect that.  But if you're interested, I'm sure that Father Michael would love to speak more with you."

Hiccup nodded, but, before he could pursue the topic, Wulfhild turned to them and asked, "So, I must ask you a question, dear guests.  How much of the saga was true?"

Voicing an internal sigh, Hiccup replied, "Most of it, when our town skald sang it last autumn.  How bad has it gotten?"

"Well, I really couldn't say," Wulfhild said, deadpan.  "After all, _I_ wasn't there to witness it.  That would be why I asked."

Hiccup sagged slightly.  "Point.  Sorry."

Astrid leaned in and interjected.  "He's very embarrassed about the whole thing.  Before, nobody at home liked him," she frowned, "not even me.  So he tried to at least get enough respect to be part of the tribe and…" she gave a thoughtful look, "overshot?"

"Just a bit," Hiccup muttered to his plate.

Magnus laughed.  "Truly?  So I guess the part where you had to fight a dragon in the arena with your entire village watching and threw away your blade to make peace with it was an invention of the skald?"

Hiccup manfully resisted the urge to pound the table with his forehead while Astrid coughed and said, "Uh, no, that part is true.  And that dragon is right over there," she said, pointing to Hookfang sitting behind Snotlout at the low table.

"And the part about where he knocked… well," Magnus indicated Toothless with a nod of his head, "out of the sky with some kind of war-machine out of the legends of the Romans?"

Hiccup's head sagged, his chin touching his breastbone, his knees suddenly fascinating, while Astrid just patted the back of his head and said, laughter in her voice, "No, that's true too.  Although none of us believed him at the time."

Magnus just looked at Hiccup, and clearly decided to take pity on him.

"So… you ride a Deadly Nadder, milady Astrid, yes?"

Hiccup perked up a bit at the change of topic, as Astrid grinned and nodded.  "Aye.  Her name is Stormfly, and we've been partners ever since…" she blinked and realized what topic was about to be returned to, and then forged ahead, "the battle with the Green Death.  Hiccup and I rode tandem to the battle, he hopped off to rescue Toothless, and, well, we've been partners ever since."

"I thought that it was the Red Death?" Wulfhild said questioningly. 

"Well, it was more of a blue-green color," Astrid said.  "Big teeth, red spots."

"And you got a close look at those," Magnus said, and then coughed.  "But we can discuss this later.  So, Nadders.  You brought four with you.  Are they common?"

"Reasonably so," Astrid said.  "Though they're not the most common, unless we're restricting it to just their class of dragon.  By sheer numbers, though, the Gronckles win for medium-sized dragons."

"Gronckles?"

"Picture a long boulder crossed with a mace and give it a pair of tiny wings, a bunch of rock-crushing teeth, and a pair of silly round eyes."

Wulfhild laughed at the image, as her brother went a bit cross-eyed trying to visualize it. 

"They eat rocks, and spit lava.  We didn't bring any with us because they're needed at home for construction."

"Aye, I can see that being useful," Magnus raised his tankard.  "What other common dragons are there?"

"Well, we brought Zipplebacks—the ones with two heads—and Monstrous Nightmares, who are a bit less common, and there are Terrible Terrors, which we brought two of, mostly because they're fun to play with.  About the size of cats or a small dog.  Which can fly and breathe fire."

Magnus gave a hearty chuckle and a mock toast with his tankard. "And Night Furies?  How common are they?"

Astrid grimaced.  "Not at all.  As far as we've found, Toothless is the only one in the entire region back home.  No sign of his parents or siblings."

"That's… odd," Magnus said.  "How could that have happened?"

"It's a mystery."

Magnus frowned.  "That seems… rather sad, to be honest.  I hope that he isn't the last of his kind.  He's too… magnificent."  He turned to his sister and then back to Hiccup.  "Sir Hiccup, I must implore you to give a ride to my sister on the morrow."

Hiccup looked at the king.  "Isn't that sort of thing going to get her in trouble?  Being alone with a man and all that?"

"Well, if Milady Hofferson could act as escort, no, not at all," he said, and his surrounding courtiers all nodded, with varying degrees of approval or reluctance.  "It was amazing, and I'm not going to deny her the experience, if she wishes it."

Wulfhild gave Hiccup a pleading look, and then gave the same to Astrid.  He and his girlfriend shared a glance and nodded together.  Astrid shrugged and said, with a wry smile, "I don't mind, so sure, that sounds workable."

The princess squealed in excitement.  "Thank you, thank you!"

Astrid grinned.  "I said don't mind.  And if you want a ride on Stormfly, we'll be happy to oblige."

"Excellent!" the princess grinned.  "Anything I should know?  I know that when I started riding horses, the instructors had a list of things—knees turned out, hips straight, so forth."

"Well, you'll be going up with one of us," Astrid said, smiling, "So we'll go over those details and then you can sit back and enjoy."

"Sounds good to me." Still grinning, she looked wistful for a moment.  "Did you ever forget your first flight?"

Astrid and Hiccup shared a look and burst out laughing.

Through her laughter, Astrid managed to get out, "No, I don't think that that's a risk."

"Oh?"

"Well… it didn't make it into the saga—"

"Thank the gods," Hiccup said under his breath.

"—but I, well," Astrid sobered, "I followed Hiccup to the cove where Toothless was staying, trying to figure out how the… how the town screwup had become so good.  I tried to… well, I handled it poorly, got faced with an angry dragon, and ran off to tell the village.  Before I got too far, they grabbed me, carried me up to the top of a tree, and then, well…" She shrugged with a half-humorous grimace.  "Toothless was still angry with me for treating Hiccup poorly, and decided to act accordingly.  So he did a bunch of the things that he did with _you_ , your majesty… without me having a harness.  And not as playfully."

Magnus choked on his ale, while Wulfhild raised an eyebrow.

"I apologized… and then he played nice.  Flew above the clouds, got to see the Bifrost… and then apparently heard the homing call of the Green Death.  So we found the dragon's nest."

"I see," Magnus said, swallowing hard to clear his throat from the ale.  "Yes, that sounds… suitably unforgettable."

An elderly man, potbellied and round, who had been introduced as Einar Thambarskelfir, Magnus's regent, interjected at this point.  "Is it true that you landed a ship full of Vikings into a fortress in order to sack it?"

Hiccup blinked and jerked his head back a bit.  "What?"

"According to the stories, you carried in a ship filled with berserkers, landed it in the middle of a fort and they all surged out to sack the place.  Somewhere down in the Isles, I've heard either Vedrarfjord or Brycgstow in two different versions both claiming the same."

Hiccup sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, while Astrid grimaced.

"You're hearing two separate stories combined into one, lord regent," she said. She paused, getting her thoughts in order for a moment. "Vedrarfjord's king tried to steal some of our dragons.  We caught the thieves and returned them, hale and whole, in the hold of his longship… which we _did_ place right in the courtyard of his fortress."

A number of conversations paused at that.

"You just…" Einar said, stunned. 

Hiccup shrugged.  "Yep.  Took us a few dozen dragons working together, but we picked it up out of the water and placed it right in the middle of his courtyard."  His expression turned reflective.  "The look on his face when he realized what we'd done was _glorious._   Here he is, expecting to duel Toothless to the death, and we just fly off, having left a sixty foot longboat in the middle of his fort on the top of the hill, filled with tied-up thieves."

That sent a laugh around the table.

As it died down, Einar leaned in and asked, "And the other story?"

Astrid grimaced like she had just bitten into something exceptionally sour.  "While we were out dealing with the thieves, S… one of our riders put together a raiding party and sacked the burh at Brycgstow, using dragons."

"And we've since forbidden that particular use," Hiccup added.

"Probably wise.  Harthacnut is reportedly furious," put in Yngvarr.  "And he is _not_ a man known for restraint.  When his paternal half-brother, Harold, passed last year, and left him the crown of England, he had the body taken from its grave, beheaded, and thrown into a sewer in vengeance for slaying one of Harthacnut's _maternal_ half-brothers, Alfred."

Hiccup grimaced and Astrid choked. 

"Charming people," Astrid managed a moment later.

"Aye.  But discussion of your neighbors can be left for later," Yngvarr said.  "We would keep you from your food by answering our questions.  My lord, my lady, let me tell you some of what I saw there," and the chieftain launched into a description of Berk, corroborating Astrid's description of the Gronckles, telling of Hiccup's various projects, and of the different kinds of dragons that he had seen, as they ate.

As they worked through several courses, Hiccup actually realized that he was getting full, which was becoming an unusual experience for him over the last few months.

There was entertainment, a quartet of musicians who sang a lovely tune about a sailing voyage over the sea far from home and the hearth and the love left behind, that made Hiccup and Astrid hold hands and sigh. 

Once that was finished, one of the court skalds and Magnus's mentor, introduced as Sigvatr Tordarson, an older man in his forties, came forth to the center of the great hall.  With everyone's attention, he recited a portion of one of his skaldic poems, _Austrfararvísur_ , about Magnus's father, King Olaf.  The old king had sent the skald a generation before on a trip to neighboring Sweden and the court of King Olof, to arrange Olaf's marriage to Astrid Olofsdotter.  Astrid did a double-take at the name before realizing that the poet was referring to Wulfhild's mother, and shook her head in amusement, while Wulfhild just grinned.  Hiccup had to admire the man's trained voice, but found the portion where he apparently tried to intrude on the Álfablót and make a joke about it to be a bit… rude.  While Hiccup wasn't the most devout, for sure, he respected the gods.

As the feast came to an end, perhaps a quarter of the room still somewhat sober, people began to stagger off to bed, despite the sun still shining in the sky, even if it was low to the horizon.  According to the locals, this far north, the sun would only dip below the horizon for a paltry four or five hours at this time of year.  If nothing else, it saved significantly on candles during the summer months. 

Hiccup made a mental note to not stay for winter, where it would likely be reversed. 

Tomorrow, the serious discussions would start.

###

"…and I'll be at the end of the hall if you need anything, milord," the hall guard said.

Hiccup nodded as they walked along; most of the others were already settled in their rooms, but he'd been held up by a last minute discussion with Yngvarr.

"I will admit, I feel a bit… unneeded," the Norseman said, patting his sword.  "I doubt that _anyone_ is going to be stupid enough to pick a fight with a corridor full of sleeping dragons."

"Well, still good that you're here," Hiccup said diplomatically.  "Just in case there's a different problem."

"Aye, milord.  I'll be at my post.  Here's your room.  Have a good night."  The guard bowed and walked off.

Hiccup looked up and down the hall.  A mix of stone and wood, fronted with wattle and daub to keep out the winter chill, it was a bit dim, and almost too narrow for Toothless to walk behind him; from what he understood, the Zipplebacks and Nightmares were sleeping on the roof above, as they couldn't fit through either the hall or window shutters.  Listening carefully, he could hear them shifting on the slate shingles slightly as they dozed.  Magnus's people had promised Astrid that they would be perfectly safe up there, as the only roof access was through this wing, and anyone that wanted to try to hop over from a different access would be on a steep, stone-covered roof… with dragons. 

Shrugging, he opened the door and walked in, with Toothless following him; it was dim in here, the shutters closed, the sun behind the local mountains, even if hadn't truly set yet.

He then felt a pair of arms wrap around his shoulders, and pull him tight.

Before he could gasp or react, he heard Astrid's voice murmur to Toothless to shut the door.  The dragon did so, and laid down in front of it, with a smirk that Hiccup could see even in the dimness, but his glance was brief before he was pulled into a bruising kiss.

The two of them stood there for a good long while, just enjoying a solid embrace and a passionate kiss, until she broke it and whispered, "I swear before Freyja, two weeks at sea without _any_ privacy…"

"I know.  Euagh.  And even when we got to land…" Hiccup somehow managed an _audible_ grimace at how it had made things worse, when there were mountains and land _right_ _there_ that they couldn't go ashore on.

"Yeah…"

"Well, we're here now.  And, unless I'm very much mistaken," Hiccup said with a grin, "we have your _empty_ room on one side and an outer wall on the other."

Astrid's voice was low and anticipatory.  "Yes.  Yes we do."

With that, the dam broke, and hands started to wander as they kissed with deepening passion.  Astrid was leaning up against the wall as Hiccup kissed his way down the side of her jaw and neck, her hands in his hair.  That went on for a very enjoyable few moments, as he kissed his way down her unarmored shoulder, the spaulders having been left in her trunk back in her room, not being part of her formal outfit, and ran his fingers up and down her wool-clad sides and back.  Her pteruges were likewise missing, and her legs were rubbing themselves against his own. 

As he caressed up and down her spine, feeling each bone under the skin and shirt in turn, she sighed in enjoyment, especially as his hands reached the small of her back and started to kneed at the usually-sore muscles there.  Then she smiled, put her hands on his shoulders, and, with a slight thump, turned the two of them around and pinned _him_ against the wall.

"Love you," Hiccup managed to get out as she started leaving light teeth marks on his skin, kissing her way down from his lips.

"Love you too," she answered in a throaty purr, her lips right next to his neck and collarbone.

A rustle sounded, making them both look towards it, their clothes still on but in disarray, to see that Toothless had pointedly raised one of his wings between them and his eyes to give them some privacy. 

With a giant grin, Hiccup leaned in and asked in a heavy whisper, "Astrid… how far…"

She slid her hands under his shirt and lifted.  "If you're up for it, as far as you want," she said, smiling, hands sliding along skin.

"Just… our first…"

"Yeah…  in a distant land… after a sea… voyage… and a welcome… feast… from a… king?" she said between gasps and heavy breathing as, belt undone, her trousers slid to the floor, followed by her undergarments.  "Sounds perfect… to me…"

"What about… this?" he asked, pulling off her kransen circlet, the band that testified that she was a maiden of high birth, as she worked at his belt. 

She just took the opportunity to pull off her shirt and pressed against him, skin to skin, kissing as she went.  "Like I said before… It's not like I care… what anyone but you… thinks on that.  And…" she gasped as Hiccup nibbled on delicate spots, "And… anyway… so long as… we're careful…" she gasped again, "nobody else will care."

She hauled him around by his opened belt and pretty much threw him on the bed, and then stepped out of her heaped pants and boots.  Before she bent down to help him remove his peg, Hiccup just looked at her, naked and grinning in the dim light, and felt his heart melt with just sheer happiness.  Peg removed, she kissed the stump and pulled off his pants with a grin.

There was a moment where they just looked at each other, naked as the day they were born, and then they both laughed.  What was next was more of a mutual lunge.

And then it was skin and warmth and some clumsiness and a touch of frustrations, and some awkwardness and confusions, but then, resolute and committed to each other, there came understandings and enlightenment. 

And the short night passed.  Hiccup found himself adding to his knowledge and dismissing hearsay in favor of experimentation and evidence.  Astrid found new ways to hold him, and that she screamed in more than just the fighting ring. 

It was not perfect, but it was close enough as to make no difference to them.  And, satiated at long last, they fell asleep in each others' arms, smiles on their faces.

###

Mac Bethad looked at Taskill's note and resisted the urge to crumple it.  Alan, Gregor and Iain were running a regular merchant route between his kingdom and Berk now, but they were still only going once or twice a month.  And that resulted in delays. 

"Magnus has them now."  The boy and his entourage had left when his men had been on their way back to Alba, meaning that it had taken weeks for him to find out.

"Aye, sire.  Assuming that they didn't founder in the North Sea, they're probably getting there any day now, if they're not there already."

"Damn it.  Damn it all."  He looked up.  "Have you found _anything_ useful on the boy's levers?"

"No, sire.  With the exception of a close circle of friends, he's extremely private.  The only thing that we've significantly found is his woman, and it's hard to blackmail someone about an illicit out-of-wedlock affair when apparently half of the village is cheering for them, and it's fully expected that they'll wed eventually."

Mac Bethad scowled.  "So they're betrothed?"

"Not yet, but apparently it's only a matter of time."

"Can we use that?"

"Possibly.  But what would you do?  Offer Lulach's hand to the girl?"

Mac Bethad paused and looked at his spymaster.  "Do you think it would work?"

Taskill shook his head.  "Your stepson is many things, milord, but a brilliant mind is not one of them.  But you have no other hands to offer.  You don't even have a daughter or sister that you could offer to the boy as a concubine to tie him to us.  For that matter, you're the last member of your own dynasty—"

"Don't bring that up again, Taskill.  I am not divorcing or otherwise _removing_ Gruoch.  Or taking a concubine to supplant her.  In _that_ , I firmly understand this Stoick's own thoughts," Mac Bethad said firmly. 

"Aye, sire."

"What are our other options?"

"Well, the Jorgenson clan has been minimally receptive; from what I understand, they are interested in supplanting the boy with their own candidate, not a bloody uprising.  And, also, their candidate is also off in Magnus's court at the moment, as is his dragon."

Mac Bethad grimaced and then nodded.  "Makes sense.  They're weak enough as it is, even with the dragons.  A clan war wouldn't help them.  But damn them for having the sense to see that."

"Aye, sire.  In more productive news, however, our contact with the old hermit Mildew is paying dividends.  For a sufficient inducement, he is willing to smuggle out to us either hatchlings or eggs within the next year."

"I see.  How much of a bribe is he wanting?"

Taskill named a sum, which made Mac Bethad growl.  "Only enough to buy a hamlet and set himself up as a chieftain, I see.  For how many eggs?"

"Each."

Mac Bethad's hand spasmed as if he was holding a sword hilt.  "We'd have to increase taxes, and I think that if we did that, we'd be having the same revolt that Harthacnut is dealing with right now."

"Aye, sire.  Shall I tell him no?"

Mac Bethad's eyes narrowed.  "No.  Keep stringing him along.  Hell, if he wants a village to rule, I can give him one much easier than I can conjure up gold.  You said that he's an old man?"

"At least sixty, sire."

"So he won't last too much longer, most likely."

"Quite possibly."

"Well, we can just give him one of my lesser titles in exchange for a few dragon eggs, and I'll reassert it when he passes on.  Let _him_ try to manage a few Highlander clans," Mac Bethad laughed humorlessly.  "Make him the offer."

"Aye, sire."

"As for the boys… it's Cnut all over again.  If they ally and demand my submission, I'll have no choice but to bare my throat and swear my oath."

"Cnut passed on at only forty, sire, and you were released from your oath.  Magnus is a young man, but an impetuous one.  And accidents _do_ happen, milord."

"Aye, that they do.  Have you had any luck on that end?"

"Not yet, sire.  Part of the problem is the delay; we can only hold a conversation so fast, and putting anything to paper is a risk."

"Aye, aye.  What about Edward?"

"Æthelredsson is being more open, at least.  He dislikes being in Harthacnut's shadow…"

The two of them discussed strategy long into the night.

* * *

 

**AN:**  Due to an international move (US to Germany), I've been losing pace on my buffer.  So here's the chapter, but there might end up being some revisions in the near future to this chapter (hopefully of the minor variety).  Now that finally I'm in Germany, I can finish settling in and getting back to serious writing.    
EDIT: Revisions are up, and were thankfully quite minor, mostly grammar and textual clarification in the middle third during the feast.  


	13. Wakeup Calls

**Chapter 13: Wakeup Calls**

_While she tends to be somewhat overshadowed in the stories by Hiccup Haddock's intellectual and political accomplishments, his partner, Astrid Hákonsdoittor, is frequently and explicitly credited in both the popular tales and in Haddock's own journals as his closest friend and intellectual associate.  While Ingerman was responsible for much of the educational and archival infrastructure that resulted in the retention of Haddock's innovations, their primary partnerships were in the area of recreations of Roman mechanisms and methods.  In contrast, Haddock's journals specifically state that, without her guidance, discipline, and partnership, the vast number of his original creations would have remained as undeveloped ideas, to the point that many are credited primarily to her._

_This is in addition to her own independent innovations in the area of draconic military applications, to the point where her own authored text,_ The Wing And The Ax, _on the uses of dragons in martial settings, was the standard primary text on the subject for nearly two centuries, and is still used and viewed as one of the foundational texts in the field._

_—A History Of The Isles, Oxford, England, 1591_

Stoick looked at the letter with the seal of the Frankish king with an annoyed expression, and then sighed.

"How many does that make now, Gobber?"

"Eight.  Two kings, three dukes, three counts."  He mused for a moment.  "Well, that depends on whether we put that Brittany fellow, Odo, as a count or a duke."  Cocking his head, he quirked an eyebrow in thought.  "Accordin' to his letter, he's a count, but he's the regent for his nephew, the duke—"

Stoick made a waving motion and said brusquely, "Save it."

"Aye, alright," Gobber drawled, and waggled his eyebrows knowingly.  "Tad irked there, Stoick?" he asked after a moment.

"I swear, I am going to give that boy a thrashing, or at least a tongue-lashing, when he gets back," the chief growled, sitting back down in his chair and putting the parchment onto the stack with the other messages trying to hire them as mercenaries.  The chief's hut was still too quiet with Hiccup gone, but things were hardly peaceful with all of the messengers that had been visiting with formal petitions, offers, and requests from foreign lords _._ He rubbed his face and temples with his fingers.  This latest one was the worst so far—King Henry was magnanimously offering him a great deal of money to attack some of _his own vassals._   While he could understand why—several of those self-same vassals, like Count Odo, were also trying to hire them for similar reasons—he was still appalled at the cold-bloodedness of it.

"Well, as an exhibition goes, I can't think of a better one for any sort of swords-for-hire," Gobber observed, taking a drink from his tankard-hand. 

"Aye.  Here be dragon-riding Vikings," Stoick raised his hands to the sky in frustration.  "Now they all want to hire us to do to their rivals what my nephew did to that _burh_."

"Can yeh blame them?  Why raise an army for a siege when you can have a bunch of dragon-riding Vikings do the pillaging for yeh?"

"Maybe because you might actually care about your holdings—or your _holders_?  It's not like a pillaged hold will be _worth_ anything at the end," Stoick said with a growl.  His eyebrows knit together in anger.  "We know better than most what's left after dragons _or_ Vikings are done with looting a place."

Gobber snorted.  "Yer a better man than they, Stoick.  Yeh see your shield brothers and sisters out there.  They just see a weapon, or a place to tax."

Stoick gave his steward a grimace and then sighed.  "Aye.  I suppose that I do.  Well, I will not send the blood of my tribe to bleed for foreign chiefs and kings.  And if any of them see that as as sign of weakness…"  He smiled in a terrifying way.  "Well, let them come and present their case in person."

Gobber's face went reflective, his eyebrow cocked and lip curled.  Then he nodded with a wry smile.  "Aye.  They wouldn't be the first to confuse mother wit with weakness."

"Indeed."

Gobber shifted to a wicked grin.  "Aye, and won't _that_ be a surprise."

"Aye."  Stoick put down the letter into its pile and went to get a tankard of ale from the barrel.  Taking a drink, he steadied himself, and said as evenly as he could manage,  "So, Gobber… by my estimate, they should be at the Norse court by now." 

The smith laughed.  "Aye, and I'd be willing to wager me _other_ hand that Hiccup and Astrid have torn each other's clothes off by now."

Stoick tried to keep a straight face to glare at his friend, who gave a knowing friendly smirk.  He managed to hold it for a few moments before he gave in and laughed.  Gobber joined in. 

Catching his breath after several moments, Stoick calmed, gave a lopsided grin, and sighed.  "I'm amazed that they managed to hold off this long, even in a village where they're always being watched.  But now?  Two weeks in a longship?  They'll be all over each other."

Gobber waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and then sobered.  "So… Stoick… what _is_ the plan there?  Is Hiccup going to make an honest woman out of her?"

"We haven't talked much about it—he turned that bright red every time I tried to bring it up and I hadn't the heart to push him on it—but I think that he wants what he feels to be a sufficient bride-price for her before he asks for her hand."  Gone unsaid between them was the fact that negotiations were done on what one _had,_ not what they _might_ have, and those negotiations started when the betrothal was first asked.  Quite simply, one didn't ask for a betrothal and then ask for the bride's family to wait on future earnings and expect that offer to be taken as anything other than an insult. 

Gobber nodded.  "Thought so."  He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.  "And he doesn't have enough yet?"

Stoick shook his head.  He was sure that the Hoffersons would say yes to any offer—well, any _reasonable_ offer—that he gave them for a betrothal contract, and he definitely had enough resources to at least make that without problems, and that wasn't even counting the wild flock of dragons—partitioning of which would be impractical. 

"And yeh aren't going to at least talk to Hákon?" Gobber pressed.  "She _is_ his daughter."

"We've talked, aye, but I'm keeping my own counsel on this, Gobber," Stoick said, grimacing as a memory in this very room bubbled up.  _This conversation is feeling very one-sided._   Blinking, he put the memory aside.  No, he'd dictated his son's life, the hows and whats, enough.  On something this important to Hiccup, he'd keep his oar out of the water.  "I don't know if yeh have noticed, Gobber, but Hiccup has a _slight_ issue with needing to prove himself.  I think that this is more of the same.  And I'm going to let him."

Gobber nodded ruefully.  "Aye.  He always has to overdo it."  For a brief moment, he clearly thought, and then whistled.  "Well, that'll be a king's ransom."  He nodded towards the stack of bribes, entreats and veiled threats.  "Possibly literally."

"Aye.  And, in the meantime…"  Stoick reached over and picked another letter, this one from the stack labeled _Marriage Offers_.  "It lets us go fishing."

"Not the best idea, Stoick," Gobber cautioned. 

"I can't exactly _stop_ them from sending offers."  He snorted.  "And it gives an idea of how much they're willing to part with in exchange for dragons."  He tossed the letter back onto the stack.

"Aye, there's that," Gobber allowed.  He smirked.  "Any eligible daughters in there for you?"

Stoick glared at his shield-brother, who laughed so hard his fake tooth fell out and onto the table.  As he replaced it and knocked it back into his mouth, Stoick replied mildly, "Aye, and I'm not going to take them.  Beyond the fact that I'm _not_ going to betray Valka's memory, much less with a girl young enough to be my daughter, any foreign peaceweaver that I would take as a wife or bound concubine would have one path to power—past Hiccup."  He took a gulp of ale from his tankard.  "And _that_ isn't happening."

Gobber nodded.  "Aye."  He smiled sadly.  "You're a good man, Stoick.  Not many men could say no to that."  He hoisted his tankard.  "To reasonable men!"

Rolling his eyes, knowing that Gobber _would_ say no to such offers, Stoick knocked his own tankard against his shield brother's, and they drank.

###

Toothless gave the sleeping pair a thorough sodden lick, managing to get both faces and three out of four ears in a single pass.

"Wha—!?"

"Eww!"

"Toothless!"

Astrid wiped at her face to get the dragon slobber out of her eyes, and almost elbowed Hiccup in the nose in the process.  As soon as her eyes were clear, she could see Toothless staring at her and Hiccup from a distance of a handspan, maybe two, his eyes dark pools ringed in green. 

He then huffed and pointed his nose to the window shutters.

Astrid twisted in Hiccup's grasp and looked.

It was getting brighter outside. 

As soon as _that_ sank in, she squeaked and started scrambling out of bed, tossing off the odd piece of colorful and patterned wool that they'd found instead of furs.  Hiccup was no slower on the uptake than she was, but _he,_ at least, could stay in here.  She couldn't.

Her bare feet found her clothes at the side of the bed; Toothless had clearly piled them there as best he could, and she gave him a grateful look. 

Toothless, for his part, had retreated back to the door, and was pointedly not looking at either of the naked humans. 

Hiccup, on the other hand…

As she bent to pick up her clothes, he gave a strangled moan. 

She glanced back at him and made a similar noise, and felt her cheeks heat.  The two of them had a long moment of a held glance, before she broke it.

Swallowing hard against her suddenly dry mouth, she finished grabbing her clothes and then forced herself to ask teasingly, "You like what you see?"

Hiccup blinked hard a few times, and then said slightly hoarsely, "What gave you that idea?"

She tossed him his trousers, which had been next to her clothes, and said, "Oh, nothing.  You're just drooling enough to put Toothless to shame."  She mimed a punch to his arm, and pulled on her undershirt.  Leaning in, she gave him a kiss on the cheek, and said quietly, "But not now."

He gave her his best overwrought kicked-puppy impression and she smiled gleefully at him.  "I'll be back tonight.  Promise."

With an instant grin of his own, he bent forward and planted a kiss on the back of her hand.  "Okay."  He suggestively looked her over as she pulled on her underskirt, but it was so overblown and hammy that she had to giggle at it.  He grinned, and started to pull on the stocking for his peg—which would have gone better if he paid more attention to it.

On his third miss, Astrid just said tartly and fondly, "Hiccup.  Love.  Pay attention."

"What?  Oh."  He blushed and looked down, finally slipping on the stocking.  She handed him his peg, and then tied the drawstrings of her underskirt closed, and knelt to pick up the rest of her clothes. 

As Hiccup buckled on his leg, she decided that she had on enough for decency's sake to risk the hallway… and she'd been in here too long, and they'd been making noise.  She turned to Toothless, and asked, "Coast clear?"

The dragon cocked his head as they both unconsciously held their breath.  His ear flaps quivered for a moment, and then he nodded in confirmation.

Moving quickly, Astrid opened the door a crack, thankful that it didn't squeak, and darted for her room, her bare feet patting lightly on the wood of the floor.

A moment later, she was in her own room, Stormfly sitting and blinking sleepily next to the bed, which the dragon had thoughtfully slept in, or at least _on_.  Given that Stormfly was significantly larger than Astrid, it looked like the dragon had just used the straw and feather-stuffed mattress as a pillow.  Thankfully _,_ her horns and spines hadn't torn anything.

"Go back to sleep, love," she said, stroking her dragon's bony crest. 

Stormfly gave a sleepy trill and closed her eyes again, and then opened one, and gave Astrid a sniff.  And then blinked and gave a knowing purr at her.

Astrid just smirked at her.  "Are you trying to say something?"

What only could be a wink and a knowing leer followed from the dragon.

"Hey, you're the one that's been helping out as much as you can," Astrid said, smiling.  Or, to be more accurate, grinning fit to have her cheeks ache.  She hurt a bit in some spots, but… well… wow.  Now she understood _why_ the older women back home had made certain recommendations that she'd managed to eavesdrop on.  And Hiccup had listened, nodded, and done as she had told him with a smile on his face.  Not that she'd been that worried about that, but it was still so good to know that, unlike many of the other men in their tribe… he _listened._

Stormfly burbled and stretched out on the bed again.

"You're going to be insufferable for days, aren't you?"

The dragon cocked open one eye and chittered in a tone that Astrid had zero problems deciphering as, " _Oh, and you won't be?"_

Grinning, she just leaned up against her friend's warm scaly side and pulled on her boots, and then, considering, took them off again as too prepared.  She looked over the small soapstone ewer on the small side table and found that it was filled with water.  Dipping her hand into the water, she started to give herself a slight wash, cleaning off the sweat from the night before.

A hard knock at her door made her jump, and her handful of water sprayed out across the room.

" _What!?_ " she bellowed to the door, snatching up her shirt and holding it across her chest. 

Snotlout's smarmy voice came through the door, sounding slightly… _disappointed_ to hear her.  "I'm just getting everyone up and awake!  I think they're getting ready for us."

"I'm awake," she called back, suddenly deeply grateful to Toothless for his disgusting wakeup call.  It had been maybe a few minutes since the dragon had woken her and Hiccup, and if Snotlout had found her in Hiccup's room…

"All right," he said back, and she heard his footsteps move down the length of the hall and go to pound on Tuffnut's room.  Her eyes narrowed.  His room was down and across from hers, meaning that he'd deliberately gone to her first…

Well, that wasn't a surprise. 

She finished getting herself cleaned up, and put her formal clothes back on.  They were going to go riding this afternoon, and she could change back into her regular clothes then, but for the moment, she was stuck wearing the fancy stuff.  She smiled to herself.  Hiccup had made her the jewelry, and she was sure that Stoick had chipped in for the main outfit. 

Irritatingly, her hair was a _mess,_ and was going to require significant combing to pull out the snarls and knots. 

Leaving the hair alone for the moment, she picked up her circlet and flipped it through her fingers, considering. 

By all rights, she shouldn't wear it anymore after last night, or at least she shouldn't.  She wasn't a virgin anymore.  She smirked at the memories.  Not by a _long_ shot.  She coughed at herself and dragged her thinking back to the present, and not to the very enjoyable and eye-opening— _stop that—_ back to the present.  She pursed her lips in thought.  Her pride said to leave it on the side table and walk out proudly, unashamed of what she and her lover had done in the night. 

Her honor pointed out that wearing it would be a lie, and that she had no shame over what she and Hiccup had done.  The opposite, actually.

Her practicality said that giving people like Snotlout free spears to throw at her was a stupid idea, and also pointed out that while she might not care what people thought about it, people would use it as an excuse to attack Hiccup.

Her honor looked at that thought, shook hands with her sense of protectiveness, and the rest of them ganged up on her pride for a lesson in discretion being the better part of valor.

With a shrug, she pulled it back onto her forehead. 

By this point, she could hear people walking in the hallway, and, looking reasonably decent, she decided to dare walking outside.

As innocently as she could, she strode out into the hallway, pulling the comb through her hair, as one of the household servants entered the hall; to the side, Tuffnut was padding back from the latrine closet to his room.  Ruffnut was waiting outside of the latrine, looking impatient, and some of the other dragon riders were waiting in a line behind her.  The servant announced to the people in the hall that breakfast would be served shortly, and then started going to the still-closed doors and knocking.  She shrugged, glad to have witnesses, ambled over to Hiccup's door and politely knocked with her free hand. 

"Hiccup?  You presentable?"

Hiccup replied, "Uh… one moment," through the door.  She pondered if he'd even managed to finish getting dressed yet.

Next to her, Tuffnut paused for a moment in his shuffling to his room and gave her a suggestive leer.  "Why not just walk in?  You might get a good view of what he has to… _offer_."

Doing her best to keep the knowledge of _exactly_ what Hiccup had to offer her _off_ of her face, she turned, gave Tuffnut her best glare, and then took a single step towards him. 

Tuffnut just held up his hands and walked away.  As he walked off, she heard him muttering, "Can't take a joke, eeesh, hope she and Hiccup just do it soon and maybe she'll stop looking like she wants to stab me…" His door shut behind him, cutting off the rest of his mutterings. 

The servant approached, amusement on his face.  Just as he reached Hiccup's door, it swung open.  Hiccup was standing there, grinning at her, fully dressed.

Astrid, doing her best to maintain a cool reserve, handed him her comb and said in a brusque, if somewhat warm tone, "Boyfriend duties.  Need hair braided."

He smiled widely, took the comb and gave a deep bow—to hide a satisfied smirk, she was sure—and intoned obsequiously, "Of course, milady."  Straightening, he turned to the servant with a smile, and said more normally, "Breakfast?"

"Aye, milord.  About half an hour."  Behind her, Snotlout emerged from the latrine closet with his usual smug expression in place, and Ruffnut practically dove past him, the door slamming shut an instant later.

"Thanks."

"Of course."

As the man left, she crossed the threshold into Hiccup's room, and fought down a blush, aware that the door was open.  She just sat down on the floor next to the bed expectantly, with her back to the mattress on which she could _smell_ the two of them. 

Toothless was curled up by the window, which he or Hiccup had opened, and was gently flapping in a warm summer breeze with his wings. 

Hiccup, blushing lightly, sat down on the bed.  She twirled into a sitting position on the floor next to him, her back to the bed, and he started nonchalantly combing out her hair, as if they hadn't just taken a major step—and a major risk—the night before in that very bed.

"I like this place," she said lightly as she leaned up against his leg and peg as his strong nimble fingers pulled through the snarls with the comb.

"Mmmh?"

"Well, I like these wool sheets—"

"Carpets," Hiccup said absently as he hit a particularly dense knot with the comb.

"Carpets, thank you," she said, grimacing from the knot, "that they have on the walls and beds."

"They're pretty nice," he agreed, and said contemplatively, "And I want to get a look at that cistern that they have on the roof.  I have some ideas."

"Of course you do," she said fondly. 

He shrugged and combed through another tangle. 

She sighed happily and enjoyed his touch.

As he started braiding the hair for her, Snotlout entered the room without knocking.  He looked anticipatory, and then disappointed when he found them fully clothed and the room filled with a fresh breeze.

"Hey.  So…" he looked around, for what, Astrid had no idea.  "So… what am I going to be doing today?"

"Staying far away from the princess, for starters," Astrid said tartly.  "We don't need you to start another war, Snotlout."

"But—"

"No," they said together.

Snotlout scowled at them.

Hiccup looked at his cousin as his fingers ran through Astrid's hair.  "Snotlout… If they claim insult against you, you're on your own.  We're here under hospitality, coz.  You break it, you buy it.  We won't be able to protect you."

Snotlout shrugged at him dismissively.  "What if someone else offers—"

"No."

"But—"

"No!"

Another scowl. 

Astrid sighed.  "Look, Lout, we're in another kingdom.  Do you _really_ want to risk someone trying to steal Hookfang while we're here?"

"What?  No, of course not!"

"Then why are you setting yourself up to be challenged in the _holmgang_ by someone for their daughter's honor, getting your ass kicked, and having him taken as their spoils?" Astrid asked pointedly. 

Snotlout paused in mid-objection, his mouth open and finger pointing at the ceiling.  "…Oh."

"Yeah.  _Oh._   Keep your pants on, coz, and your tongue in your mouth, unless you _really_ think that you can take a trained berserker on a stretched hide," Hiccup said acerbically, working his way down the braid.

"I could!"

The pair by the bed just gave him identical skeptical looks. 

He threw up his hands.  "Fine!" and marched from the room.

Hiccup leaned forward to look down at her as Astrid leaned back to look up at him.  They gave each other an amused gaze, and started to laugh.

"Why did we bring him again?"

"Because we didn't trust him to stay at home unsupervised."

"Yeah.  And Spitelout wanted him to come so he wouldn't get left out of making allies."

They both sighed.  If only Snotlout was actually interested in making _allies._   That would have made for a nice change.

Hair braided, they stood, stretched, smiled at each other, and walked down to breakfast holding hands, even as both of them were fondly imagining just closing the door and going back to bed.

But, alas, appearances to maintain.  

###

Breakfast in the great hall was unexceptional, though plentiful and hearty.  As Hiccup loaded up his plate from the kitchens, trying to keep the smile on his face under control, he looked around the large room.  A few of the people that he had seen heavily drunk the night before were now obviously suffering through hangovers of varying intensity.  Magnus himself looked a touch bleary-eyed, and was eying the meal in his bowl with loathing.

Having loaded up his plate with enough food to satisfy even his current appetite, Hiccup sat down at the high table; he had a bowl of porridge laced with honey and some fresh berries, a loaf of steaming barley-rye bread that he and Astrid were going to split, a slice of sharp goat cheese, and a tankard of whey.  Next to him, Astrid's plate had a stack of smoked and salted herring, a small bowl of butter, a large bowl of skyr topped with diced chives, and a tankard of buttermilk.

Magnus looked at the fish on Astrid's plate and shuddered.  He was eating plain barley porridge and drinking watered whey, and looked a bit vile, his eyes looking bloodshot and his skin sallow. 

Looking at the king while Astrid took the loaf from his plate and broke it in half, Hiccup asked him, "You feeling all right over there?"

Magnus shoveled another spoonful of porridge into his mouth through a piteous moan and said, his mouth full, "I'll be fine.  I usually try to exercise more temperance than I did last night, and I'm paying for it."

Hiccup nodded with a pitying grimace as he buttered his half of the bread loaf.  "I sympathize.  Someone," he glanced over at the twins for a brief moment, "once spiked my ale with fortified beer—," Magnus laughed, and then winced, holding his head as if he was afraid of having it explode, "—and the next morning I felt like…" he cocked his chin towards Magnus, still carefully holding his head, "Well, like that."

Astrid snickered softly, and stole a spoonful of Hiccup's porridge, snagging as many of the berries as she could on a single spoon, and then gave him a piece of fish as an apology.  Hiccup put the fish on his piece of the bread loaf and took a hearty bite. 

Magnus looked at the pair of them and gave a wan smile.  "You two are looking happy."

Hiccup smiled and nodded, his mouth of the fish and bread.  Astrid leaned up against him, her weight on his side welcoming, and said, "What's not to be happy about?  We're visiting the court of a kind and friendly king, we're making friends and allies, and we're being given delicious food to eat, and it's just the first day.  Also… we're finally not at sea anymore."

Einar Thamberskelfir, the fat old regent, laughed from nearby, where he had a plate piled high with pork and sausages.  "Your first time at sea for a lengthy voyage, I take it?"

Astrid nodded as she spooned some of the skyr into her mouth.  "I mean, I'd done short trips before, but this was the first time I had been out of sight of land for that long."  Hiccup nodded in enthusiastic agreement.  It had been his first trip of more than a day as well, and the North Sea was far different than the Eirish Sea.

The big elder laughed again.  "Aye, it's a shock, isn't it?  To realize that the only thing solid around for a day's travel or more is your own longboat?"

Astrid just grimaced, and Hiccup asked the elder, "How about you?"

"Oh, aye, I've traveled by sea many times.  It is still something that never leaves you, though."  He speared a sausage on the end of his knife and took a large bite. 

Yngvarr rolled his eyes.  "Aye, and if we're comparing leagues at sea, Thamberskelfir, I'm likely to quickly overtake you," he said to the sixty-year-old elder.

"Aye, probably.  Unless we get you a steed that can carry you over the clouds instead of over the water," Einar said through the mouthful of sausage.  He turned and looked at Hiccup.  "So, young dragon-rider, we have our morning Mass, and my king here needs some time to recover from his fortified wines.  Shall we convene for starting our talks, say, two hours before noon?"

Hiccup nodded.  "That sounds reasonable.  Umm… what's a mass?"

Magnus, Einar and Yngvarr shared a look between them; Yngvarr gave a short nod and a friendly smile to the other two, who relaxed.  Then the herald turned back to Hiccup.  "Christian prayers.  If you are interested in attending…?"

Hiccup shook his head, as did Astrid.  "Thanks for the offer, but I think that it would be disrespectful for us to come.  We don't follow your gods."

"God.  Singular," Michael Henriksson, the court priest, said, speaking up for the first time.  He had a frown on his well-lined face, that was edging towards a scowl.  Around his neck was a necklace that had a familiar-looking pendant, that of a man hanging from a cross.  Hiccup placed it after a moment as being similar to the one that Snotlout had brought back as loot from his raid on England. 

Yngvarr made a calming gesture to the priest.  "Father Michael, they do not know the ways of Christ.  We should not judge them for lack of knowledge."

The priest grimaced and turned back to his meal. 

Hiccup frowned at the exchange, confused, but before he could say anything, Astrid tapped his hand.  He turned and found a heaping spoonful of her skyr at his mouth, as she grinned and said, "Try this!  It's great with the chives!"

He did as he was told, and the meal progressed from there. 

As Magnus and his court went off to their morning prayer, the other Hooligans came up to Hiccup and Astrid. 

"So, Hiccup, what should we do while we wait?" Horsefeathers asked.  Fishwings, standing next to him, nodded in agreement. 

Hiccup shrugged.  "I doubt that they have any chores for us to do, so…"  He waved his arms expressively.  "Go take your dragons out for a flight?  Explore the city?  Write up what we've done in your journals for your family's archives?"

Fishwings grimaced at that one.  "Yeah… Great-auntie Bladewit will be _pissed_ if we slack off on that."  She slapped her brother on his shoulder.  "C'mon, Horsefeathers.  Time to break out the ink and quills."

Horsefeathers gave Hiccup an exaggerated betrayed look before following his sister. 

Snotlout had vanished at some point, and Hiccup just hoped that he wouldn't have to extract his cousin from anything violent or expensive.  Embarrassing, though… they might just leave him, as a lesson. 

The twins had cornered one of the skalds, or maybe he had cornered them, off in one side of the great hall; they were swapping bits and pieces of various sagas back and forth even as he tried to inch his way towards the prayer hall, his body language torn between walking to talk and needing to go.  The twins looked like they would probably end up following him in at this rate.  When Hiccup motioned them over, Ruffnut shook her head and motioned to the skald, mouthing that they were fine. 

Ross looked at his cousin.  "So, Astrid… want to come exercise Stormfly while I take Toast out for a flight?"

Astrid started forward, and then shook her head.  "No.  I promised to help give the king's sister a flight later, and I'd like Stormfly to be fresh for that."

He shrugged.  "That's fair," and turned to the remaining Hooligans, as the twins followed the skalds out into the courtyard, the senior skald reciting something for them.  "Anyone else?"

They all thought that it was a fine idea, and a minute later, Hiccup and Astrid were alone in the great hall.

Five minutes after that, having barely checked for any prying eyes or listening ears, the pair of them were back in his room, breaking their kisses only long enough to pull off clothing.

They had an hour, and planned on using it.

###

As the peaks of Berk became more apparent on the horizon, the tension aboard the longship increased. 

Ragnell ua Imair sighed as the dragon and rider swooped into view of his longship. 

Hopefully they wouldn't just burn the ship out of spite.  Or drop him into his lord's courtyard from a height.

Again.

The man mounted on the Monstrous Nightmare's back looked at him and said, his tone exasperated, "You again!?"

Oh, this wasn't shaping up very well.

He called back to the rider, "My lord wishes to apologize for the insult given, and has sent me with tribute!"

The dragon rider just _glared_ at him.  His expression was so completely skeptical that, even with the dozens of yards separating them, Ragnell could see it clearly from where he stood on his ship's deck.

Swallowing hard against the fear that he was about to die in a bath of fire, Ragnell shifted position to stand next to his cargo, trying to gently remind the dragon-rider of the riches he was bringing as an apology.  He stared up at the other man, making eye contact and holding it.

Ragnell's heart thudded in his ears as he watched the man on dragonback think it over.  The other man's eyes visibly narrowed, and then the rider ducked his head and nodded.  "I will go tell the chief."  He pointed to the tops of several of the nearby sea stacks that were just visible over the wave-tops.  "You will anchor by the Five Sisters sea stacks up ahead if I don't come back before you get there."

The rider flew off, and Ragnell sighed in sheer relief, and then turned to his crew.  "Well, you heard the man," he said, and they shifted course towards the stone pillars.

His crew, jittery, but mindful of their place, sailed onwards towards Berk.

But they were not as jittery as the cargo.

Ragnell didn't even hear the crying from some of them as he stood at the stern tiller, his entire mind focused on surviving the next day. 

###

As Hiccup and Astrid reentered the great hall, Ruffnut was pondering a new kenning and a small bowl of skyr and blackberries.  She and her brother had followed Sigvat to the prayer hall, and stood outside and listened for a little while after he'd gone inside.  Tuffnut had tried to figure out what they were saying, but neither of them were familiar with the language the prayers were in.  Then they'd gotten bored and gone and raided the kitchens. 

Glancing up as her chief's heir and his girlfriend entered the hall, she held back a smirk as she looked them over; they were holding hands, and she mentally shifted them from boyfriend-and-girlfriend to lovers.  Oh, they'd tried their best to make it look like nothing had happened, but Astrid had redone her hair, and Hiccup's shirt was tucked into his trousers, and it hadn't been before. 

She considered saying something, but settled for catching Astrid's eye and giving her the knowing smirk that she'd been suppressing, unleashing it in its full glory of _I know what you two are_ up to. 

Astrid blushed gloriously and, separating from her boyfriend, walked over to Ruffnut.

"Say it.  I know you want to," she said flatly.

Ruffnut affected an exaggerated innocent look and held her hand to her chest.  "Who, me?  Say something?  Why would I do that?"

Astrid glared at her, her lips thinning.  "Look, if you're planning on holding this over me, I want to tell you three things first," she hissed quietly.  "First, I don't care what people might say about me.  Second, I _do_ care if someone uses this to attack Hiccup.  And third, let's not embarrass the tribe in front of outsiders, all right?  Remember that talk that we had about pranks?"

Ruffnut swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat, recalling Astrid's reaction to a prank on one of the sailors on the trip here—and her promise of what would happen if Ruffnut were to prank anyone at the foreign court.  "Yes."  Taking a deep breath to steel herself, she said, "All right, but you owe me."

"Cover me and him from Snotlout and I'll owe you triple," Astrid said bluntly.

She grimaced and nodded.  "All right.  I'll even keep this away from my brother, on the house.  Just promise me that you'll speak on _my_ behalf, when it's my turn."

Astrid nodded.  "No pranks, remember."

"Yeah, yeah… spoil my fun…" Ruffnut said, in a mock-pout.  She then looked at the other girl and asked quietly, "So… was it good?"

Astrid blushed again, glanced around to see Hiccup looking at them curiously, and whispered, "Ruff… I know that we've had our problems… but I hope that you find a guy who is _half_ as concerned with pleasing Freyja.  I just…" She cut herself off, blushing. 

With a sigh, Ruffnut shook her head.  "I doubt it, but, hey, I can hope."  She noticed her brother had finished devouring the bowl of fruit that he'd finagled out of the kitchen staff, and sighed at the sight of his bulging cheeks.

At that point, the King and the rest of his court emerged from the prayer hall that they'd been in.  Astrid walked off and rejoined her boyfriend, who smoothly slipped a hand around her waist and she leaned up against him.  Ruffnut sighed in envy.

Over the next few minutes, the other Hooligans reentered the hall.  Snotlout reappeared from wherever he'd been, looking annoyed, and… _frustrated_.  Hopefully that meant that he hadn't managed to seduce any of the king's thralls or staff.  Once they were all assembled, they were all guided into a private room off of the great hall. 

Looking around, Ruffnut took the seat that the servant indicated.  The chair was nice, with a small pillow on the seat.  Overall, it was a pretty room; it had some tapestries on the walls, and a trio of windows that had the shutters open, letting in the summer sun and some fresh air.  Other chairs were spread around the room, enough for all of her tribesmates on their side of the room, and another half dozen behind the king, where his advisers were taking their seats.  She was seated behind Hiccup and Astrid, who were opposite the king and that fat regent of his, Einar. 

She pondered on his cognomen.  _Thambarskelfir_.  It was a kenning of some kind; the obvious interpretation was that it was from _tambr,_ and while he was definitely fat enough for him to have earned the nickname of _wobbly belly_ , she rather doubted that he had that much of a sense of humor about it, although she could definitely be wrong.  The other interpretation… from _tomb,_ well, glancing at his beefy arms… yeah, she could believe that he was nicknamed for _shaking bowstring._   He looked like a master archer gone to seed, with a broad back and powerful arms over a massive potbelly. 

There was a cough from the king, who looked much better than he had over his breakfast, with eyes less sunken and less of a hangover pallor in his face. 

"To start, I wish to keep this Thing at least somewhat informal," the king said, looking around at his advisers.  "At least until we get going fully.  I see no reason to stand excessively on ceremony.  We'll get so much more done if we can speak plainly."

Hiccup nodded.  "Sounds reasonable.  While we're talking, shall we swear to not take offense?  I know that Things can get pretty heated at home, when it's just two clans talking.  And I don't want to have to take anything to a dueling ring because words got heated."

Ruffnut snorted quietly.  Nearby, Snotlout seethed. 

The king seemed to be chewing on Hiccup's comment, and then nodded.  "That is fairly typical for Things between us.  I accept that.  Let us meet with our words and not our blades—or dragons," he said, winking at the last. 

He and Hiccup shook hands across the table. 

"To begin, I am not making demands," the king said.  "I am not some of my predecessors, who spread their strength with the sword and torch.  I _will,_ if I have to.  I'd just rather not have to."

Astrid grinned.  "Oh, you two will get along just fine."

The king beamed at her.  "Thank you, milady Astrid.  So, first, I have an offer and a request."

Hiccup made a magnanimous gesture—almost elbowing Astrid in the process—and said, "Please.  Let's start."

Ruffnut settled herself and tried to listen.  Her uncle would be upset with her if she forgot anything. Sure, this would be boring, but he'd just chide her and call it good practice for her memory. 

"To begin with, my opening position is simple: I offer allyship to your father and his holdings, with us holding each other in mutual defense—if either of us is attacked, the other goes to their ally's aid.  Of course, that's in defense—if either of us were the attacker on a third party, the other would not need to join in on the conflict."  He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment, until a look from Einar made him stop.  "That same oath would be passed down to you in turn, Sir Hiccup, when you inherit your father's position."  He drummed his fingers on the table again, and stopped at another quelling look from Einar.  "Beyond the allyship, I also offer trade; your tribe is small, and my kingdom is vastly larger.  We would open our doors to your people, without tax or other levies on your goods within my kingdom.  From what Yngvarr reported, your people are not only skilled warriors but accomplished artists, and your goods would no doubt have significant markets here."

Ruffnut rolled her eyes in exasperated amusement as Hiccup rubbed at his chin thoughtfully as the king paused.  They were both obviously extremely nervous and doing a terrible job of hiding it; Hiccup kept scratching at his chin and hair, while Magnus was fidgeting pretty terribly. 

"And in exchange…?" Hiccup asked.  "I mean, that's a pretty impressive list in what you're offering."

The king smiled cautiously.  "Well, in exchange… I was _hoping_ for some dragons."

Hiccup snorted, amused.  "Of course."

Einar whispered into the king's ear, and then the king nodded.  "And also, we were hoping that you would be willing to convert to the way of Christ."

Hiccup shook his head strongly at that.  "I'm sorry, but no."  He drummed his own fingers on the table.  "Aside from not knowing your gods, there's no way that I could _ever_ convince my tribe to agree to such a decision."  She could visualize his smirk as he said, "Vikings, you know.  We have stubbornness issues."

The king laughed at that and nodded.  "Aye, I can see that."  He leaned in.  "As for that allyship, let me be a little clearer on what I'm suggesting…"

The informal negotiations proceeded from there, as Ruffnut did her best to keep her attention from wandering; behind her, she could hear the scratching of quills on parchment as Fishwings and Horsefeathers did their best to record the talks.  Meanwhile, Hiccup kept picking up Magnus's nervous habits, and Magnus picked up Hiccup's.  Which was funny to watch and everything, but it was so obvious, too. 

The king's offer of allyship to Berk was clarified; Stoick would not be a vassal, but a chief in his own right, bound in mutual defense.  They would guarantee regular trade shipments between his kingdom and Berk.  And there were more longboats that could be sold to Berk at low cost, in the aftermath of the Green Death having burned the fleet the previous year. 

In exchange, the king wanted some dragons, even if not breeding pairs, and partnership with Berk; specifically, even if they weren't there to fight, the potential for some Timberjacks and Gronckles in improving his kingdom, as Yngvarr had described to him, was too much to pass up. 

And, revisiting the topic of the gods, instead of converting flat out, he at least wanted Hiccup to allow a missionary to visit Berk and be allowed to preach. 

Hiccup pointed out that the king had a great deal more to gain than he gave from that sort of relationship. 

From their perspective, the allyship sounded like a great idea, but Norway had every bit as much to gain from that sort of alliance as Berk did; a few hundred dragon riders were worth a fleet on their own.  For the missionary, Hiccup demurred; he knew nothing of their god, and wanted to learn more first before he made any decisions for himself, much less for the whole tribe.  As for Norway gaining dragons, Hiccup proposed sending several teams of construction dragons over for hire, but not to keep, which the king agreed as being fair.  And on the topic of getting dragons of their own…

"Also… Well, look, Magnus, how about this?  We're starting a new dragon training class this autumn, for dragon- _riders,_ not dragon slayers.  We're actually going to have to go back in three or four weeks in order to run it," Hiccup said.  "Why don't you come with us?"

The king's eyes glowed at the thought and he nodded enthusiastically, making Ruffnut smile. 

"If you can win the trust of one of the dragons," Hiccup said, "and show that you can ride it, sure, I have no problem with you getting to keep that dragon."

Einar spoke up.  "Just him?  Or is this open to anyone that we bring?"

Ruffnut's eyes widened at the obvious loophole, but thankfully Hiccup spotted it and smoothly stepped around it.

"Well, I don't want to overload the class," he said earnestly.  "We're still figuring out how exactly we would manage it."

Einar scowled slightly, and, after some back and forth, they settled on five slots. 

The morning wore on and the talks continued.  "…I also have a few other ideas that might make trade easier," Hiccup was saying, as Ruffnut yawned in boredom, and then there was a knock at the door.  One of the servants entered and announced that the noon luncheon was almost ready to be served.

Ruffnut blinked and muffled another yawn with the back of her hand. Noon already?  Where had the morning gone?

Hiccup's stomach rumbled, and Einar chuckled.  "Hungry there, young master?"

He nodded ruefully, as the king said, "Well, I think that we've made admirable progress today.  Shall we break for the meal?"

"Yes, please," Hiccup said.  "And then afterwards, I think I promised you some dragon rides…"

"You _did,_ " the king said gleefully.  "Shall we?"

###

 

Ragnell swallowed and wiped his clammy palms on his trouser legs as his ship sailed into Berk's harbor.  Standing on the wharves and piers was the gigantic chief, his arms crossed and his brow knotted with anger and suspicion.  He was so obviously angry that the six dragons and ten bowmen flanking him practically seemed superfluous. Other armed men stood nearby, including the steward, his hook-hand exchanged for a battle-ax hand, and the marshal, who looked far too anticipatory for Ragnell's tastes. 

With one last look at the bowmen, their arrows nocked on the strings, although thankfully not drawn, Ragnell bowed and pulled out the parchment scroll from the case that he had been careful with the entire trip.  Giving a dramatic flourish that would hopefully cover his nerves, and without stepping off of his ship, (and therefore across the ceremonial line that officially put him in Berk's territory), he started to speak _quickly._

"Great and mighty Chieftain of Berk, I come as herald from my king.  My liege wishes to apologize for the previous incident, and offers this cargo as tribute to your most potent forces, who were able to overcome his own in such an overpowering way as to need no bloodshed."  He heard dragon wings fluttering, and his eyes darted up to see the boy Meatlug and his dragon Fishlegs flying down to the harbor docks.  "We offer this tribute in the hope that we can put previous misdeeds on our part to rest and leave them in the past and… and move forward in peace and understanding." He was stammering—babbling, really—and off-script, despite having practiced on the voyage here.  Stoick's glare was _not_ helping his composure.  "Understanding your… your distaste for my presence, I will not come ashore, and will leave as soon as my business is complete."

Finished, he looked at the boy and his dragon, now hovering perhaps twenty feet above the docks.  The boy looked distinctly furious at them, although it was a cool, calculating fury that made Ragnell feel even more worried, although he had actually counted on the boy showing up as part of his lord's plan.

Steeling himself, he turned towards the boy.  "Hey, Meatlug!"

The boy looked at him with controlled fury and bit out, "Don't you talk to my dragon, thief."

Ragnell internally grimaced.  Of all of the things to get wrong…

"My apologies.  I mistook your name at the time."

"Yes.  You did.  And that's not all that you mis- _took,_ " he said curtly.

"Well, I come to offer you a geld in apology, personally," Ragnell said, offering a winsome smile to hide his mounting panic.  "We acknowledge your strength and prowess and wish to make amends, both to your tribe and you!"  He turned back to Stoick and bowed.  "My lord chief, while the insult was to your tribe, it was also to the boy.  May I offer him my geld directly?"

Stoick turned and looked at Mea… at _Fishlegs,_ and Ragnell kicked himself mentally for making _that_ mixup.  The boy landed and dismounted from his dragon, frowning at Ragnell.  After fixing Ragnell with his stare for a long sullen moment, the boy then turned to his chief and nodded.

Ragnell held his breath for a moment, intimately aware that if Stoick decided that he was going to die now, the only question was whether it would be quick and relatively painless, or long and lingering. 

After a long moment, Stoick growled and said, "All right.  I will not deprive the boy of his rightful geld.  Send your tributes over and be gone from my island!  And tell your lord to send a different face next time he wants to talk!"

Ragnell nodded fervently at that, and bowed, as his sailors brought his ship in closer to the pier and lowered the gangplank.

Still on his ship, Ragnell broke the wax seal with another flourish and unfurled the scroll.  He began to read aloud as his sailors started to unload the cargo. 

"To Mighty Stoick the Vast of Berk, Lord of Dragons, we send as tribute, twenty-four weaned calves of Eire, a dozen each of males and females, twelve prized timbers of yew and ash, nine skilled thralls, and a purse of two hundred silver coin.  To the boy _Fishlegs,_ " and Ragnell made a hasty substitution between his eyes reading and his mouth speaking, "in compensation for the injury and attempt at theft, we offer a purse of forty silver and forty copper coin, and a virgin girl-thrall of surpassing loveliness.  To our honor, King Adalwin ua Imair."  He rolled up the scroll and passed it over to the chieftain.

Stoick just took the scroll, expression stony, and, looking as if he was considering tearing it up for a moment, passed it to his steward and whispered something.  He then looked at Ragnell with an expression of utmost loathing, such that Ragnell had to actively steel himself against jumping backwards.

Ragnell's men, working quickly, began passing the cargo over to the dock, as some of Stoick's thanes and dragons began to help with the unloading under the steward's direction; the cattle were herded up to the pasture and the timbers taken to the village store, but the thralls were kept by the dock.

While this was going on, taking perhaps twenty minutes, most of that involving the removal of the fine wood timbers, Stoick just stood at the edge of the pier, right next to the hull of Ragnell's ship.  Ragnell felt like a mouse cornered by a cat, wondering when the claws would catch and the fangs would bite. 

But the big man did nothing beyond stare; a muscle jumping in his cheek was the only thing that betrayed his tension.  Watching it twitch every few moments made Ragnell all the more nervous.  And, of course, he couldn't _dare_ back down in front of the foreign chieftain. 

Once the last bit of Ragnell's cargo was offloaded and his ship floated higher in the water, Stoick turned and said to the thralls, who were varyingly stoic, weeping, or shaking, in a tone that would carry to Ragnell's ears, "It will be all right.  You are freemen here.  We do not practice thralldom on Berk."  His voice hardened as some of the thralls either cheered or reacted in confusion at the impossible words that he had just said.  "But I am hardly surprised that your _former_ home did."

Ragnell blinked.  Uh oh.

Stoick turned and, with a mighty heave _,_ _pushed_ Ragnell's ship away from the pier with his foot.  It didn't shift that much—perhaps a foot or two to the side—but, regardless, the chieftain had essentially kicked Ragnell's longboat away from Berk's shore. 

As symbolism went, it was… telling. 

Ragnell got the hint and immediately ordered his men to set sail, not daring to look at the docks, hoping that his liege's plan would work this time.

Before they got too far away from the shore, he heard Stoick's voice behind him.  "I thank you for the new tribesmates, who will live long happy _free_ lives here— _away_ from your king.  If I see you in my waters again without hostages for you to hide behind, I will send you to the _bottom_ of those waters, am I _clear?"_

Ragnell, not daring to look back, simply nodded. 

"Good!  Now get out of my harbor before I change my mind and make you into a new navigational hazard!"

###

The young priest looked at the message on the parchment and scoffed.

The other man at the next table looked up.  "Something amusing?"

"More tall tales from the provincials, I'm afraid.  If I had to guess, there's some new pagan warlord up north."

"Oh?" the other man said in a tone of the sort of interest born of utter boredom and cynicism.

"Apparently, one of the pagans has managed to tame _dragons,_ " the younger priest said, shrugging and making a note in the log. 

"Indeed?  I'm amazed that there are any left—pagans, that is, not dragons."

"Apparently there are.  Ah, where did this come from… ah.  Eire.  Of course.  Looks like the normal word-of-mouth exaggerations between credulous villagers and parish priests."

"My favorite is still the one about the pixie outbreak," the other man said slyly. 

"That was a good one.  Ah, provincials.  Every little thing, they have to write to us about."  He put the paper aside and made a note before moving on to the next bit of hysteria coming out of the northern episcopal sees.  If nothing else, the hysteria-tinged note had been good for a laugh. 

But this was Rome, and the holy duties of the offices of Diocese of Rome left little time for official amusement. 

###

As the Vedrarfjord ship sailed away, Fishlegs watched, his eyes narrowed, even as his heart pounded.  The former thrall that the foreign king had just tried to _give_ him clung to him, watching the ships leave with wide eyes.  Her eyes were dry but ringed with red, like Astrid's had been when Hiccup hadn't woken up for that whole week after the battle. 

Fishlegs was trying to not look at her.  She wasn't his property.  People weren't property on Berk, which made them unusual by the standards of most Norse places; capturing thralls for work had been a major part of _going_ a-Viking generations back. 

But Berk was different, again because the dragons.  You couldn't have people versus people here when it had all too often been people versus dragons.  One of the old chiefs had passed a law against it.  Well, technically, he had.  From what Fishlegs had heard, it had been more along the lines of shouting _Anyone willing to pick up a blade against dragons tonight is a freeman or freewoman when the sun next rises!_ when half of the thanes of the village had been incapacitated on one bad raid night, and every single thrall had done so.  Since then, thralldom had been outlawed on Berk; a good percentage of the village were former thralls themselves who had managed to escape to Berk, and everyone _else_ was descended _from_ former thralls.

The girl was hugging his arm in a death-grip as she watched the ships that had brought her here sail away.  Fishlegs could feel the iron slave collar around her neck pressing against his arm, and did his best to suppress a shiver.  It was just a ring of cold iron around her neck, embellished with woven strips of plaited grass, but it marked her as _property_ off of Berk, and Fishlegs couldn't imagine how that could feel.  Being someone's object _,_ rather than a person themselves.  It was one thing to swear an oath and say that your life was someone else's.  But to not have a choice in the matter?  It made him shiver.  And now he could really understand why Stoick was so adamant on the topic of thralls, and of thralldom being evil.  He'd been told stories of what it was like—they all had, growing up, hearing from parents and grandparents and other relatives—but this was the first time he'd been in the middle of it.  And so he wasn't going to look at her like she was a prime piece of meat.  That wasn't how you treated people on Berk.  That wasn't how he was going to treat this girl.  So he kept watching the ship being unloaded, with the timbers being flown up to the village and the calves being herded up the ramp. 

Besides, it didn't matter if he looked at her or not, because the image of her was burned into his mind from when she got off the ship.  The youngest of the thralls, rubbing at her wrists from where they had been shackled for the journey, wearing a light gray woolen tunic, a pair of sheepskin boots and the collar, with long black hair and green eyes.  One of the sailors—the one that had tried to stab him three months ago, if Fishlegs could trust his memories—had pointed her to him.  She'd walked over while he'd been standing there, dumbstruck, wide-eyed and uncomprehending, the thieving captain's message stuck in his brain.  She'd said something to him that he couldn't remember just now, and had taken a place at his side. 

He'd still been standing there, stunned, with her next to him, when Gobber had walked by and snapped him out of it with an ungentle poke during the general chaos of the unloading, and whispered to keep quiet for a bit.  And then the older man had slapped the purse of coin that was apparently now his into his hands, and walked off to supervise the unloading. 

So he had kept quiet.

It hadn't been that hard.

Nope.

And then his chief had declared her to be a free woman, not property, making her gasp and clutch his arm and setting the purse of copper and silver to clink and jingle in his hands, and they had both watched as Stoick _kicked_ the longboat away from the pier.

His chief watched as the Vedrarfjord ship sailed away and vanished behind the sea stacks, looking supremely satisfied even from behind, his hands on his hips and his shoulders set.  Fishlegs just stood there quietly, the girl holding on so tightly to his arms that he was starting to get that tingly sensation in his fingertips, his skin white around her hands.  She was taking deep, calming breaths that occasionally broke into panicked panting before she regained control.  He could feel the tension in her come and go in waves.

Fishlegs wondered what had happened to her, and how she'd been treated, and if it was anything like Stoick's mom's story. 

He hoped not, for her sake. 

Once the Eirish ship was gone from view into the sea mists, Stoick turned back and called to the assembled crowd.  "All right.  That's that."  He looked at the former thralls.  "Welcome to Berk.  You are free to stay, and have no obligations beyond that of any freeman if you choose to do so.  If you wish to leave, traders visit regularly these days and you can barter or buy passage off.  I won't judge you if you wish to do so.  But you are welcome here.  Do not doubt that." 

The newly freed thralls looked at him with varying degrees of astonishment, disbelief and fragile hope, including the young woman at Fishlegs' side.

"My name is Stoick the Vast, and I am chieftain here. Please.  Tell me your names.  Let us go to the mead hall and get you all fed."  He looked at his steward and Fishlegs.  "Gobber.  Fishlegs. I want those collars off and beds for them to sleep in before the sun sets."  With that ordered, Stoick turned back to the potential new members of the Hooligans, and beckoned them forward; the crowd of them all—thanes, chief, advisers, freed thralls and Fishlegs—began to walk up the pathway to the main village, as the new arrivals began to introduce themselves, one by hesitant one, to Stoick. 

With one exception.  The girl continued to clutch at Fishlegs's arm as they walked up the pathway, even when he made a quiet noise to her that she should go introduce herself.  She looked stunned, and more than a little frightened, and, come to think of it, Fishlegs wasn't even sure if she understood Norse.  As one of the other freed thralls, tear tracks down his cheeks, was being coaxed to open up to Stoick, Fishlegs screwed up his own courage and asked in as friendly a tone as he could, "Uh, so… hi.  I'm Fishlegs Hensteethsson clan Ingerman.  Um… so I know that this is a bit weird to ask… but what's your name?"

She was quiet for a long moment as they continued to walk up the ramp.  Fishlegs was just about ready to ask again in Eirish when she turned to look at him and a pained smile slowly spread on her face, but he could tell that it was forced.  "Heather.  My name is Heather mac—" and then she grimaced, and shook her head.  "Just Heather."

* * *

 

A/N: *innocent whistling* ;)

EDIT 6/28/17: Had to make some edits after some belated back-and-forth with my beta reader; again, mostly grammatical and clarity bits; the only significant additions are in Fishlegs' scene at the end, and even then, it's just the occasional paragraph.  I hope to build back up my queued buffer from here.


	14. Relationships

**Chapter 14: Relationships**

_The initial Norwegian outreach to Berk, notwithstanding popular belief otherwise, was actually instigated by Magnus the Good's regent, Einar Eindridesson Thambarskelfir (c. 980-1047), of the Lade jarls, not Magnus the Good, although he was an enthusiastic supporter of the idea._

_Originally an opponent of King Olaf Haraldsson, Magnus's father, Einar supported King Cnut the Great's efforts to overthrow Olaf.  Those efforts succeeded in 1028 AD, sending King Olaf and his family into exile.  Olaf returned two years later after the death of Cnut's first viceroy, Haakon Ericsson, in an attempt to regain his kingdom, and died at the Battle of Stiklestad (29 July 1030 AD), defeated by a peasant army led by Kálfr Árnasson, Thorir Hund and Hárek of Tjøtta.  Einar was not present at the battle, but this was more due to happenstance than intent—Einar was visiting King Cnut in London when the battle was joined.  The purpose of his visit was to petition Cnut to make him the new viceroy of Norway._

_The petition failed; Einar was not given the viceroyalty over Norway, and neither were any of the other Norwegian nobility that had supported Cnut.  Instead, Cnut chose his fourteen-year-old son Sveinn as viceroy and Sveinn's mother, Ælfgifu of Northampton, as the boy's regent and therefore the effective ruler of Norway.  This decision infuriated Einar and the others who had supported Cnut's overthrow of King Olaf, as each of them had wished to be named as regent over Norway, and Cnut had promised each of them the position (or so they claimed).  Sveinn and Ælfgifu's subsequent viceroy reign was seen as oppressive due to new laws and taxes, and was marked by intense resistance on the part of the Norwegian nobility._

_In 1035 AD, Einar, acting in concert with Kálfr, betrayed Cnut's viceroys.  Traveling to Yaroslav the Wise's court in the Kievan Rus', the two chieftains found Olaf's eleven-year-old illegitimate son, Magnus, who had been left there by his father to be fostered in exile by Yaroslav and his wife Ingegerd.  Returning to Scandinavia with Magnus, they allied with King Anund Jacob the Coalburner of Sweden, Magnus's step-uncle, to place Magnus on the Norwegian throne as a puppet ruler to the noble chiefs._

_Political machinations quickly followed, and Kálfr was quickly outmaneuvered by Einar.  Using Kálfr's direct involvement in the death of King Olaf against him, Einar depicted himself as blameless, and managed to have Kálfr incriminate himself by showing how he killed the boy-king's father with a stab to the neck.  Einar became Magnus's new regent and effective ruler of Norway, while Kálfr and Thorir were driven into exile.  Magnus, reportedly furious, wished to have them executed, but refrained from doing so on the advice of his godfather, Sigvatr the Skald._

_His primary rivals gone, Einar spent the next half decade as the_ de facto _ruler of Norway; even when Magnus reached his majority and assumed some level of legal power, Einar made certain to keep the young monarch dependent on him._

_This status quo, however, was broken by one of Einar's miscalculations.  Hearing of the tamed dragons and dragon-riders of Berk from a traveling skald in the spring of 1041 AD, he dispatched one of his minor rivals in the court, the herald Yngvarr Arlaksson, to make contact with Berk, reasoning that either his rival would be killed by fearsome Norse dragon-riders or they might potentially make an ally of the same._

_This backfired, as Berk—and Hiccup Haddock and his associates in particular—were not what he had expected._

_—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396_

"This is amazing!"

Hiccup grinned as Wulfhild held on behind him, Astrid and Stormfly doing their best to keep up, or at least stay in range.  The other Hooligans, plus Magnus, were out flying as well, mostly off on their own, but a few were staying near him.

The princess was not as much of a thrill-seeker as her half-brother was, but her eyes were bright as Hiccup and Toothless took her up as high as they could manage, above the mountains and the clouds.  As they dove, she cheered, which made Hiccup smile from his spot in front of her.  As they flew, she pointed out landmarks below, mostly farms belonging to the nobles.  The people working the fields waved—or occasionally scurried for cover—as they flew by. 

Magnus, for his part, had managed to either bribe or convince Tuffnut to give up his seat and was now riding on Barf's neck next to Ruffnut on Belch's; the two of them were flying along the cloudtops with the rest of the Hooligans.  During the (brief) moments when they buzzed past the Zippleback, Hiccup could hear the two of them talking—it sounded like Ruffnut was reciting some saga, unsurprisingly. 

Astrid and Stormfly blew past as Toothless leisurely skimmed above the waters of the fjord.  Wulfhild squealed and clutched at Hiccup's shoulders as Hiccup's girlfriend and her dragon came out of a dive within a few handspans of Toothless's wingtips.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Hiccup hollered at Astrid, "Cutting it a little close there, aren't you?"

Astrid twisted in her saddle and grinned.  "If we don't do that sort of thing, how will you get better?"

"Oh, I see," Hiccup called back with a grin.  "It's for _practice._ "

Wulfhild snorted behind him.

"Yep!  Race you!" Astrid said, and turned to face forward, and Stormfly poured on the speed. 

Wulfhild called out, "Hey, no fair!  Toothless is carrying two!"

Hiccup gave a mock-menacing chuckle.  "No, princess, that's what's going to _make_ this fair.  C'mon bud!" he said, addressing the last to Toothless, and the race was on. 

Astrid made for the nearby peak that overlooked the city, which Wulfhild identified as the Storheia.  Despite Astrid's head-start, Toothless gained slowly.

Hiccup nonchalantly and insolently waved at Astrid as they pulled alongside the Nadder.  "Everything all right over there?"

"Oh, we're just fine," Astrid called.  "We're just winging it," she said as Stormfly suddenly did a little roll and whirl, and moved herself forward and in front of Toothless.

"Nice move!  Won't help, though!" Hiccup called back, and directed Toothless into a dive, cutting under and in front of Astrid and Stormfly, who flew down after them.

"Dropping out already?"

"I don't see any reason to have this _drag-on_ ," Hiccup said with zest, making Wulfhild groan behind him.

"I'm not going to _tal-on_ you to the princess, but, Wulfhild, just to let you know, he's always like this," Astrid said in a faux-conspiratorial tone across the gap between the two dragons. 

Wulfhild covered her eyes and started to shake with repressed laughter.

 _"Fangs_ for nothing, Astrid!" Hiccup called as Toothless and Stormfly rounded the peak in a dead heat.

Wulfhild whimpered while clutching her sides, trying to keep from laughing.  They turned back to the city, Wulfhild rolling her eyes at them and occasionally breaking out into giggles. 

"So, princess, check this out!" Astrid called and then said, "Stormfly, keep level, like we practiced."

The dragon acknowledged the instruction with a purr as Astrid unbuckled herself from the saddle.  They were flying a hundred or so paces above the ground, and she made a calming motion to Hiccup as he started to protest.  He quieted down, and then made an incoherent protesting noise as she stood up and then flipped over into a handstand on Stormfly's back.

He heard Wulfhild gasp behind him, and Hiccup paid close attention… just in case he and Toothless had to catch her in midair.

Again.

As Astrid showed how skilled and talented she was with her gymnastics—showed off, really—doing handstands and, at one point that made Hiccup wince, a full-on cartwheel down the length of Stormfly’s back and tail, the princess behind him made little squeaking noises of awe, obviously trying to keep from being a distraction.  Hiccup was trying to keep himself focused on the here-and-now, and not the happy memories of the previous night that were being unwillingly conjured by his traitorous brain.  Yes, it was brave, and daring, and an incredible show of skill that made him so proud of her, and all of that… 

And if she fell, he and Toothless would have only a matter of moments to catch her, and he just could _not_ stop having other thoughts as he saw her do a backbend between Stormfly's wings. 

After a minute or so, Astrid finished with a midair flip that landed her right in her saddle, and rehooked her belaying lines with a flourish. 

Wulfhild burst into applause, and Astrid gave an exaggerated bow.  Hiccup swallowed and blinked repeatedly for a moment; Astrid must have caught some of it, as she smiled at him, with enough of an edge to it that it was practically a leer. 

Nudging Toothless in closer, he asked mildly, "How long have you been practicing that?"

Astrid shrugged and gave a smug smirk.  "A month or so.  We might not be able to win at speed, but we can definitely beat you two for style!"  Her eyes suddenly narrowed.  "Hey, what's going on…?"  She pointed ahead, and Hiccup looked to where she was indicating. 

Near the fort and the associated farm—both of which, Hiccup had been surprised to learn, actually belonged to the regent, not to Magnus—Hookfang and Snotlout were visible, on fire.  A blue-and-gold Zippleback that Hiccup recognized as Nott and Delling, who belonged to Fritjof clan Jorgenson, was hovering nearby.  On the back of the double-headed dragon was the ornery old thane and two other figures.  Below them, a small fire raged in a dense overgrown thicket of brambles and heavy brush, with a column of smoke rising from it.  Wulfhild tensed behind him as Hiccup managed to identify the the other two figures as the regent and his son, the marshal. 

Frowning, Hiccup turned to Wulfhild.  "Isn't that _his_ farm that Snotlout just set on fire?"

She nodded mutely. 

Astrid called out from next to them, "Looks like it was on purpose.  Look!" 

She pointed to a group of workers who were clearing away at the edge of the brush with knives and hoes to make a firebreak. 

Hiccup relaxed.  "Oh, I see.  He's just being help—"

Snotlout and Hookfang dove and strafed the ground with a spray of fire, sending the flames in the brambles soaring higher.  The regent and the marshal watched and applauded. 

They watched the fighting demonstration for a long moment, and then Hiccup worked Toothless's tailfin and sent them banking off to the side.  Hiccup closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  He shouldn't have been surprised.  Even though Snotlout wasn't supposed to show the foreigners dragon-riding combat methods, he'd found a loophole.

They flew on in silence for another moment before Astrid said bracingly, "At least he's not chasing after the servants?  And he's being helpful?"

Hiccup groaned.  "Yeah, but when I said that we could show off the dragons… that isn't what I had in mind."

Astrid gave a long sigh.  "I know, but let's take what we can get."

Wulfhild spoke up hesitantly.  "Well… that will help you in your negotiations, I think."  She gave a wan smile as Hiccup looked back at her.  "Einar will definitely want a dragon for his son now.  I think you'll be able to name your price from him in the negotiations."

Hiccup cocked an eyebrow at her, confused.  "But we're negotiating with your brother…"

"Right.  Right," she said, and then asked, "So, are you going to trade any dragons to my brother?"

He shrugged, lifting his hands up in a sweeping gesture.  "Well, we spent the whole morning talking on that.  I can't say that I'm immediately opposed to the idea, but we'll see how our talks go."

"I hope you do," she said.  "It would be so wonderful.  I'd even—"

"'Even' what?" Hiccup asked, after a moment.

"It's not important," she said bracingly.  "I was wondering something, though, Sir Hiccup, if you would be so kind as to indulge my curiosity."

He frowned for a moment, and then nodded to her.  Whatever it was, she clearly didn't want to talk about it, and he was going to respect that.  "Yes, Lady Wulfhild?"

"Well, I was wondering about this harness," she began.  "I noticed that Stormfly doesn't have a similar one, and I was wondering…" she trailed off again.

Hiccup sighed.  "No, I didn't maim him in order to control him."  That had been the guess of several of the visitors to Berk since Thawfest, and it still bothered him.  "During the last dragon raid, I shot him out of the sky with a weapon I built, and the tail fin got torn off when he crashed.  I built him a new tail, but he needs me to operate it.  Without me, he can't fly, so I help him.  It's the least I can do."  He sighed, feeling guilty.

Toothless crooned at him chidingly. 

"What's that, bu—Whoa!"

Toothless, likely being both bored and not putting up with Hiccup's guilt, rolled over in mid-air and stayed that way for a moment, Hiccup's leg unconsciously shifting the fin to match the motion. 

Wulfhild shrieked in surprise, and clutched tight onto Hiccup and the saddle, and then laughed as Toothless righted himself.  Astrid and Stormfly chortled, and the sullen mood from Snotlout's demonstration broke. 

As Wulfhild continued to point out landmarks for them to fly to, Astrid asked, "So, Lady Wulfhild, you know the area very well.  Did you grow up here?"

Hiccup could feel the princess shake her head behind him.  "No, I was born in the city of Borg, in the south, and I was… fostered by my uncle, King Jakob of Sweden for several years before coming back to Norway."  She gave a shrug.  "I've just been paying attention to the area and the people, that's all."

Barf and Belch, with the king and Ruffnut on their necks, flew nearby, with Toast and Horsefeathers keeping pace as escort.  They all waved to each other, while distant echoes of thunder sounded across the fjord. 

Hiccup turned to look, and saw vast clouds of Zippleback gas on the water near the city, which Hookfang or Delling were igniting one by one. 

Apparently the demonstration for the regent and marshal was more than just Hookfang's abilities.

Fishwings and Hazelnut came flying up on their Nadders, Inkpot and Prickle. Hiccup waved, and they shouted back greetings.  Then Hazelnut called out, "Hey, Hiccup, have you shown the princess the top of a cloud yet?"

Astrid said, with a twinkle in her eye, "No, she's been showing us the sights instead!"  And with that, she and Stormfly started to climb up into the air, Toothless right on her tail.  The others joined in, and they made for one of the large fluffy clouds over the fjord. 

Toothless moved to the front of the group and made the point of a short V-formation, the others following close behind in his wake. Hiccup could hear the king cheering as they flew up into the cloud.  As the group burst through the top of the cloud, he shivered—the wet foggy substance was much chillier than the summer grounds below. 

Wulfhild gasped as she looked out over the fluffy wisps below her, with what seemed to be the whole of Norway stretching out below them.  To the south, vast ranges of snow-topped rugged mountains were visible, and Hiccup could see the islands that they'd sailed past on their way to Nidaros to the west.  The mountains around the fjord looked like they'd been scraped by some immense jotunn at some point, with long lines extending for miles that reminded Hiccup of drag-lines from pushing a stone across the ground. 

He'd always known that the jotunn were giants… but he was finding his previous conceptions of them being merely oversized people to be somewhat… inadequate.  Shocking, really, to see the scale on which they operated, especially firsthand. 

They flew higher above the clouds, the ground far below, until people started feeling dizzy.  Then they dove as a group, people whooping and cheering.  Hiccup was careful to make sure that they weren't coming in too fast like his and Toothless's first flight.  While that had been awesome and everything, there was no reason to risk having their royal passengers go splat against the fjord. 

Back down at the level of the water, Toothless and a few of the other dragons started making it very clear that they were hungry, so they returned to the fort, flying in over the city.  A number of the people in the streets were pointing at them, either in awe or fear, and Hiccup made a mental note to ask Magnus if he would be willing to let his subjects interact with the dragons and show them that there was nothing to be afraid of. 

Wings flapping as they came in to land, the dragons filled the courtyard of the fort.  The horses in the stables squealed, and the stableboys fought to keep them from panicking, and Hiccup led the reptilian procession out of the way as quickly as he could. 

As they dismounted and left the courtyard, Magnus turned to Hiccup and the other riders, his cheeks flushed with exhilaration.  Before he could say anything beyond excited noises, however, Nott and Delling landed as well, and his regent made a beckoning motion to him.

His face fell, and he looked mournfully at Hiccup.  "Unfortunately, duty calls," he said.  "We shall continue our talks on the morrow.  My fort and its paltry entertainments are at your disposal as my honored guests."  With that he walked off, shoulders hunched.

Hiccup looked around at the others.  "So… thoughts?"

Wulfhild looked at them, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, grinning from ear to ear, even as she gave little glances off to where her brother was walking with his regent.  Once they were out of the courtyard, still smiling widely, she said, "I… I… wow.  I can't find the words for… all of _that."_   She waved her hands around to indicate Toothless's flight.

The twins glanced at each other, grinned, and started calling out suggestions.

"Ecstatic."

"Euphoric."

"Elated."

"Beatific."

"Enchanted."

"Exhilarated."

Wulfhild gave them a daunted and surprised look that shifted into consternated agreement midway through.  "Those sound about right."

"Overjoyed."

"Rhapsodic."

Astrid gave them a quelling look, which bounced off without a mark, and then turned to Wulfhild.  "Glad to have been of service," she said with a smile for the princess.

"Ineffable."

"Thrilling."

"Thank you," Wulfhild said with a polite bow.  Astrid started to nod, but was cut off by the twins' florid and overblown genuflections.  Wulfhild suddenly had a very stuffed look that made it clear that she was repressing laughter.  Composing herself, she said, "Well, I feel as if it's a bare nothing compared to what you just showed me," she gave a little giggle as the twins continued to hold their deep obeisances to her, "but, as host, it's high time we entertained you." 

Astrid gave Hiccup a sidelong look and cocked her head at Ruffnut and Tuffnut, still bowing down on one knee. 

He rolled his eyes and gave a little shake of the head.

Wulfhild was thoughtfully tapping her chin with her index finger.  "That being said, we don't have much.  We have a small library and we could ask the skalds for some sagas." 

Tuffnut and Ruffnut perked up at the mention of sagas, and Hiccup nodded.  "That could be interesting."

Wulfhild then brightened.  "Actually, I have an idea.  Give me an hour?"

Hiccup cocked his head at her and she grinned. 

"Okay.  Until then, everybody, amuse yourselves."

Wulfhild walked off, skipping in excitement, which made Hiccup smile.  Perhaps mindful of their warning this morning, Snotlout went and found the marshal, who, after some cajoling, was willing to have some of his men spar with Snotlout for some training.  Tuffnut  and Ruffnut went off to hunt down the skalds.  The other riders also wandered off, either to their rooms or to explore the city, although Hiccup made sure that they went in pairs past the fortress gates.

Hiccup, watching them go, leaned over and whispered to Astrid, "Too suspicious to disappear now?"

She nodded, trying to hide her own disappointment, and whispered back, "Let's be out nice and public.  If we… disappear again, people will notice."  She suddenly smirked.  "Come on.  Let's go invite ourselves to Snotlout's training session.  You need practice anyway."

Hiccup gave her a mock-frown.  "That sounds more fun for you than for me," he said, walking with her, hand in hand.

She leaned up against him.  "Two words, Hiccup.  Two."

"What?"

"Grappling.  Holds."

Despite himself, Hiccup grinned and they walked off to the training yard, where Snotlout's shouts were echoing. As they walked in, Astrid more or less dragged him off to a straw-padded spot and started throwing him around like a rag doll.  While it was enjoyable to have her hands on him… well, she liked to play rough with her toys, and that included him.

An hour later, Wulfhild came and found them, carrying a sack of something that clattered.   

He looked up from the ground, where Astrid had tossed him a few moments before, and swallowed away the taste of blood from his mouth.  "Oh, thank you, thank you," he said gratefully to the princess. 

She gave him an amused smile while Astrid sighed, smirked, and brusquely hauled him to his feet. 

"Sorry milady, but you're going to break me at this rate," Hiccup said to his girlfriend, who rolled her eyes at him and gave him a half-pulled punch to the shoulder.  Following the princess out of the training yard, they headed to the dragons, gathering up the other riders on their way. 

Wulfhild carefully emptied the bag onto the grass of the courtyard, revealing a wide selection of battledore rackets and a number of fresh shuttlecocks featuring new feathers. 

As people started to scramble for rackets, Hiccup gestured mutely to his peg with a questioning look at Wulfhild. 

She shrugged and said, "I know that battledore is usually a child's game, but… well.."  She smiled shyly, her hands clasped behind her back.  "Well… I was thinking… what about playing it on dragon-back?"

Everyone froze and looked at Wulfhild, who blushed.

Fishwings spoke up first.  "That's _genius,_ " she said hoarsely. 

The other riders echoed the sentiment, and five minutes later, they were aloft and batting the shuttlecocks through the air.  This time, Wulfhild was riding with Astrid on Stormfly's back, acting as the scorekeeper.  The shuttlecocks whistled through the air, and if someone had to dive to whack one back up to the group, that counted as dropping it on the ground.

The dragons thought that it was great fun, and Hiccup started pondering how to make dragon-sized rackets for Toothless and the other dragons for the future as he and Toothless whirled into a roll and sent the shuttlecock flying to Ruffnut, and Astrid shouted cheerful obscenities at him for the maneuver. 

###

Sounds issued from inside the smithy as Gobber unlocked and removed the collars from the former thralls.  In at least one case, he had to take his rasp-hand to the lock, which had gotten stuck closed at some point over the years. 

A few of the newly freedmen and freedwomen were standing around outside, looking dazed, or shocked, or belligerent.  Or, in other words, perfectly normal. 

This wasn't the first time that Stoick had dealt with freeing thralls—although he had to admit, it was the first time he'd had some given to him as tribute.  Pretty much every other time he'd done this had been because he and his people had gone and, well, could you call it kidnapping when you were taking them from thralldom and freeing them?  He snorted at his own wordgames.  Prior times that they'd done this had involved kidnapping thralls from their masters, or those occasions when an escapee had managed to reach Berk.  On those occasions, if the former owners had come to try to reclaim their onetime thralls, he'd stood firm against their demands and made it completely clear that trying to force the issue would be a losing proposition.  This time, that wouldn't be an issue. 

No, this was a nice change of pace.  Being quite honest with himself, out of all of the ships that had visited Berk so far this year, this one had been the most enjoyable.  It was a far sight from being dragged into… more… squabbling… nobles…

His eyes narrowed as the thought occurred to him.

Yes, it was.  And the addition to his flocks were nice, and he'd already given the timbers to a few of the village carpenters in exchange for them crafting some things for him.

But this was _too_ nice.

No, there was something else going on here.  He could feel it.  Why would someone as notoriously greedy as one of the Ua Imir give _this_ much in tribute?  Yes, they'd completely dominated the man's holding back in the spring… but it seemed too much.

Spitelout walked up to him, jarring him out of his train of thought.  "Preparations for the _frelsis-öl_ are underway," he said. 

Stoick gave him a smile and a grunt of acknowledgment.  The freedom feast would formally, legally, and, most importantly, _emotionally_ change the men and women around him from property into freemen, without the obligations on their status that one would find in other Norse holds.  Like any other rite of passage, it marked the ending of the old and beginnings of the new.  In this case, as the name of the feast indicated, they would drink the ale of freedom and have their necks freed of their collars. 

And he was looking forward to ramming that home.

"Serena's happy," his brother-in-law continued, a small smile on his own face.  "Volunteered to doing the cooking for it."

"Heh.  Of course she did.  It's her way of honoring Mama."

Spitelout nodded.  "I know.  I've heard the stories from her time in a collar too, don't forget."

"Aye, sorry," Stoick said with a shrug and a nod.

"Been too long since we've done this," Spitelout said, and then, in a musing tone, said, "I know that you're dead set against us going a-viking on dragons—"

"Aye," Stoick said, giving Spitelout a level look.

"—but maybe we might want to consider letting it be known that we'll happily take their thralls as tribute instead?"

Stoick shook his head.  "Then they'll just go and raid for more to replace the ones that they give us.  It wouldn't change anything."

"Argh.  I suppose that you're right.  Pity." 

Inside the smithy, there was a small cry of triumph from Gobber, and the rasping noise of metal on metal stopped.  "There we go," Gobber said, and a moment later there was a thump and clink of metal as the thrall collar was removed and tossed onto the pile.  "Next!"

The plain-faced baker, who had introduced herself as Rathnait, exited the smithy, looking awed as she rubbed her hands against the callouses on her neck.  Spotting Stoick, she walked up to him and bowed.  "Milord—"

"Stoick will do.  Chief if you want to be formal.  Also, I canna be _your_ lord unless yeh want to stay.  Do yeh?"

Still bowing, she nodded.  "And if I say no?"

Stoick shrugged.  "We have traders come once or twice a week these days.  I'll give yeh coin for passage off and yeh can shake yer feet free of the dust of this place."

Her bow drooped, going from a stiff formal arc to something more wobbly.  "Are yeh serious?" she asked incredulously.  She clearly had thought that he was going to go back on his word, and had been prepared for him to issue some ultimatum to coerce her into staying.  Well, she'd learn.

He had, after all.

"Aye, I am.  I won't hold no man or woman against their will, not by hook or crook."  He bent down, pulled her up straight, and looked her in the eye.  "Yeh don't want to stay, then I won't make yeh.  If yeh do stay, then ye're one of us.  Yeh live with us, hand in hand.  Yeh walk like us, talk like us, and work with us," Stoick said formally. He enjoyed giving this little speech.  "Do yeh want that?"

"I do," she said.  "And… thank you."

"Ye're welcome.  Come, we're preparing for you all to become freedmen," Stoick said.  "Follow Spitelout here.  I'm going to go see on the preparations."

With that, he walked off, humming to himself.

###

That evening, at a smaller banquet, feeling quite happy—and extremely anticipatory for _after_ dinner—Hiccup and Astrid sat at the head table again, talking with Magnus and his sister about the day.  Wulfhild's eyes were bright as she was describing all she had seen from dragonback to the others around the table, from the fields to the river to the mountains and the sea, her enthusiasm occasionally causing her to stammer slightly as she ran ahead of her own words.

When there was a spare moment, Hiccup turned towards Magnus and asked, "So, what happened?"

Magnus frowned.  "Some of my vassals and peasantry in the area decided that they were not happy about your presence here."  He shook his head.  "It does not matter, though.  I have offered you my hospitality, and I will fulfill it."

Hiccup frowned, but nodded.

"Now, that aside, if it is all right with you, Sir Hiccup, I would like to ask what _did_ happen last year that the saga might have… exaggerated," Magnus grinned.

Hiccup sighed and then smiled.  "All right.  So… Berk.  It's twelve days north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death," he began.  The Norsemen around him, familiar with the climate and the long Viking tradition of complaining about it, grinned.  "It's located solidly on the meridian of misery…"

As he described his home with a decreasing amount of self-consciousness and his usual deadpan descriptions, he noticed that the hall was getting quieter and more people were paying attention. 

When he paused to take a drink to wet his throat, just at the point where he was describing Gobber's smithy, someone started chanting, "Skald, skald, skald!" and more people joined in, until the entire hall was calling out for him to tell the story. 

With a sigh, he looked around, opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and looked to Astrid with an expression that basically pleaded with her to help him escape.  It was one thing to tell the tale to just the high table… it was quite another to try to project his voice to the entire great hall.

She shook her head, grinning at him, albeit tinged with a note of understanding. 

Sighing, he continued, doing his best to speak up so that everyone in the hall could hear, describing the other teens on firefighting duty and Gobber's refusal to let him out.  In the flow of the moment, he repeated his words to Gobber more or less verbatim, and, with the comment about potentially getting a date, the whole hall laughed.  Astrid just shrugged with a giant grin on her face, and called out when he paused, "It worked!" and a number of people applauded in appreciation. 

He waited for the noise to die down for a moment before continuing with describing his Mangler bola launcher, shooting down Toothless, which made him wince in recollection, although a number of people were looking at him in awe for the accomplishment.  The description of being chased by the Monstrous Nightmare and Stoick rescuing him was received with applause as well, as well as guffaws of laughter. 

The other Hooligans were deeply amused as he went on, and a few of them laughed as they themselves recalled that night, and he found the telling easier as he went.  He was even able to laugh at himself when the whole village was looking at him as Hiccup the Useless. 

Having Astrid holding his hand as he stood and talked definitely helped, though, and as he progressed through the story—describing releasing Toothless, the first days of dragon training, and making friends with a dragon—he found himself feeling more relaxed than he had in a long time.  No one here was judging him; they were instead sitting and listening, enraptured.  Even Snotlout, despite their longstanding arguments; even when Hiccup played up the humor in his cousin trying to hit on Astrid when a dragon was on the loose.  Stormfly, apparently realizing that she was the topic of description, gave little draconic giggles from behind the high table as Hiccup described Snotlout's… poor throwing skills.  Ruffnut and Tuffnut joined in with replicating their commentary about Astrid's ax embedded in his shield, both of them grinning and happily making themselves the butt of the joke, even as someone commented elsewhere in the room that they'd been _right._  

His throat was getting scratchy by the time he ended his recitation with describing the forging of the new tail prosthesis for Toothless. "As for the rest… well, that'll have to wait for another night."

There were disappointed calls from the others in the room, but, generally, it was accepted.  Across the room, Hiccup could see Magnus's two skalds conferring.  They had been glancing over at him every so often as he had told the story, and he had a sinking feeling regarding what was going to happen there.

As he sat back down, rubbing at his stump, which ached fiercely at the moment, Magnus pushed a tankard in front of him.  "Here.  You worked up a mighty thirst there."

Hiccup took it gratefully and swallowed a deep draught before putting the tankard back on the table.  "Thank you."

"Thank _you,"_ Magnus said emphatically, "for indulging me."  He hoisted his own tankard and toasted it towards Hiccup, who picked up his own and knocked it against the king's.  "To good friends."

"To friends!"

###

The Terrible Terrors made a chirping noise as Gothi finished grubbing up the weeds from her vegetable garden bed.  The peas were just about ready for plucking, the radishes were deep red and had grown to the size of her fist since her last thinning a few weeks before, the turnips likewise, and her onions appeared to be having a contest with the radishes for _largest root vegetables_ —and were winning. 

The vegetable weeding done, she took the pile of shriveled weeds over to the compost and dumped them in.  A whistle from nearby made her look up at her little dragon flock as they flew around nearby, and she patted the nearest one on the head as it perched on top of the stakes for the pea plants.  Grabbing the small ladder, she dragged it over to the cherry orchard, set it against the first tree trunk, climbed it and started to pluck the fruit from the branches, as her dragons helpfully carried up the bucket at a convenient height for her to just drop them in.

Then a voice called out, "Gothi?  You here?"  Stoick appeared a moment later from around the blackberry bushes.  "Ah.  Here, let me help."  He reached up and started to pluck more cherries from the trees, depositing them into the bucket.  As they worked, he said, "If yeh have a little bit, I need yeh to come and bless some new tribesmates."

She looked at him questioningly, and quirked an eyebrow.

"Aye.  That Eirish king, the one who tried to steal the dragons, thought to bribe us with thralls.  His mistake, eh?"

She gave a silent laugh and patted him on the shoulder.  Dismounting from the ladder, she took up her staff and motioned to the chief, and the pair of them left her garden behind.

Behind her, she heard the Terrors chirp to each other, and hoped that they wouldn't get up to much mischief.

As they walked, Stoick talked.  "Your garden is doing well this year.  Do you need any help with the crops?"

She considered for a moment and shook her head.

"No?  Gothi, ye're not getting any younger.  Come, let me at least send some of the misbehaving children to work and do the weedin'.  Save yer knees."

She smiled at him, and tapped him on the shoulder with her staff.

He laughed.  "Aye, aye, I know that it helped _me_ when I was their age.  And yeh were younger then."

She bobbed her head from side to side, considering, and then shrugged.

"Fine, fine.  Have yeh at least given thought to a successor?"

She made a dismissive motion.

"Gothi, yeh can't keep leavin' that up to me!"

She smirked at him and waggled her eyebrows.

"Gothi!"

She kept walking, resolutely.  She had her apprentices, but honestly did not feel that such a decision needed to be made as of yet.  And she trusted her chief to make the right decision should the need suddenly arise.

Stoick huffed and kept pace as they passed the dragon arena, currently being renovated by the Ingerman boy, and turned onto the path to the grove.  "Fine.  Anyway, I wanted to thank yeh for spinning that charm for Hiccup before they left."  He smiled softly.  "Gothi… if… if…"

She made an _out with it_ motion.

He coughed and said, "If Hiccup and Astrid come back from Norway and she is carrying my grandchild… would the gods take offense for them having done so before they take oath to each other?"

With a hoarse laugh as soft as the meow of a newborn kitten, the loudest sound she could make since the pox had stolen her voice all those years before, she shook her head and gave a patient smile, not to the chief, but to the worried and proud father walking beside her.  No, the gods would not take offense.  Frigga and Freyja would not stand for it. 

Also, there was no question that Hiccup and Astrid had an Understanding, one that made her smile.  Since the honey had started to flow from her beehives, she'd been putting aside a special mead just for them.  The cask was carved with runes of happiness, fertility and joy, and some of the cherries that she'd been plucking were going to be mashed and put into the cask shortly.  They were nice and tart, perfect for her brewing.

They reached the sacred grove, where a crowd was already gathered.  Ten men and women that she didn't recognize were milling about in dazed confusion in front of the bonfire.  One of them caught her eye, a black-haired beauty with long, flowing locks and a pretty gray dress.  That was unusual; thralls usually had their hair cut close to their heads as indicative of their status.

Then she saw how Fishlegs was acting around her and realized that the girl had been a pleasure thrall.  Oh, how charming.  She scowled.  The girl wouldn't even be able to do the normal freedman deed of growing out her hair to reclaim herself.

Putting a smile back on her face so as not to frighten the new members of the tribe, she looked around.  The collars had already been taken from their throats, and she could smell the mutton from the sacrificial sheep.  Serena was stirring the simmering pot in front of the fire.  Good.  It looked like that part of the rite was already done; knowing Stoick, he had donated the sheep from his own flocks so that they could symbolically slay their servitude.  They were freedmen and freedwomen now.

Gobber came up, carrying the bowl of blood from the sheep, and silently handed it to her.

With a bow, she took it and walked up to the first of the freedmen, a fiery redhead, holding his iron collar in his hands.  She motioned for him to kneel.  After a moment's confusion, he did so, and she dabbed her fingertips into the blood and marked his cheeks and forehead with it, forming the runes for _freedom_ and _man_.  Then, as he rose, she took his collar that had marked his servitude and lack of humanity, dipped it into the blood, and threw it into the fire, and then her new tribesmate turned and introduced himself to his chief, as a person… and not as a possession.

Nine more times she did the same, smiling the whole while.  As the priestess of the gods, she had many duties.  Of those, many were sad and depressing.  The fact that they hadn't had to hold more than a handful of funerals, and nearly all of those for natural causes, since the dragons had made peace… that would be enough alone for Hiccup to have earned her own loyalty. 

But this…

This was pure joy. 

And they were here because of him.

As the last of the collars was thrown into the fire, where Gobber would retrieve what was left of them from the ashes later, she turned and smiled to watch as the freedmen and freedwomen were greeted by their new tribesmates.  They all looked exhausted and worn out from their tumultuous day, and yet it still wasn't over.  Drums and other instruments were brought out, and people began to dance to welcome the new members to the tribe.  Draughts of beer were poured, with the first drinks being given to the chief and then to the freedmen.  Slices of mutton from the sacrificed sheep were served by Serena, who looked beatific as she gave the welcoming meal to those who had been thralls like her mother. 

Gothi stood back, participating as needed, but mostly watching and smiling.  As the small rite wound down, the freedmen were led off to beds where they could rest; every single one was staggering on their feet.  Near the bonfire, Gobber poked at the mounting ashes.  He'd take the lumps of iron from the destroyed collars and forge amulets from them.  Each of the freed thralls would get one after she had imbued them with blessings of protection and health, to be done with as they saw fit. 

With a wide smile, she hauled down her chieftain's head, gave him a fond peck on the cheek, and toddled back off to her gardening.  There were still several hours left in the day, and she wanted to make use of them. 

She heard her dragons whistling to each other as she approached, and her smile grew wider.  All through the rite, a bit of her had been wondering what the little Terrors had gotten up to in her absence. 

She turned past the blackberry bushes and stopped dead, eyes wide in shock.

The buckets were filled with ripe cherries.

The garden was mostly weeded, although they'd thankfully left her herb garden alone.

The peas were picked.

The onions and garlic were spread out on the table, drying.

The wild endive flowers had been plucked and left in a pile in a basket.

The radishes and turnips had been thinned and filled other buckets and baskets.

And the Terrors were standing around atop the harvest, watching her patiently, their tails swishing back and forth as they awaited her approval. 

She quickly assessed the garden, finding that the unripe fruits and vegetables had been left on the vines and branches.

The Terrors trilled at her and, still in a bit of shock, she walked over and started to stroke their heads and backs in gratitude.

It would be interesting to try to explain _this_ to Stoick, about why, no, he couldn't use her garden for punishing misbehaving children.

And then, a mischievous smile slowly sprouting on her face, she wondered what the Terrors would be able to do with the apple orchard, or the plums…

###

With a sigh and a politely muffled belch, Hiccup put the cleaned chicken bones on his plate, replete.  Next to him, Astrid cocked a smile and pushed a tureen of whipped turnips towards him, only for him to hold up a hand.  "I'll burst."

"I'd pay good coin to see that," she said, smirking.

He stuck his tongue out at her and quirked his own grin.

The meal was starting to break up, and with a groan of effort, he stood and took Astrid's hand.  Together, they walked towards the door.  Hiccup was trying to keep his walk calm, collected… and above all, _chaste._  

And that was a little difficult at the moment, given that Astrid was clearly having similar thoughts from the way that she was looking at him. 

"Hiccup?  Could I talk to you for a moment?" Magnus's voice called out from behind him. 

Hiccup shared a look with Astrid, and she cocked her head back towards the king and let go of his hand.  "Go," she said softly.  "I'll see you in a bit."

With a disappointed nod, Hiccup turned and walked back to the king.  "Yes, Magnus?" he said, trying to convince himself that this was probably for the best; the meal had ended much earlier than it had the night before, which would have made it much harder for Astrid to sneak into his room. 

"Hiccup… Walk with me for a moment, would you?" Magnus said, walking up to him.

With a shrug, Hiccup fell into step besides him, and they began strolling around the courtyard.

"I have to say, that was a wonderful flight this afternoon.  Thank you so much, and thank you for taking my sister out for a flight as well," the king said as they wandered along.  Once they turned a corner, though, he unsubtly checked around them to see if there were prying ears and then turned to Hiccup. 

"First, I want to say that, for this conversation, I would like our agreement from this morning to hold."

Hiccup looked at him, eyes narrowed.  "Which one?"

"No dueling or challenges.  Words only."

Uncertain, Hiccup nodded. 

"Thank you, my friend."  Magnus looked a little embarrassed.  "So… I know that this is a touch… blunt, even by my standards… but…"  He reddened and said in a rush, "You and the Lady Astrid are together, yes?  Betrothed?"

Hiccup frowned and nodded.  "Yes… well, we're together, I'm just saving up for a bride price and morning gift."  He sighed.  "We're a poor village, and… well…"  He smiled at Magnus, who nodded, "I think she deserves something… _enough_ for her, you know?"

Magnus nodded.  "I understand that.  Now comes the part where I'm going to ask you to please not challenge me to a duel."

"Wait, you're not—!"

"No, no, no!  I, yes, I considered it, I'm not going to lie, but I wanted to assure you that I had no such designs on her, now that I've seen you both together."  He gave a pained smile.  "And… I was going to offer you Wulfhild's hand…"

Hiccup looked levelly at the king, who cringed a little under the glare.

"Aye, so.  No holmgang.  I'm not going to do _either,_ I swear before Christ.  But, well, Einar and a few of my other advisers are pushing for it, which was the _other_ half of what I was doing this afternoon."

With a nod, Hiccup sighed.  "So, what now?"

"Well, now that I _know,_ and that I would rather take Loki's place beneath the serpent's fangs than get between you and Astrid, I have to ask you something else…"

Hiccup sighed again.  "What?"

"Lady Ruffnut."

There was a slight pause. 

" _What?_   You can't be _serious._ "

"Well, she is close to you, or at least someone you consider to be an ally, yes?"

Hiccup screwed up his face and tilted his head back and forth as he hemmed and hawed.  "We've known each other for our whole lives, yeah, but we're not exactly _close._ "

Magnus gave an enormous shrug.  "I can't say that I am either, but if I tell Einar and the others that an alliance through _her_ will be as strong as one through _Astrid,_ then maybe I can redirect their thinking, and leave _you two_ in peace."  He gave an uncertain smile.  "Besides, when we went out flying this afternoon… she made me laugh."

Hiccup just looked at the king, not sure if he was appalled or grateful.

"I… I am not sure what to say."

"You've said enough.  Well, almost.  I said that I would avoid the coward's way out and be the one to talk with you on this, so, let me ask you: When they ask me if she is from a family of high birth and with a position of influence, can I tell them yes?"

After thinking it over for a moment, Hiccup nodded.  "It's a big clan, and we've only got so many to go around in Berk."

"And she doesn't have anyone that she's interested in, does she?"

Hiccup shook his head.  "I think anyone that might be interested just looks at Tuffnut and keeps walking."

Magnus snorted.  "I can see why.  He has a sharp tongue and a mean wit, but I could hold a candle up to one ear and blow it out through the other."

Trying to hold in the laugh, Hiccup smirked.  "Sounds about right."

"Well, then.  I won't be so worried as those other men.  Although if Tuffnut wants a bride, he'll have to manage on his own merits. I'm _not_ offering Wulfhild's hand to him."  He paused.  "Or Snotlout.  Not if I can help it.  Despite what my advisers might say about binding your tribe to my house."

Hiccup grimaced.  "That's a good idea.  Snotlout…"

Magnus held up a hand.  "No, no, I saw.  Hiccup, I am many things, not all of them a boon before the eyes of God."  He slouched for a moment, eyes slightly hooded, hands rubbing against each other.  "I try to be good… but it's hard.  But at the same time… I can at least try.  And from what I've seen of Sir Snotlout, he has not impressed me."  He scowled.  "To me and to my regent, he was ingratiating.  And then at dinner, he treated the servants… poorly.  As king, I have to do many things of which I am not proud, but I will do my best to be as _good_ as I can.  And giving my sister's hand in marriage to someone who treated a member of my household that way… no.  Not while I have another choice."

Hiccup sighed, wondering which particular incident Magnus had witnessed.  Being honest with himself, he hadn't been paying as close attention to the lower tables as he could have.  "He's my cousin."

"My sympathies."

"Thanks."

Magnus smiled at him and extended his hand.  "Thank you.  I… I…" he cocked his head at Hiccup.  "It's odd.  I've spent my life either in exile far from home, or as king.  Six years now, I've worn the crown.  I've had tutors, instructors, advisers…" he smiled.  "But I think that you are becoming my first friend."

Hiccup snorted and grinned at him, taking the king's hand and shaking it.  "Feels odd, doesn't it?"

"Aye, that it does."  The king sighed.  "You said that you were friendless before, but now you have Toothless and Astrid, yes?"

Hiccup nodded, smiling fondly. 

"Then I will pray that God gives me the same success and happiness that I saw in you.  My friend."  He grinned, and then sobered.  "Tomorrow, I will again have to be the King of the Norse, trying to wring out of your people as much as I can for the benefit of my house and crown.  Tonight, I am Magnus."  He grinned again.  "You have such amazing friends, Hiccup.  A dragon, a shieldmaiden, and now a King."

Together, they laughed, and Magnus grinned wider.  "Oh, but I saw that look between you and the Lady Astrid.  You were always looking at each other, helping each other, being… _with_ each other, and I have to know…" he quieted, "is that what love looks like?"

Hiccup smiled.  "Well, I can't speak for _everyone,_ but… yeah.  That's what love can look like."

"And you're not betrothed, so you have… not…" Magnus paused as Hiccup suddenly reddened, caught off guard.  "Oh ho.  I see."  The boy-king laughed.  "No worries.  I won't tell a soul.  And it's not like I haven't either…" he flushed as well, paused, and then continued in a lower voice.  "I have a daughter out of wedlock.  Ragnhild.  She is two now."  He sobered.  "Her mother was one of the chambermaids.  I acknowledged her, but unlike myself," he grimaced, "she will never be able to inherit, and yet I am every bit as much a bastard born as she is."

Hiccup blinked at the math.  The king was a little more than a year older than him… and he remembered how he'd been lusting after Astrid when he was fourteen.  "And it wasn't love?" he asked cautiously. 

Magnus shook his head, still flushed.  "Lust, yes.  And I have done my confessions and atonement for the sin.  But it was not love.  I didn't even know what love _was._   I kept my honor by acknowledging her as mine, but… yes.  I wish now that I could have that with the sort of bond that _you_ have with your intended."

Hiccup nodded.  "Well, I don't know if Ruffnut is the sort of person that that will work with, but I'd say that you're welcome to try."

"Well, we shall see.  At the very least, my friend, I will act as rearguard for your own relationship.  We may end up together or not.  But by pointing in her direction, I can distract those who push in Astrid's.  I might not be able to have love in my own life, but, at the very least, I can avoid tearing apart yours on the _political necessities_ that my councilors speak about with such frequency."

"You know, for a king, you are a massive sentimentalist."

"Better that than a power-hungry brute, I think," Magnus said.  "I met one.  Harthacnut.  He scares me.  But that talk can be saved for later.  _Politics._   Feh.  Tell me about your beloved, my friend.  Tell me so that, maybe, one day, I might recognize it when I see it myself."

With a widening grin, Hiccup told his royal friend about his love.  Her sharp mind, her skill, her constant desire to improve herself, her keen wit, her brutal honesty that she applied to everyone, including herself, her deep-seated sense of integrity, her understanding, her desire to be good, her joy at the simple things, and the pleasure she took from seeing and knowing, and that they could talk to each other, and listen to each other, and help the other in moments of weakness and in strength… He talked, and Magnus listened. At one point, there was a tear dribbling from one eye as the boy-king smiled. 

And then the aides and advisers found them, and, throwing suspicious looks at Hiccup, they surrounded their king, and then politely pushed Hiccup off while chattering to Magnus about fulfilling his duties.  The old regent appeared from some side area, and Hiccup was suddenly reminded that this fortified farmstead was actually Einar's home, with Magnus being hosted by him as his regent.  As Einar marched over to Magnus and the group started to steer him away in earnest, Hiccup caught Magnus's eye and gave him a wry smile of understanding.  Watching the king in the circle of men telling him to do this or authorize that, Hiccup felt a pang of sympathy, of another boy from a year ago who was friendless and alone in a crowd. 

With a sigh, he walked off and went back to his room, to find his own beloved there, waiting. 

As he entered, Astrid looked up at him questioningly.  "What kept you?"

"Magnus."  He smiled uncertainly.  "I think I have a king for a friend now."

Astrid gave a low laugh that made Hiccup smile and his insides warm.  "You gave him dragon-rides.  That seems to be something that works."

"Wasn't just that."  He came over and sat next to her on the bed, and she leaned up against him.  "He's lonely.  Wanted to know what it was to be in love.  He's a romantic, it seems."

Astrid was helping him take off his peg as he talked, and he smiled at her before sobering.  "Apparently, some of his people were telling him to make your family an offer."

She looked up at him, eyes wide, and he shook his head.  "He's not going to.  He swore it on his god.  Said that he wanted at least _us_ to be happy."

Leg removed, they slid into the bed next to each other.

"That's… nice of him," Astrid said, her hands wandering over to Hiccup's belt buckle and undoing it.

Hiccup laughed softly as he worked at the ties of her armwarmers.  "It gets better."

"Oh?" Astrid said, sliding her hands under his pants and pushing them down. 

"He's thinking of going for…," he made a quieting motion and leaned in even closer, "Ruffnut."

Astrid swallowed the bark of incredulous laughter that threatened to escape for several seconds, and then leaned in, her eyes wide.  " _Ruff?_   _Queen of Norway?_ "

"Oh, gods, I hadn't even thought of it that way yet!" Hiccup was clenching his teeth to keep from laughing aloud, even as he divested Astrid of more of her clothes and she did the same to him.

They spoke softly as he told her of the lonely boy-king that he could now call friend, and talked about what to do, even as they made love again and again through the night, and parted as the sun began to dip above the horizon once again.

###

Fishlegs knocked hesitantly on the chief's door.  It was late; dinner had been long since settled, along with the newly-freed thralls, who were bedded down in spare spots across the village.  The door opened a handful of moments later, Stoick filling the doorframe under the pale moonlight.

"Good, you're here," the chief said, and motioned for Fishlegs to come in before turning and walking back inside.

Fishlegs stepped in and closed the door, to see Gobber, Stoick and Spitelout sitting around the table, which made him blink.

"Uh…"

"Well, come on!" Gobber called and waved him over. 

Hesitantly, he walked over and took the empty seat that was usually Hiccup's.  Spitelout stuck a tankard in front of him.

"Uh, thanks?" he said, taking a drink of the good ale.

Spitelout grinned at him.  "Figured you should have some for your first strategy meeting with the chief," he said, timing it perfectly for Fishlegs to inhale some of the ale, spraying half a swallow across the table as he choked.

"What?" he got out between coughs.  "Wait, what?"

Spitelout gave Fishlegs a look.  "Boy, do you pay _any_ attention to things that aren't written in a book?  Or did you somehow miss that you're being trained for _his_ job?" he said, pointing at Gobber, who grinned. 

"Uhh…"

Spitelout rolled his eyes as Gobber laughed.  "Can't come fast enough for my tastes."  He slid down into his own chair, muttering something about Gobber's undies.  He turned and looked at his chief.  "So, now that we're all here… bring the boy up to speed first?"

"Aye.  Go ahead."

Spitelout nodded.  "So, Fishlegs.  Did anything about this afternoon strike you as… _unusual?_ "

"Uh… yeah.  The guys who tried to kill me and steal Meatlug showed up with money, wood, baby cows, and thralls that they wanted to give us in apology."  He rubbed the scar on his arm without thinking about it. 

"And why would they _do_ that?  They just _gave_ us treasure?  To apologize?"

Fishlegs blinked and felt his brain start to move.  "They want dragons.  They learned that stealing them won't work.  So… they're trying to buy them?  Wait, no, that makes no sense."  His eyes clenched as he thought.

Gobber leaned in.  "Remember what you asked me about me hand?  It being _inside_ a dragon, and what my _hand_ could do to the dragon?"

"Yeah?  But what does that have to do with anything… ohhh."  Comprehension dawned.  "The thralls."

"Aye."  Spitelout and Gobber both leaned back in their chairs in approval.  Gobber continued.  "We've been talking it out for a bit.  _One_ is a spy, here for King Adalwin."

Fishlegs cocked his head.  "Wait, how?  How do you know?"  There was a brief pause.  "And do you know which one?"

"If we did, it would be easier," Stoick said, scowling.  "So, because you have reason to spend time with at least one of them, _and_ because you have a good mind, we called you in."

Fishlegs flushed in embarrassment, either at the compliment or the comment about Heather.

Stoick ignored it and put up his fist.  Extending one finger, he counted.  "One.  That tribute was intended to dazzle.  For what they did, it was _too big._   Sorry, boy, but even if they'd _killed_ you, we wouldn't have been able to demand that much weregeld out of them."

Fishlegs nodded, and suddenly the thought slid into place.  "They wanted to sneak something—or _someone_ —in with it!"

"Aye.  That's two." Stoick extended another finger.  "Ten thralls.  Ten people.  Whether they knew our tradition of freedmanship or not, that's ten people."

"But… how do you know that only one is a spy?  Why can't all of them be?"

"Well, that's three, Fishlegs," Stoick extended his thumb.  "If he had ten spies, all of whom had looked like they had spent years as thralls… why weren't they out spying on the other Eire kings?"

"Oh.  That makes sense."

"Also, if they're all spies," Spitelout said, leaning in, "Then our chances of catching any of them goes up.  Or one of them deciding to betray his former owner and tells us.  So while the possibility exists that more than one of them are spies…"  He considered.  "You know that game with the cups and nut?  Guessing which one has the nut under it?"

"Yeah…?"

"Imagine that there are ten cups.  If there were nuts under each, wouldn't that be easy to find?"

Fishlegs nodded.  "I see.  And to stretch that… we can only tell if they're a nut—a spy—if we catch them?"

"Right.  And that makes us waste effort, in watching them.  Effort that we can't afford to waste."

"Okay, I see now.  So… which one?"

"Well, that's the question.  And we've been going round and round for hours.  Whichever canny devil picked them thought that we might guess once we got over our greed, and made our lives as hard as they could," Stoick said.

Spitelout shrugged.  "I'm still saying that it's the brewer, Maghnus.  People talk over drink."

Stoick shook his head.  "That's the problem.  They're _all_ too obvious."  He gave an exasperated sigh.  "Five men.  Five women.  Ages from fifteen to thirty-five.  Each well-trained.  Claims skill in some essential profession.  Baker, brewer, carpenter, cook, leather-crafter, mason, chandler, smith, tailor, weaver.  Any and _all_ will be valuable to the village once they settle in; every single one of them is the kind of thrall that no one in their right mind would sell, if we did such things, and they've all said that they're going to stay and join the tribe.  Which makes them _all_ ideal spies."

Fishlegs blinked. 

"Aye, you see the problem now.  But if we don't figure out _who_ , then…"

Spitelout grimaced.  "We have a problem.  Things are bad enough in the village right now," and he and Stoick gave each other a meaning-filled look, "that we don't need unsubstantiated finger-pointing.  _Especially_ when this is something so important to many in the village."

"Aye.  We need a different look on it.  Or, at least, a new pair of eyes."  They all looked at him.

Fishlegs suddenly vividly remembered that first flight on Meatlug, to the Nest, and his first glance of the Green Death.  _Fishlegs, break it down!_

Okay.  He could do this.

"When I look at a dragon…" he started and swallowed.  "When I look at a dragon, what I see tells me things.  We all know dragons in here.  Thinner teeth means cutting, thicker teeth means cruncher, wide wings for a glider, short wings for a dodger."

The other men nodded and looked at him to continue.

"So now I have to ask… what does a _spy_ look like?"

"Aye.  That's the _question,_ boy," Spitelout said without rancor.  "And they _all_ look like spies."

"Well, what are they here to spy _on?"_ Fishlegs said.

Everyone looked at each other across the table and said in unison, "The dragons."

"So see who will be close to the dragons, then?"

"Or the people working with them," Gobber said, nodding at Fishlegs.

Spitelout shook his head.  "Nah, the girl I think is the least likely one.  She's a distraction from the real spy, because she's too obvious.  Given right to Fishlegs?"  He shook his head with additional emphasis.  "We're _supposed_ to look at her.  And give the real spy room to work."  He grinned a bit at Fishlegs.  "At least looking at her isn't hard, is it, boy?"

Fishlegs blushed. "Uh…"

Stoick rumbled.  "Stop teasing the boy, Spitelout.  I want that mind of his working, not tied up because you're taking up the slack for your boy."

Spitelout scowled and nodded.  "Aye.  Fine.  I still think she's too young and too obvious.  I tell you, it's either the brewer, Maghnus, or the smith, Murchadh.  Getting eyes in your smithy would tell them much, given how often Hiccup is in there, and the brewer… drunk people talk."

"Aye.  But Oisin and Seamus, as mason and carpenter, will be working closely with dragons for our construction, and will be all over the village, and won't be seen as unusual being seen anywhere."

They talked themselves round and round for another twenty minutes, and Fishlegs sensed that they had discussed this before he came.  Bridget, as a tailor, would be talking with half the village as she fitted their clothes.  Una the leatherworker would be right next to Hiccup helping him make saddles.  Brogan would be making soap and candles, which, with winter coming on, would put him in the good graces of half of the village at least.  Rathnait the baker would be in the mead hall and the center of gossip.  All of them were too obvious, and they were talking round and round.

Getting frustrated as point, counter-point, and counter-counter-point were aired again and again, Fishlegs slammed the table with the palm of his hand.

Then he blinked at himself. 

Clearly, the ale hadn't been a good idea.

The others were all looking at him, surprised.

"Okay!  Clearly we don't know enough!  Right now, we're just guessing what the dragon looks like when we only have a single scale to guess from!  It's like trying to draw a picture of a Night Fury before Hiccup—" he vaguely made a motion indicating Toothless getting shot down, "yeah.  We don't know enough about them, how they act, what they do…!  Trying to guess now to write it down in the book will just result in us making the same kind of mistakes that are in the book that we took for generations as correct!"

Stoick blinked and nodded.  "Aye.  The boy's right.  Look, we've been at this for hours.  We've been arguing.  We've been wasting time and effort."  He shook his head.  "We're all stubborn, bull-headed Vikings here.  We're going to keep running round on this like a dog chasing its own tail.  So, let's _stop._   We keep an eye on them.  But like we'd keep an eye on anyone new.  We've had new people before that were bad eggs that we had to banish, even when they were thralls before."

Spitelout and Gobber looked at each other and nodded. 

"Aye," said Gobber.

"Aye.  We've gotten so caught up in our own cleverness for having _seen_ the trap," Spitelout said, "that we missed the second one underneath."  He looked at Fishlegs.  "You did well, son."

They rose from the table and saw themselves out.  

* * *

 **AN:** I’m getting back ahead of the buffer, with the help of **batyatoon** doing a wonderful job as beta reader (seriously; she’s intimidating my other beta readers) and getting settled down here in Germany.  


	15. Welcome To Berk

**Chapter 15: Welcome To Berk**

_Despite perceptions to the contrary, the culture of the Norsemen of Berk at the time of Hiccup Haddock was profoundly different than most other Norse and Norse-derived cultures, despite surface similarities.  Two of the greatest differences were in the treatment of literacy and the social caste system.  Due to the long-simmering social pressures of the Dragon War, Berk had adopted universal literacy as a means for ensuring that critical knowledge would not be lost, and had abandoned the Thrall-Carl-Thane caste system on similarly pragmatic lines._

_This, of course, caused significant culture shock to other societies, Norse and otherwise, that encountered them over the remainder of Hiccup Haddock's life, and was instrumental in setting the groundwork for what followed._

_—The Second Flowering Of Yggdrasil: An Analysis Of The Norse Resurgence, 1710_

The following morning, after breakfast, Hiccup buttonholed Yngvarr in the great hall and pulled the merry man aside.  Nearby, Magnus was occupied with talking with Regent Einar—regarding what, Hiccup could make a shrewd guess. 

"Yes, Sir Hiccup?" Yngvarr asked with his characteristic smile.  "What can I do for you?"

"Can we talk?  You're one of the king's heralds, and now that we're _here_ , and not in a boat, I'm taking you up on that offer you made me back around Alba."

"Which one?"

"Helping me know _what's going on._ "

Yngvarr's grin went lopsided.  "Certainly!  I have a few duties to take care of first, but give me an hour to deal with them and I'll happily give you the overview."

"Do you mind if Astrid joins us?"

Yngvarr's grin deepened.  "Saves you from having to repeat it, eh?"

"Something like that."

As the older chieftain walked off, Hiccup stayed in the great hall, looking around.  Some of Magnus's thanes were occupying themselves with various games to pass the time.  One grizzled old veteran noticed him looking and waved him over.  Intrigued, Hiccup walked to the table, where the older man, who looked to be about his father's age, and another younger thane were playing a game that looked a bit familiar to Hiccup. 

_"Hnefatafl_?" Hiccup asked, seeing that they were playing some variant on the King's Fist board game.

"Aye; after I'm done trouncing him, would you like to have a go?" the veteran asked, smirking.

"Sure, but you'll have to teach me what the local rules are," Hiccup said.  "The version we play back on Berk uses a different board and pieces."

"Easy enough," smiled the veteran.  "Here, sit," he patted at the bench next to him. 

Hiccup looked over the board; it was more or less the same as what they played back home; a few more pieces and a larger board, but essentially the same system.  The local rules, however, were definitely different.

Midway through the overview, as the younger player tried to stave off defeat for as long as possible, Astrid reentered the hall and made her way over to sit down next to Hiccup.

A few minutes later, the younger thane defeated, Hiccup took his place, looking over the gameboard with his eyes narrowed and biting his lip as he concentrated on the local rules. 

The white king needed to escape to the edges of the board, and started in the center, with a dozen pawns of his own surrounding him in four groups of three.  His opponent had twice his numbers in black pawns and occupied the edges of the board.  Movement was pretty standard—pieces could go in a straight line as far as they could go either horizontally or vertically, none of that diagonal nonsense.  Capturing enemy pieces involved flanking an enemy piece with two pieces of your own.  Here they played two games, with each of them taking one turn with each color to see who could escape the other faster and tallying the score that way. 

Hiccup frowned as the veteran made his first move, and moved to compensate.  That was a mistake, he found out a few moves later, as he got suckered into an exchange of pieces that rapidly depleted his forces.  He managed to get his king out to safety, but it was a costly victory, that was no mistake.

They then played the reverse, with the veteran defending and Hiccup attacking, which went a little better, but the other man managed to have his king escape in half the time it took Hiccup to manage the same feat.

"Another round?" the veteran asked, grinning as he picked up the pieces from the board. 

Hiccup shrugged.  "Sure.  I'm waiting on talking with Yngvarr," he said, setting back up the board.

The old veteran grinned and they set back up the game board.

As the pieces began to shuttle across the polished piece of pine, the old veteran introduced himself as Roald Leosson, part of Magnus's personal guard of thanes.  A native of the southern regions of Norway, he had served Magnus's father and uncle before him.  In between, apparently, hustling at _hnefatafl_.

Hiccup improved a bit, only to find that Roald had been toying with him on their previous round, and had his king captured before he even had the possibility of an open route to the edge of the board. 

Astrid looked on, appalled and bemused at the same time, watching the one-sided slaughter going on among the carved wooden pieces.

Just as Hiccup watched his own attempts to capture Roald's king end in a dismal rout, Yngvarr returned to the hall.  Hiccup looked up as the other herald approached the trestle table and watching crowd.

"Yngvarr, save me!" Hiccup called out jokingly, which made the herald laugh.

"Too late, milord!  You're already in the kraken's clutches!"  He looked around the spectators.  "Was anyone foolish enough to bet on Hiccup?"

A bunch of mournful or bemused looks circled around the onlookers, who universally shook their heads in the negative.  Astrid burst out laughing.

Hiccup felt a touch betrayed before laughing as well. 

Roald shook his hand as they put away the pieces.  "Begging your pardon, milord, but I don't get to play with new blood that much, and besides, it is a good way to take the measure of a man."

Eyebrow raised, Hiccup looked at him.  "And…?"

"You try too hard to protect your pawns at the expense of your king.  You react too much to a single attack without seeing other upcoming attacks.  But you didn't lose your temper, or threaten to shove the pieces up my nose, so there's that at least," he said with a smile.  "For a novice, you did well."

Dryly, Hiccup replied, "Thanks."

"It was a compliment, son.  You did well, especially since you haven't played as much as I have."  He smiled.  "You're what, sixteen winters?"  He ran a hand through his thinning gray-blond hair.  "I've been playing since I was younger than you."

Hiccup sighed.  "I understand.  Thank you."  With that he turned to Yngvarr.  "So… about that talk?"

"Aye.  Come, I have some things that'll help illustrate matters," he said, and left the great hall with Hiccup and Astrid, who were giving each other confused looks.  Following the herald, they crossed the courtyard and entered a side room near the hall that had the look of being an ongoing battle against disorder.  Stacks of parchment lay everywhere, and a few books and scrolls lay in semi-neat lines and cubbyholes.  A large map was stretched in a frame along one wall, or at least Hiccup assumed that it was a map.  Three large symmetrical tear-drop lobes were centered around a single city, labeled _Jerusalem,_ with the lobes labeled as _Europa, Asia,_ and _Africa_ in the angular script that Hiccup half-recognized from some of Fishlegs' books and the book from Dubh Linn as Latin _._  

As Hiccup looked around, Yngvarr perused the shelves and pulled out a parchment scroll and unfurled it on the table, setting stones around the corners to hold it down.

"Ignore that," he said to Hiccup.  "It's one of the Church maps; it shows the spiritual center of things, but you wouldn't want to use it to try to get from one place to another."

Hiccup gave it another curious look before coming to the table and looked at the map that Yngvarr had just laid out.

A pair of seas bracketed a long stretch of land, which had all sorts of islands and peninsula extending off of it, one of them looking like a boot with an odd spur.  Various cities and rivers were marked.  A group of four large islands stood off on one side, near one of the larger peninsulas, two of them close together, the other two further away.

Yngvarr let them both have a good long look while he busied himself getting some smaller painted weights.

"So, lad, lass, let me give you the tour of what the Norsemen have found out there in our travels," he said jovially. 

"Berk is here," he placed a green stone on the jagged coast of the larger island of the close pair, "In the English Isles, north of what is called Alba."  He placed another stone in the center of the island, north of the narrow neck.  "Here is King Macbeth, lord of Alba. He's had his throne for about a year, since his cousin got himself killed on the battlefield—against Macbeth.  He claims it to be an accident, but… well.  His cousin _did_ invade him, that much we know."

Hiccup nodded.  He'd heard some rumors from the traders around Thaw Fest, but, until his father had decided to make him herald, he honestly hadn't been paying any attention.

"We are here," he said, placing a blue stone on the north coast of the peninsula to the east of Berk's home, "homeland of the Norse.  We live along this coast of the Norse peninsula, and command islands here, here, and here," he pointed to several clusters of islands in the North Sea.

Astrid nodded gamely and said, "If you're further north than _we_ are, I can see why people left."  She shivered dramatically.

While she spoke, Hiccup looked at the map and traced the distance between the two stones in his mind, matching that up with the interminable voyage here.

_Wow…_

The world was far vaster than he had ever suspected.

Yngvarr laughed.  "Aye!  Wait until I tell you about Iceland!"  He placed three more stones, painted yellow, on the southern half of Berk's home island, on the smaller peninsula south of the blue stone, and on the opposite coast to the peninsula.  "But first, here is Harthacnut's realm.  England and the Danes, with a touch of the south of the Swedes."  He then walked his fingers over to the eastern portion of the peninsula and placed a red stone there.  "Here are the Swedes.  King Anund Jacob the Coalburner rules here.  Nasty fellow, and I don't hesitate to say it.  Also, Wulfhild's half-uncle, so please don't repeat it—even if he _does_ have the habit of burning down the houses of people that disagree with him."

Hiccup grimaced.  "Don't give him dragons, got it."

"Aye.  Enough people already have scores to settle with him without giving him that.  He helped restore my lord to the throne, but that was mostly at the instigation of Magnus's stepmother, Queen Astrid.  We are allies, but he is a dangerous man."

With a sigh and a rub at the bridge of his nose, Yngvarr cocked his head.  "Anyways, onwards."  His hand darted back to the box of painted stones.

"Here is the Holy Roman Empire," he said, placing several stones across the middle of the continent, stretching from Harthacnut's Danish lands in the north down to halfway down the length of the boot-shaped lands in the south, and east and west to a greater extent than the width of the sea that they had crossed. 

Hiccup felt his face pale at what he was being shown; the sheer size of the realm that Yngvarr had laid out was astonishing.  Next to him, Astrid made a noise of surprise. 

Yngvarr nodded.  "Aye.  King Henry the Black, holding Charlemagne's throne.  His father was Holy Roman Emperor Conrad the Salic, died two years back now.  He's a good man, and he and Magnus get along fair enough, although that's all through letters.  There's a bit of bad blood, though, as Henry's wife was old Cnut's daughter Gunhilda, Harthacnut's full sister, and Magnus has reason to dislike the man who dethroned his father."

Astrid and Hiccup nodded in unison at that, trying to keep up.  Astrid frowned.  "You said 'was'.  What happened to her?"

"Passed on three years ago. Died of a pox in the army camp when they were on the move."

Hiccup grimaced and Astrid frowned and made a sympathetic sniff. 

"Aye.  She and Henry had a tot, Beatrice, if I recall.  She's four or so now."  Yngvarr shrugged and sighed.  "Tis a sad tale regardless.  Moving on," he waved to the map, "Francia is here, ruled by Henry of the Capets," he placed several green stones on the westward stretch next to the Holy Roman Empire.  "But he's so busy trying to deal with… _recalcitrant_ vassals that I doubt he's even heard of you yet."

Astrid cocked an eyebrow.  "The way you said that makes me think that we're talking more than just clan feuds."

Yngvarr snorted.  "Aye, I do have a liking for the occasional understatement.  And understatement it is.  King Henry reigns, but he does not _rule,_ if you take my distinction."  He tapped one of the cities marked along a river that extended from the north coast.  "From what I have heard, his kingship is almost an empty title, as none of his vassal lords pay him much heed.  I believe that there are somewhere between six to nine great lords that basically do what they want."

"And what they want…?"

"Well, making war on one another seems to be a popular pastime," Yngvarr said with a smirk.  "Really, they've been so busy fighting against each other that it almost makes me yearn for the old days of going a-viking on the Francia coast and up the Seine.  But the Normans there would probably hand us our heads anyway."  He placed another stone on the north coast of Francia, near England.  "They are our cousins who liked the place so much that they settled down and never left.  They're _also_ busy having a nice little clan war there at the moment.  Current duke is younger than both of you, and illegitimate to boot, William the Bastard.  From what I've heard, he's going to have a right bastard of a time," he quirked an eyebrow, "getting his relations in order when he comes of age."

Hiccup raised an eyebrow of his own.  "How old _is_ he?"

Yngvarr screwed up his face as he tried to recall.  "Twelve?  Thirteen?  Something like that.  Anyway, down here," he put down another set of stones on the end of the continent, "you have the Moors and Castillians; I don't know who is currently strong down there, but last I heard a year or two ago, Ferdinand of Leon was fighting with the Moors and the neighboring kings.  No idea how that's been going, though.  Any of our people there are just passing through the Straits of Jebel Tariq, here," he pointed to a narrow passage into the sea south of the continent.  "The old Roman lake, the Mediterranean," he walked his fingers along the length of the sea to the south of the continent, before backtracking to place another stone.

Scowling, he said, "The Pope on Saint Peter's Throne is here," and placed a white stone halfway down the boot-shaped region, just south of the stone marking the southern border of the Holy Roman Empire.

Hiccup blinked.  "Whoa.  What's wrong?"

Yngvarr grimaced.  "Our High Holiness, Benedict the Ninth, currently holds Rome and Saint Peter's chair at the head of the Church.  I would not dare say this to another follower of Christ, but as you are pagans, I feel safer speaking to you about it.  I would call him a devil, but even Lucifer's get would be better behaved than he has been.  He has sold offices for profit and engaged in the basest, most vile of acts…"  He trailed off and took a deep breath, and Hiccup noticed that his fist had gone white-knuckled as Yngvarr unclenched it.  "Suffice it to say, I follow Christ, and eagerly await his _next_ successor.  Which may be a while."  His shoulders hunched angrily.  "Also suffice it to say, as pagans, his… _antics_ need not concern you."

Hiccup and Astrid shared a glance of concern.  Even when a thunderstorm had caught them out on the North Sea and the waves had risen to the height of a house, Yngvarr the Merry had been cheerful and, well, _merry._   Hiccup was wondering exactly how bad this priest must be, and he could see the same question written clearly on Astrid's face. 

Continuing on, Yngvarr placed red stones around the islands and two peninsula that extended into the sea.  "And here is Greece.  I know a great deal about the situation here, for the Varangian Guard that protects the empress and emperor is made up of Norsemen.  _Entirely_ of Norsemen."

Hiccup and Astrid examined the map.

"What are they doing, that far south?" Hiccup asked.

"And is it warmer down there?" Astrid asked with a wide grin.

"Guarding the lives of the rulers of the much-reduced but still living Roman Empire, to the first, and exceptionally so, to the second."  He gave a smirk and clasped his hands together.  "For over a hundred years, men of Norway, Swedes and Danes have gone south to swear and serve.  Sometimes, they come back, with sun-browned skin, battle-scars and accumulated pay.  From them and from traders that move between us and Greece, we hear tales."  He stroked his chin in a musing position.  "The Romans are… fractious.  And this is coming from someone that who has had to disarm his own thanes when they drew axes to settle a dispute."

Astrid snorted.

"Aye.  They control a vast region, filled with many people of many races and histories.  And as a result, sometimes things get… complicated.  And after a few Emperors got stabbed because a guardsman's home was in a rebellious province… well, they started looking elsewhere for help.  And found us."

Hiccup and Astrid grinned.

"Aye.  We had already been there—and elsewhere—trading, raiding, working as sellswords and other such occupations.  They formalized the Guard itself… fifty-some years ago, if I recall correctly.  Under their great emperor, Basil the Bulgar Slayer.  He passed when you two were born, I think.  But his legacy lives on.  Right now, to my knowledge, there are at least ten thousand Norsemen in and around Constantinople _,_ the capital here," he pointed at a narrow point between the two peninsula, "serving the emperor and empress as their personal housecarls."

Hiccup whistled.  "That's a _big_ hird."

"Aye, it is," Yngvarr said with a sardonic nod. 

Astrid looked at him expectantly.  "And how is that working?"

"Well… interestingly.  Zoë is the empress, and has been for thirteen years, since her father Constantine and her uncle Basil both died sonless.  Unless a miracle occurs, she and her sister will be the last of their dynasty, as they are both over sixty." 

Hiccup frowned. "That seems a bit sad."

"Aye, it was a mighty dynasty.  It has lasted for nearly two hundred years now, but, like a rotting oak, it is just about ready to fall.  Zoë hasn't taken it well; she's on her second husband, having, well, having had the first strangled in his bath after the poison failed to work fast enough."

The pair blinked.

"Okay, I take it back," Hiccup said. 

"I know what you mean," Yngvarr said with a wry quirk of his eyebrow.  "And her current husband, Michael, apparently does not have long to live."  He shrugged.  "It will be interesting to see what happens.  However, when the emperor or empress dies, I'll find out quickly." 

"Loss of employment?" Astrid asked after a moment's pause.

"After a fashion," Yngvarr said with a cheeky grin.  "When the emperor dies, the Varangians get to loot the palace of anything they can carry, as a reward for good work." 

Hiccup felt his eyes go wide and round, and shared a look with Astrid that revealed an identical expression on her face.

Yngvarr continued to speak as if nothing was the matter, saying musingly, "I suppose it _is_ an alternative to letting the same decorations lie around for a hundred years.  But when that happens, we always get a number of men returning home with gold, silver, gems and news."

The surprise fading, Hiccup gave a little snort at that statement, while Astrid laughed.  "They really are Vikings, aren't they?" she said rhetorically.

"Indeed."  He walked his fingers up the map, up the smaller sea to the north of the Empire and placed several blue stones reaching from the base of the Norse peninsula down to the small sea. 

"Here are the lands of Gardariki, also called the Rus', along the great trade rivers.  Jarisleif the Lame rules, and has for longer than I've been alive.  At least thirty years now, sometimes friend, sometimes reluctant foe.  Always interesting.  Gave my lord and his father shelter years back when they were in exile.  We use their rivers to reach the Black Sea here, with portages, if we don't want to go the long way around through the Straits.  We've traded and raided with them for generations, and many of them have Norseman blood, if they're not Norse themselves.  For example, Jarisleif's wife, Ingegerd, is Wulfhild's mother's half-sister, both of them daughters of old King Olof of Sweden." 

Hiccup glanced upwards in thought as he tried to keep that bloodline path straight.

Next to him, Astrid shrugged nonchalantly.  "My family tree's got hers beat."

Hiccup nodded ruefully at that.  Her great-grandfather, Rikard Hofferson, had practically revived her clan from near-extinction to the hundred and fifty-plus that they were today, even after his brother had been cast out from the clan.  The old dragon-slayer had nearly two dozen children, more than half of them still living, from his wife and concubines.

It was a state of affairs that made the Hofferson family tree… rather bush-like.  With beautiful thorns.

Yngvarr nodded in acknowledgment as well.  He'd been introduced around while on Berk, and had undoubtedly noticed.  "As for Wulfhild's aunt, she calls herself Irene-Anna these days, according to the local tongue, for if and when you decide to go call on them.  Similarly, her husband is called Yaroslav the Wise locally."

Hiccup nodded.  "Thanks for that.  I imagine that calling them by the wrong name wouldn't end well." 

"Aye.  As for Yaroslav—we call him _the Lame_ because of an arrow wound from his youth—he is a canny man, well-spoken, but knows his way with armies.  He conquered widely when he was younger, and had to defend against a kin-slaying brother before we were all born.  Now, he is a great lawmaker and great builder; I am _sure_ he will show much interest in your dragons as soon as he finds out, and not just for war."

Hiccup nodded.  "Would you advise me giving him any?"

"No, but then I am biased, I will admit.  You have them, we _might_ get some from you.  But while I find Jarisleif to be an interesting man, he should not have power like that given to him."  He pointed at Hiccup.  "You, I trust to not abuse it.  If for no other reason, because you haven't gone on a mass wave of conquest, despite being provoked.  My own lord, I trust as I have sworn to.  But for the rest?"  His hands danced over the map.  "No.  Either all should get them, or none.  Or you will be picking the ones who will control this _all._ " He waved at the map.

Hiccup grimaced.  

Astrid made a soothing noise and slung her arm around his back.  Comforted, he nodded and swallowed against the lump in his throat. 

Yngvarr nodded kindly at Hiccup, seemingly aware of the weight he'd just put on his shoulders.  He dug into the box of stones again.  "Next to the Empire is Polska."  He sighed as he placed a border of pink stones between the Rus' and the Empire, reaching up to the coastline.  "They've had a rough time of it the last few years, with a rather vicious civil war… and I don't approve of how things were handled there by… certain parties.  Especially Duke Bretislaus of Bohemia."  He scowled as he placed a black stone to the southeast of the Empire.  "Seeing the chaos next door, instead of acting as a Christian should and giving aid and comfort to the needy, he raised his army and sacked the place two years ago."  His scowl deepened.  "I do not care if they were pagans, sacking multiple cities is not a thing that sits well with me."  He snorted.  "Perhaps I am not the best Viking, but—"

Hiccup nodded ruefully.  "No, I think that we agree pretty strongly there."

"Aye, it seems that we do, based on what you told me about your cousin's raid on England.  So, as for Polska, Duke Kazimerz has managed to bring the civil war to an end.  He's about my age, and married Jarisleif's sister Maria last year.  Personally, I wish them all the luck."  He sighed and then shrugged, turning his face back to the map. 

"Beyond that, we have minor kings and kingdoms, and scattered tribes and nomads."  He tapped the smaller of the two remaining islands near Berk.  "Here is Iceland, where Norse petty kings rule their Quarters; they have an Althing and listen to Magnus and the other kings here.  Here is Greenland," he tapped the other larger island, further west, "which was only settled in my father's time.  Eire, I believe you're familiar with," he tapped the island west of Berk, "and has, at my last count, over a dozen petty kings all daring the others to draw swords and try to be the one to claim to be the High King, which hasn't happened in twenty years.  There are various tribes here, much like your own," he tapped the coast south of the Swedes, "and Finns here who pay us tribute here," he tapped the northern part of the Norse peninsula.  He looked up at Hiccup.  "And, without going into greater details, that is the general sum of my knowledge."

Hiccup looked a little dazed.  "Thank you, for summing that up."  He blinked, refocused, and looked down at the map.  "Wow."  He stroked the map area around Berk and looked up at Astrid, who was also staring at the map.  It was such a vast area…

He remembered taking that shepherd boy for a ride on Toothless back in Alba, and thinking of himself as being so traveled and worldly, and smiling at the awe of someone seeing the sea for the first time. 

Now, if he'd pardon himself the expression, the shoe was very much on the other foot. 

And these rough sketches on parchment might not have the same view as the the vast open sea seen from atop an Alban peak… but they still had that same promise of distant horizons. 

Astrid was walking her fingertips along their route between Berk and here, a smile on her face.  "I have a thought," she whispered to Hiccup. 

"Regarding…?"

She waggled her eyebrows and gave him a sardonic look, making a lifting gesture with one hand…

Then it hit him.

"Ooooh.  _Yesssss_."  He grinned.  He had such an awesome girlfriend.  "We'll talk about that at the negotiations today."

Yngvarr made a polite noise, as if to remind them both that he was still standing right there. 

Blushing, Hiccup looked up at Yngvarr.  "So… how far have you traveled?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could manage.

Yngvarr gave him a polite look and said, "I aim to one day make pilgrimage to Rome… perhaps after Benedict is no longer in residence.  So far?  I have visited Anund Jacob on his relations' business, and Henry the Black of the Empire, to negotiate travel through his fief for access to Rome and to give him our condolences upon the death of his wife, and Jarisleif and his wife with thanks from Magnus for sheltering and mentoring him.  I've met Harthacnut last year during the parley, and will eventually have to visit London to see him there.  I met Macbeth when he was his cousin's vassal and I visited his cousin's court, but that was years ago, and he did not make that grand an impression upon me.  The rest, I hear from reports and travelers."

Hiccup gazed at the map for a long moment, and then, entwining his fingers with Astrid's, looked up at Yngvarr.  "Well.  I guess we'll just have to go and see all of it, then."

Yngvarr laughed.  "With your dragons, you might actually be able to do so!"  He reached down and started to take the stones off of the map.  "And, of course, should you decide to give me one, I'll _happily_ take you around and introduce you," he said cheekily. 

Hiccup snorted.  "Right.  On that note, let's get going; we have to finish up those negotiations."

###

Snotlout marched along the fort's palisade fence, fuming, his shoulders hunched in frustration, and his fists knotted in anger.  A small stone in the dirt and grass came into view, and he kicked it into the wooden stakes of the fence, which made him feel better for a moment.

Back in that stuffy room, Hiccup and the others were sitting and _talking._   Talk, talk, talk!  That was all that Hiccup did! 

Thieves took some dragons?  Talk to them!

King who ordered the thieves?  Talk to him!

Foreigner king who wanted dragons?

Oh, let's _talk_ to him too!  And see about giving away Berk's priceless advantage to him, to boot!

Disgusted, he'd gotten up and left the room with an excuse of needing to use the latrine.  And now he was out wandering, not wanting to go back into that _stuffy_ room again, with a bunch of _stuffy_ heads!

Oh, and when Snotlout had done his best yesterday to ensure that these foreigners would appreciate dragons as much as possible, by showing how powerful and deadly they were, he'd gotten lectured instead.  Astrid had challenged him to a training bout while Hiccup had been in the latrine yesterday, and had spent the whole time telling him not to do it again.

He hissed.

Sure.  Don't show the regent or the marshal the value of _dragons_ for fighting. 

Meaning don't tell people the real worth of what they were trading away.

Was he the only sane man around here?!  Or were Hiccup and Astrid _looking_ to get fleeced?

No, they seemed to be determined to completely mishandle this.  For Tyr's sake, they were negotiating with the Norwegians as if they were _equals._   But that was as stupid as it was false, and it seemed like only Snotlout and his clan realized that Berk held the power now! 

He'd shown the regent and marshal what Hookfang could do in order to impress upon them the power that Berk now commanded—disguising it as showing them how valuable the dragons were for trade—so when it came time to demand Danegeld, in the proper Viking tradition, they'd know just how outmatched they were. 

And they were _so_ outmatched.  Snotlout looked around the fort.  It was really just a farmhouse with pretensions of fortification; a wooden palisade enclosed a large courtyard with a dozen outbuildings and a single larger bailey in the center, with fields all around the walls and a river on one side.  Against people on foot, yeah, it'd be a decent place to fend them off; slate roofs against flaming arrows, a good well and some good places for archers to stand. 

Against dragons…

Snotlout snorted. 

The fort at Brycgstow had been twice as large, made of stone, and it had had a standing garrison of a hundred men-at-arms.  _Had_ being the operative word there, because he and twenty thanes and their dragons had _taken_ it in the amount of time that it had taken Hiccup to talk about buying longboats this morning.

By Freyja, the _burh_ had taken longer to _loot_ than to conquer! 

And this place wouldn't last ten minutes! 

But nooooooo… Hiccup couldn't do the _logical_ thing, and tell Magnus that Berk was now the great power of the Norse, and that they'd expect a dozen longships a year laden with tribute or things would start burning.  Tyr certainly knew that they could use that to build up Berk into the glorious place it deserved to be—without strengthening someone else that could threaten them.

Or they could have gone conquering.  He and his cousin had already shown, twice in one week, that the old forts were pointless.  There was nothing _stopping_ them from loading up every thane that Berk had and coming down on other lords like a hammer and taking their lands for Berk's power and glory! 

He scoffed and kicked at another rock, which thudded into the palisade.  Still frustrated, he took another cobble and heaved it, watching it go rolling into the wall of the stables.

Even if Hiccup was afraid of shedding blood, there was nothing stopping them from engaging in a show of force and offering those lords vassalship.  They'd submit to the dragons—Astrid had pointed that out to Hiccup when they'd had that fight two months ago. 

He clenched his fists.  Why wouldn't they _see_ this!?  They could make Stoick into the King of the Norse, just like old Cnut had, twenty-five years ago!  Nobody could have stopped them, and if his cousin was so determined to give away dragons to foreigners, at least those foreigners would owe fealty to Berk in that case!  

Except, of course, Snotlout's _stupid_ cousin was determined to give away that advantage!  Rather than _use_ it, he was doing stupid things like negotiating for how much he was going to _sell_ the dragons for!

It was enough to drive Snotlout up the wall!

At least now he was out of hock with his dad over Hookfang.  The loot from the raid on Brycgstow had been enough to pay that debt off.  Of course, the way that Hookfang ate, he'd been watching the level of his coffer getting steadily lower and lower.

Which was another thing!

Without raiding, Snotlout had no hope of keeping Hookfang fed or his debts paid off!  How on Midgard did Hiccup plan to keep the whole damn flock fed without using them to do to others what that same flock had done to Berk a year ago?!

He passed by the kitchens, and his stomach growled at him. Well, it was time to exercise the prerogatives of a guest.

Crossing over the threshold, he sauntered into the kitchen, taking a deep sniff of the fragrant air, redolent with nutty, fruity and savory scents that reminded him of his mother's kitchen. 

Just… bigger.

With a sigh that turned into an appreciative smile, he looked around the kitchen.  Now this was what he was talking about!  Instead of the small hearth and tables of his mother's kitchen—or the bigger but smoky and cramped confines of the mead hall's kitchens—this place was big, airy and was filled with food and the smells of exotic spices.

Snagging an odd fruit that he didn't recognize—all yellow, with a reddish blush on one side—from a basket, he sniffed it and took a bite.  The smooth skin broke under his teeth; while the meat of the fruit wasn't very juicy, it was deliciously sweet and chewy-firm, and he gave a moan of enjoyment before scraping his teeth against a stone in the center of the fruit. 

"By Freyr!" he exclaimed, chewing the delicious mouthful and trying not to loose any of the sweet juice at the same time.  "What kind of fruit is this?"

One of the kitchen maids glanced at him and said hesitantly, "It's an Asiatic peach… from Armenia, I think.  We have a small orchard of them nearby.  Those are from the first harvest… sir."

"I've never heard of them," he said, chewing on the fruit and giving her an assessing look over.  She had a nice chest, good legs under the skirt, dark blond hair…

Nice.  Very nice.

He took another bite of the new fruit, a bit more cautiously this time, to avoid the stone in the center and to make it last.  As he chewed, he continued to look her up and down. "So, what other fruits do you have around here…?" he asked, deliberately stretching out the last part of the question so that she could fill it in with her name. 

She gave him a weak smile that made him crow a bit inside.  _Progress!_   He'd been having _no_ luck at all since they'd gotten here.  And you'd think that a guy with a _dragon_ would be able to score with the ladies, too!

"We have um… pears… and plums… and… um…" she pointed to a set of small baskets filled with small linen sacks.  "Well, they're not fruit, but we have some spices imported from Greece…"

Snotlout popped the fruit in between his teeth and ambled over to the baskets.  Reaching in, he poked a finger into one of the opened sacks to find little wrinkled black balls that smelled hot and spicy.  Holding one up to his nose, he sniffed, and then had to hold back a sneeze as the scent hit him. 

"Ah rehcognize dis!" he said through the fruit he was holding in his mouth.  He pulled the fruit out with his free hand and said, "We had it the night we got here on some of the meats!  What is it?  I was wondering!"

"Uh… it's pepper, milord," she said. 

He sneezed.

"Bless you," the girl said, and he smiled at her. 

"Thanks!  So, pepper, huh. I—"

"Kaja!  Stop talking and get back to work!  Dinner's not going to cook itself!" a matronly voice called out sternly, and the girl jumped. 

Snotlout turned to see a woman who could only be the head-cook—the resemblance to his grandmother was uncanny—pointing a spoon angrily at the girl.  Then the spoon turned to him.  "And you!  Guests aren't allowed in my kitchen!  Out!"

With a winsome smile, Snotlout said, "I was just wondering—"

"Well, you can wonder from outside of my kitchen.  Out!"  She marched over to him and, poking him mercilessly with her spoon—unknowingly making him nostalgic—drove him out of the kitchen, but not before he snagged another one of the Asiatic peaches.  (And what were regular peaches like, if these were called "Asiatic"?)

Just before the door slammed shut behind him, he called out to the girl, "So—ow!—see you later?" he called.

Shrugging, he sauntered off.  Maybe he'd have a chance with this Kaja girl.  She was definitely pretty enough, and she'd been holding that knife like she knew what she was doing with it, which he appreciated. 

The thought dredged up others in its wake, and he scowled. 

Yeah, maybe he'd have a chance with this girl.

Meanwhile, he was _certain_ that Hiccup and Astrid were already going at it, and had been since his raid.  Which was just _unfair._   Of course, if he said anything without proof, Astrid would challenge him to the _holmgang_ for slander, and he didn't want to hurt her.  Last time, he'd lost because he was holding back for the other trials.  Him against her, and he'd win, no question.

So he held his tongue there, while at the same time trying to catch Hiccup defiling a maiden of noble birth.  But he hadn't managed that yet; the night they had arrived, he thought that he had heard them, but he'd had too much to drink at the feast, and by the time he'd managed to force himself out of bed, Astrid had been back in her room.  But he was _certain_ that he'd heard them in the night, and cursed himself for the missed opportunity.

And last night… well, he'd counted his cups, but the ale had been much stronger than he'd been expecting, and he'd passed out again last night.  He'd been so hungover that, by the time he'd woken up and managed to ooze out of bed, they'd managed to separate again.  But he was certain that they were doing it. 

All he had to do was catch Hiccup in the act, and not make his accusations off of things like the mess of his cousin's room.  Once he had that directly in front of him, he could accuse Hiccup of tainting her honor right then and there. 

The flaw there—one that he was trying to figure out a workaround for—was that Hiccup would almost certainly ask for her betrothal right then and there.  And she would probably accept, having lost her virginity to him and being desperate to salvage her honor, even if Snotlout was right there and was the better choice.

But it still _ate_ at Snotlout that _Hiccup_ had already gotten laid.  His cousin, the useless walking disaster zone, made of cast-off sticks with the leftover meat after a three-day feast.  And _he_ had had sex before Snotlout, with all of his skill and strength and sheer _Vikingness!_  

It was _unfair._  

And his cousin had taken away what glory he had managed to get and forbidden him to get any more… and then made it sound _silly_ when he compared it with Mildew's little spats over sheep with Mulch! 

It had been an epic battle!  Snotlout had killed men!  He had felt their blood spray on him as he sank an ax into their bodies, and had proven himself to be the greater warrior!

And then Hiccup… cheapened it.

While Snotlout still saw their faces, ringed by smoldering hair and burned armor, in his dreams.

And Astrid… glorious Astrid.  What she saw in Hiccup, Snotlout had no idea.  She was a Viking, like Snotlout.  But, since last year, she and Hiccup had been _inseparable._   It was just incomprehensible to him, and he'd assumed that she was just being nice, at least at first, after Hiccup had lost his leg and given her a dragon. 

So he had thought that they might be able to pick back up where they had left off after she was done being charitable to his cousin.

That had ended… poorly.

He'd talked with her like they used to a few times, but chances to do so without his cousin being in the way had been rare.  But they'd sparred a few times, and the fact that she could still knock him down with one solid punch just proved how awesome she was.

But then, late last winter, a week or so before Thawfest, something had changed.  Instead of doing her usual deal of playing hard to get and sparring with him, she'd grabbed his wrist and thrown him into a mud puddle on the cold ground before he'd even realized what had happened.  As he'd lain there, startled at how skilled and hot she'd become, she'd taken her ax and swung it down between his knees.  Leaning on the pommel, she'd looked down at him and said that next time she wouldn't miss, and then yanked the ax-head free of the mud. 

He'd just watched her leave, still stunned, and that had made him that much more certain that a woman like her _belonged_ with a Viking like him!  Before they had been putting out fires together and working as a team.  Now, she barely spoke to him. 

And then just over two weeks later, she'd taken sides against him.  Fought against him in the _holmgang._

And so Hiccup had taken her away from him too.

A cough sounded from behind him and he looked towards the sound.  A woman dressed in chambermaid robes was walking briskly towards him.

"Sir… Snotlout?" she asked hesitantly.

Snotlout perked up.  This looked promising. 

"That's me!  What do you want me to do for you?" he said with a winsome smile.

"You're missing from the meeting, so they had us look for you.  Dragonlord Haddock specifically requested that you be found."  She turned and started walking back down the corridor.  "Follow me, please?"

Snotlout tried to hide a grimace… but… _dragonlord!?_   She couldn't be serious.  No, no way was that becoming Hiccup's title.  No.  Not allowed. 

Taking a deep, calming sigh, he tried to force the red from his vision and focus on the positive.  Like, well… maybe he'd get somewhere with this girl.

###

Fishlegs blinked awake and yawned as the morning sunlight hit his face.  A moment later Meatlug licked at his face, making him laugh.  Tossing on his clothes, he wandered downstairs, to find that his parents and siblings had already gone off to work for the day, and the morning porridge had turned roughly into the consistency of something appropriate for Meatlug's jaws.  Shrugging, he left and wandered up to the mead hall for breakfast.

Walking into the mead hall, he noticed that it was pretty quiet, as he had slept in a bit, and most people were already off working.  But there was still food, fresh from the kitchens, and there were a few people here and there in the room eating late as well.  About half of the newly freed thralls were clustered around a single table, still looking a bit hesitant and uncertain. 

Getting some fresh porridge, laden with some fresh berries and honey, he went to sit down at one of the empty tables nearby before Heather waved him over. 

"Can you sit with us?" she asked hesitantly as he approached. 

"Do you want me to?" he asked, a bit surprised.  He… well, she'd been _given_ to him before she'd been freed.  Why would she want to have anything to do with him?  Not that he hadn't had… thoughts… but he'd stamped down on those ruthlessly.

"Well… we don't know anybody here, aside from you."  She smiled at him, and without further thought, Fishlegs sat down on the bench next to her, his insides doing a little happy-fluttery dance.

"Thank you," she said, smiling at him, making the dancing feeling flutter higher. 

He already had a spoonful of the porridge in his mouth.  "Mmmh?"  He swallowed.  "For what?"

"I don't know.  For coming over and joining us," she said.

"Aye," one of the others said—Maghnus the brewer, age twenty-four, if Fishlegs recalled correctly.  "Everyone was nice and polite… but we're not part of them, of you.  Not yet.  And… well, you were helpful last night."  He rubbed absentmindedly at the callus on his neck. 

Fishlegs nodded, spooning in another mouthful.

Brogan—the chandler, age thirty-five—spoke up a bit sharply.  "I still don't believe it.  You're saying that we're just… freemen?  Just like that?  We walk on this island and we're free?  What's the catch?"

"Getting here, I imagine," Marie—weaver, age twenty—said acidly. 

"Plus the dragons," Una—leatherworker, age twenty-eight—said, with a glance at Meatlug, who was polishing off a  bowl of fish.

"I still can't believe that they're… _tame,"_ said Heather—cook, age fifteen, almost sixteen—looking at Meatlug in awe.  "I mean, we heard stories, and there was the ship—"

Fishlegs cackled, and preened a little in front of her.  He and Meatlug had been on the heavy-lift team that had dropped that ship into that fort's courtyard.  The memory warmed his heart.  "That was Hiccup's idea."

"That's the dragonlord, right?"

Fishlegs laughed fondly.  "If you call him that, he runs away and hides in the smithy, and then Astrid has to go drag him out."

They all looked at each other, and then him.  "But… he conquered them…"

" _Tamed_ them and trained them.  They're our friends, not our thralls."  He turned to his friend, sitting behind him. "Isn't that right, Meatlug?" he said in a sappy voice.

"Truly?  They just…"

"Yep," Fishlegs grinned.  "But if you call Hiccup anything more rarefied than Dragon Tamer or Dragon Rider, he gets _really_ uncomfortable."

"Rarefied?" asked Maire, puzzled.

"Fancier.  Elevated.  Exalted," Fishlegs said between mouthfuls of his breakfast.

"And what about you?" Maghnus asked.

"Me?  I'm just one of his friends.  They're all off right now in Norway, visiting the King, and I offered to stay behind and help manage the dragons."  He scraped the bottom of the bowl, getting the last bits of porridge. 

"So what do we call _you?_ " asked Brogan suspiciously. 

"Fishlegs clan Ingerman."

"That can't be your real name," Brogan scoffed.

"Oh, it is.  Tribe tradition of silly names to scare off gnomes and trolls."  He grinned.  "My dad's name is Hensteeth."

"Do _we_ have to take those kinds of names?" Maire asked with a bit of worry. 

"Nah, you'll be fine.  And sometimes people choose a new name when they get to adulthood or get married."

"And… do we have to have a dragon to be here?" Una asked hesitantly. 

Fishlegs looked at her, trying to hide his own suspicions after the talk the previous night, but knowing that he wasn't doing a good job.  The biographical details that he recalled were that she was originally from one of the smaller tribes in Eire and had been taken as a thrall in her teens—or at least, that was what she had told Stoick yesterday. 

Doing his best to hide his own suspicions, he smiled and decided to lay out a bit of bait.  "You don't _have to,_ but I don't see why you wouldn't _want_ to," he said, grinning.  "Look at Meatlug here, she's so sweet and helpful.  We're actually going to be starting a new version of dragon training in a few months."

"New version…?" Heather asked hesitantly.

"Yep.  Before, it was how to fight dragons.  Gobber… is not the best teacher.  Now we're going to teach people what we've learned about _riding_ them and training them."  He cocked his head.  "And if you wanted a dragon, actually, you'd have to wait until then or ask Hiccup or Stoick, as every dragon that isn't owned by someone already belongs to them."

"Why would waiting make a difference?" Brogan asked aggressively.  "If the chief owns them, we're not going to get any of them!"

"Ah ha, you're wrong," Fishlegs said, grinning cheekily at the older man.  "Hiccup convinced his dad that, if you can pick, tame, train, and ride a dragon from their flock, you get to keep it.  The new dragon training that I… that _we_ designed is specifically for testing that."

"So, wait, you're saying that if we pass that test, we just get to… keep the dragon?  That your lord won't just take it back in taxes or something?" Maire asked, disbelief in her voice. 

"Yep.  Of course, you have to feed them and all of that, and we already had to confiscate a few dragons from people for abusing them," Fishlegs grimaced at the memories, "but we're talking something like someone beating their dragon just because they can."  Specifically, one of Mildew's only-good-dragon-is-a-dead-dragon cronies.  "Be nice, and you'll be fine.  And, if you're worried about money…"  Una, Maire and Maghnus all grimaced, "if you have a dragon, you'll be fine.  We have _lots_ of jobs in the village right now that we use them for."

"I make candles and soap," Brogan said flatly.  "I doubt that a dragon will be that helpful, beyond burning down my stock."

"What about helping you melt the wax in the first place?" Fishlegs said back.

"Uh…"

He turned to Una.  "We actually really need leatherworkers that know what they're doing, too.  Imagine how many saddles we've been making."

That gave her a pondering look as he turned to Maire.  "And I know that weavers will be needed too.  Hiccup actually had this really neat idea for making scale armor from actual dragon-scales…"

"Wait, where would you get the scales from?  I thought that the dragons were your friends!" Heather interrupted, and then blushed as everyone looked at her.

"They _shed._   For a _week_ in the spring.  We have _piles_ of dragonskin and scales right now.  Meatlug here," he scritched his dragon's cheek, "shed pieces like _that_ thick," he indicated with his thumb and forefinger, "and we're working on curing it like leather."

Una perked up at that.  "Oooh.  The things I could do with that…"

Fishlegs grinned, while Heather sighed. 

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I'm just a cook.  I'm going to be stuck scrubbing pots—"

Fishlegs laughed.  "Okay, this I have to show you!"

He got up and carried his bowl over to the stack of dirty dishes, waving Heather over.  Carrying her own empty bowl, she looked at him confusingly, but stacked it on the cart next to Fishlegs' bowl.

He waved to the cooks in the kitchen.  "Mind if I take this down?"

"Aye, go for it!  A few hours won't hurt the rest!"

He started wheeling the heavy cart, as, curious, the other four Eirish came over and placed their dirty dishes into the cart. 

"Follow me.  You're going to love this," he grinned.  He could show off a little; while he eventually had to go supervise the Gronckles and Whispering Deaths tunneling out the Rookery spires to make nesting spaces for the dragons that hadn't been adopted yet, it was also important to help the newcomers get used to how… _weird_ Berk was. 

Whistling a jaunty tune, he wheeled the cart outside, past the Green Death's tail club, which was looking a little weather-beaten from nearly a year outdoors, and down the path to the Scauldron cove.  A new ramp, constructed last week with the help of Timberjacks and Gronckles, made the path much easier, and they arrived quickly. 

Continuing to whistle and acting as mysterious as he could manage, he had them place the dishware on the various racks that Hiccup had designed and built, and then rang the bell nearby once they were done and back behind the safety line. 

As the water started to churn, the five freedmen stared in fear and awe as the nine water dragons that frolicked near Berk swam up and spat boiling water at the dishes in steaming streams.  Going one at a time, they took careful aim and tried to blast as many as they could with a single shot.  With a shot limit of fourteen, it meant that the dishes were all cleaned well before the dragons exhausted their firepower, which seemed to disappoint them.

About ten or fifteen minutes later, the soapstone dishes, clean as the day they had emerged from the carver's hands, were being loaded back onto the now clean cart.  Heather was staring wide eyed at the nearly immaculate plates, bowls and cutlery, and she wasn't alone in that.

"Can I get one of those?" she asked, staring at the Scauldron that Fishlegs was giving backscratches to.

"Maybe," he said, giving the green-scaled dragon a scritch behind the ears, making it purr.  "We're still figuring out how to take care of them properly.  They can't leave the water for long without drying out."  He pointed.  "Here, hand me some of that grass from that basket there."

Mutely, she went and got some dragon-nip, handing it off to him.

"Watch this!" he said, and rubbed the plant under the Scauldron's nose. 

It gave a happy sigh and started rubbing its snout ecstatically against his hand.

They played with the dragons for a few more minutes before the fishermen called out that they needed the water-dragons' help with some fishing, and Fishlegs had to let them go.

The five newcomers were staring in awe.

"So, I need to get to work," he said.  "But, yeah.  Welcome to life on Berk.  We have dragons for everything!"

He hopped on Meatlug's back and they hovered for a moment.  "See you at lunch?"

They all mutely nodded.

"Awesome!" and he flew off to his duties by the Rookery. 

###

Magnus leaned over the table, eyes narrowed and stroking his chin in thought.  "Do you think that you can do it?"

Hiccup shrugged and cocked his head to the side.  "I mean, I'm sure there'll be problems with the details—there always are—but, well…" he reached over and put an arm around Astrid, "I had someone to help chop the idea to pieces and then put it back together until it was solid."

Astrid snorted and leaned in.  "We're reasonably sure that we can make it work.  Actually, there was something I was planning on asking you…?"

Magnus made a 'go-ahead' gesture.

"Well, your navigators here have much more experience with long distance travel than we do on Berk," Astrid said earnestly.  "We spent so much time dealing with dragons and the other tribes of the Hebrides that, well—"

"You forgot how to sail for long distances, I take it?" Einar said, interrupting.

Hiccup shot him a glare for his rudeness. 

Astrid, her eyes narrowed slightly in irritation, said mildly, "More or less.  Mind you, we can still sail, but one of the problems we're having with implementation is that of navigation over long distances.  So I was hoping to ask and see if there are any techniques here that we're unaware of."

Magnus made a magnanimous wave.  "Please!  I'm very interested to see if this is workable."  He turned to Einar and Yngvarr.  "Think of the possibilities!"

Einar nodded, a satisfied look on his face.  "Oh, I am." 

There was a sudden knock at the door, which opened to reveal a servant, who announced that the noon meal was ready. 

"Well, I suppose we're done with negotiations for the day," Magnus said, and looked to the servant.  "What's for luncheon?"

"Some simple fare, milord king, as suits your preferences.  Fresh baked rye bread, fresh churned butter and a good sharp crumbly cheese, pan-fried fish and baked fish—"

Toothless perked up from where he had been sunning himself by the window.

"—and those racks of venison that Sir Snotlout brought in yesterday, slow-simmered with greens, garlic, rosemary, and marjoram."

Hiccup's stomach growled, making Astrid laugh. 

"Well, that sounds excellent," Magnus said.  "And then after…"  He paused and turned to the rest of the Berkian contingent. 

"I feel as if I have been neglecting the rest of you during your visit.  Please, may I offer you a hunt?  Perhaps a spot of archery or hawking?"  He suddenly cocked his head in thought.  "Although I suppose hawks wouldn't hold as much appeal to people who have soared through the air like a bird."  He turned to Ruffnut.  "Milady Thorston.  I appeal to you to make a suggestion for an afternoon's entertainment."

Ruffnut blinked and then, slowly, she grinned evilly at her brother. 

Hiccup just grinned and waved.  "We'll just get going to go talk to the sailmaster before we eat."

He and Astrid left the room quickly, not wanting to get dragged into whatever Ruffnut was going to come up with.

Poking around the fort, they quickly found Magnus's court sailmaster, one Gunnarr Ketilsson, down by the fort's small docks in the river.

He looked at them with interest and a touch of derision.  "I thought that dragons would be making longboats pointless," he said.  "Why are you here?"

"To see if we can make them _not_ pointless," Hiccup said with a grin. 

"I'm listening…"

Hiccup started explaining a few of his ideas to the old sailor, who stroked his beard with interest and scowled on alternating sentences. 

"Your biggest problem would be navigation," he said, after chewing it over.  "You miss by even a little bit when you start, or miss that your course is bending, you might be a hundred miles off course by the time you'd be near land.  If you're heading to Iceland or Greenland, that's enough to send you too far north or south, much less Shetland, Orkney or Faroe."  He scowled.  "And so many of the methods we use require you to be on a deck, boy.  How could you tell the angle of the sun from up in the sky?  Can't use a sounding line if you're above the water either."

Hiccup's face fell, and he started chewing it over as they walked along the river docks where the sailmaster examined the fleet of oarboats and longboats.  "Do you have any charts for navigation?" he asked after a moment.

"Aye."  He turned back to Hiccup, scowling.  "But I'm not going to show you them without permission from the king."  He turned back to his previous path along the wharf, his shoulders set.

Before Hiccup could protest this or point out that they'd already seen the chart room, Astrid shouted, "Get down!" and knocked him to the wooden boards of the wharf with a clatter and a sharp pain in his chest as he hit a protruding board.  Behind him, someone gave a battlecry and a person wielding a dagger went flying past, right through where Hiccup had been standing a moment before.  The dagger drew out a long line of hot pain along his back and shoulder instead of sinking into his kidneys.

Astrid rolled to her feet and pulled out the Damascus dagger as the man whirled, scowled, and hissed, "Heathen devil worshipers!"

Gunnar had whirled around and yanked his own knife from his belt.  "Attackers!  Attackers in the docks!"

Hiccup saw motion behind Gunnar.  He tried to say something, but the wind had been knocked out of him.  So he watched helplessly as a second blade-wielder bull-rushed Gunnar from behind and knocked him into the water a few feet below the wharf, and out of the fight. 

Astrid was trying to stand between him and the two dagger-wielders, interposing herself to protect him even as they tried to flank her.  Hiccup tried to roll awkwardly to his own feet as they circled around her.  But his roll was interrupted by a meaty thud and a flash of white-hot pain from his midsection as he felt something go _crack!_ in his chest.  He'd hit one of the wharf's pilings, bringing him up short—and, to add injury to insult, in the same spot as the wharf board had hit.

He watched as one of the two assailants feinted while the other lunged at Astrid, and she counter-attacked in the same breath.  Outnumbered, Astrid screamed as the blade bounced off of her shoulder spaulder, across her chest and into the meat of her upper right arm, carving a pair of deep gashes that instantly spouted blood.  But the attacker had left an opening in his own guard, which Astrid ruthlessly exploited.  As his knife was stabbing into her arm, hers went into his gut, angling for the heart.  He screamed, and the sound then died off quickly.  Astrid's own pained scream shifted into an agonized howl of effort, and blood sprayed as she yanked her blade free from the stab. 

The dying body hit the wooden boards with a reverberating _thud._

Blinking rapidly to try to clear his vision of both his own pain and the wayward blood droplets, Hiccup hauled himself to his feet against the piling.  Standing, he looked up to see the other attacker transfer his knife to his left hand, and draw his sword.

The man began to circle him and Astrid, his booted feet sounding lightly on the wooden boards of the wharf.  Her arm was dangling half-uselessly as blood stained down its length, and the man began to slash at her to force her on the defensive.

Thinking fast, Hiccup grabbed at her tunic and yanked her backwards.  Uncomprehending, she fought against his sudden grip, making her tunic tear.  The attacker lunged with his own blade, but before it connected, Hiccup managed to pull the two of them into the water with a splash.

Astrid screamed as the brackish river water hit her wound, then bit it off with a grimace, nodding.  Hiccup's own back was on fire from the wound that started near the middle of his spine and ran up to his shoulder. 

The man moved over to the edge of the wharf, as people started running towards them from the distance, a menacing smile on his face, and swapped his knife and sword between his hands.

"Won't be able to do much from down there," he said, his smile turning into a savage grin, hoisting his knife as if to throw it.

"Oh, I don't know," Hiccup said with bravery that he didn't feel, his foot scraping the muddy bottom of the river.  "But why attack us?"

_"Because I won't let you corrupt my king!_ " he hissed, and threw the knife.

Astrid jerked Hiccup out of the way, and the knife _swished_ past his ear and landed in the water with a splash.

With a growl, the man crouched and took his sword in a two-handed grip.  He reached down and tried to swipe at them with the blade. 

Hiccup swam back out of reach, trying to help keep Astrid's wounds above the water.  They were bleeding pretty badly, soaking her armwarmer and shirt.

Then there was an outraged whistling noise and they looked at each other and _dove,_ just as a bright purple flash above them obliterated the attacker, the blood-dripping body, and about ten feet of the wharf.

* * *

 

A/N: Another establishing chapter, right? ;)  

I hope that people are enjoying the story, and, whee, last chapter was the first in this story to break 200 hits on AO3.  I'm hoping for a repeat performance! ^_^  And to everyone reviewing this, just let me say that I appreciate your responses so very much, and enjoy the discussions that I'm having with you all.  


	16. Bindings...

**Chapter 16: Bindings** **...**

_It is generally agreed upon by historians that the moment where King Magnus Olofsson began to truly assert his own authority over Einar Thambarskelfir's was the first attempted assassination of Hiccup Haddock and Astrid Hofferson, on their first state visit to Magnus's court in 1041.  While Einar remained high in the young monarch's councils with his considerable political power and influence, his grip on the young king only continued to loosen.  Given Einar's desires for power, this became the primary source of conflict between the two of them over the ensuing years._

_Magnus's growth away from Einar's control, however, took time.  There is no significant debate that Einar's decisions were the instigating force behind, for example, the marital alliances for both Magnus and Wulfhild.  In that specific case, while Magnus could have resisted the directives of his regent, it is generally agreed that doing so would have caused an open rift within his court, especially given the later developments and innovations by Haddock that openly terrified Einar and the other nobles._

_—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396_

The table reverberated as the ax thudded into the wood. 

Magnus loomed over the war-ax, its handle sticking into the air, and glared at the worried thane.

"I _want them found!"_ he half-shouted.  "I want to know _how_ they got in, who they _were,_ and if there are _any_ more of them!"

Hiccup looked at the blank spot on the wall of the great hall where the ax had hung and raised an eyebrow. 

Toothless nuzzled up next to him, and looked at the quivering ax with disfavor. 

Across the table, the thane said, "We're looking, sire, but… due to the condition of the bodies…"  He glanced at Toothless, who looked back inscrutably.  "Due to the condition of the bodies… identification is proving… difficult."

Magnus gave the thane a narrow-eyed, flinty glare.  "I am hearing excuses, not progress.  This is an attack on my hospitality and my honor and my _allies._   Find those who are responsible.  And I want the guard doubled!"

The thane nodded, bowed, and left, moving briskly away from the angry dragons.  The room currently resembled a kicked-over anthill.  The other Hooligans and their dragons were all present and agitated, staff and courtiers were milling about on various tasks, and a noticeable air of tension hung from the rafters.  Lunch was being picked over by people bolting down a plate and then quickly going about their business.  Hiccup and Astrid were at the high table, flanked by Toothless and Stormfly, having just come back in from the side room where the healer had treated them and dressed in clothes borrowed from Magnus's and Wulfhild's wardrobes.

Magnus hissed out an angry sigh.  He then reached down and hauled the ax free of the table's wood with a heave.

Toothless, eyes narrowed, hissed at the sight of the blade.

"Yeah, bud, I know," Hiccup said, patting Toothless's broad head from where he sat, with Astrid half-cuddling in his lap for mutual comfort. 

Magnus turned, met Toothless's eyes, nodded his head and put the ax back on the wall hooks apologetically.  "My father's war-ax, named Hel.  My apologies, Toothless, if I discomforted you."

Toothless rustled and nodded after a moment's pause.

"Thank you," Magnus said, smiling slightly.

Toothless made his little bark-laugh, hopped over, and headbutted Magnus in a friendly manner. 

"Aye, thank you for saving my friend," the king said, rubbing Toothless's head.

Toothless purred.  However, rather than luxuriate in the touch, as the dragon would normally do—he'd been cadging back-scratches from Magnus all morning—he turned back and curled around Hiccup and Astrid protectively.

Hiccup reached out and patted Toothless.  "I know that I said this already, bud, but great timing.  Thanks."

Toothless rumbled a bit and sniffed at the bandages on his back.

Then sneezed.

Astrid gave a pained moan of agreement.  "Yeah, that paste stinks, doesn't it, Toothless?"

Toothless stuck out his tongue and made a disgusted face at the astringent smell of the ointment.  Stormfly seconded it. 

The Nadder wasn't terribly happy at the moment; Astrid's wounds had been much worse than Hiccup's, and when the healer had been stitching Astrid up, she'd been hissing angrily and flaring her nostrils and frill with each exclamation of pain from Astrid.  And that was only after she and Toothless had only let Magnus's healer approach when Astrid and Hiccup had demanded that they let the fellow in to treat their wounds.  The two dragons had stood outside the door to the side chamber while the healer had treated them in private. 

With a pained sigh, Hiccup turned to examine Astrid's bandages underneath the linen smock and robe borrowed from Wulfhild.  His own wounds were minimal—a long, thin cut up the length of his back that wouldn't require stitches, and a cracked rib from when he had hit the piling.  Astrid's wounds, though, worried him deeply.  The spaulders' harness had deflected the attacker's knife enough that it had essentially skipped lightly across her ribs, cutting a shallow wound across her upper chest.  The real damage had come from when it had plunged into her upper right arm, carving a wound over an inch deep perhaps two fingerwidths below the spaulders' metal plates.  _That_ had required stitches.

Even more agonizing, their clothes had been a complete loss for wearing, between the blood, knife holes and river mud.  Magnus and Wulfhild had raided their wardrobes for them while the healer had worked… and they'd had to cut Astrid free of her tunic because of her arm, which hadn't made her happy.  But trying to take it off normally, especially with the spaulders' harness in the way, had made her scream. 

So now she was wearing a calf-length plain linen smock and a knee-length woolen yellow robe embroidered with flowers and bees, and a borrowed pair of his own trousers.  He, over the multiple layers of linen bandages around his waist and chest, had one of Magnus spare tunics and his last pair of trousers.  He fingered the borrowed shirt; it was soft linen, dyed green, but either the ointment or something they cleaned the shirts with smelled odd to him. 

A matronly-looking woman entered the hall, bearing knotted string and the other accoutrements of the tailor's trade.  Spotting the tense dragons, she stiffened, but Magnus made an emphatic motion for her to approach the high table.  She did so, although she kept glancing at Toothless and Stormfly hesitantly. 

"Hiccup, Astrid, this is Tailor Helga," Magnus said.  "Helga, you've worked wonders with the sorts of damage I've done to my clothes.  Do you think that you could repair… well… this?"  He held up Hiccup's tunic, which had a tear going up the back stretching from kidneys to shoulders and outlined in drying blood, and featured river-mud stains on the hem and sleeves, still damp from the river water.

"Maybe?" she said dubiously, taking it. 

"And this?" Magnus held up Astrid's blood-stained and torn tunic and trousers, a questioning hope in his eyes.  One whole side was soaked through in a solid sheet of drying red-brown, while a wide spray of droplets from the attacker had soaked through the rest of the garment.  The armwarmers had been a complete loss, but the pteruges could be cleaned with little problem.

Helga pursed her lips.  "Aye, but I won't promise miracles.  Whose blood is that?"

"Some of mine… but mostly the other guy's," Astrid said smartly, quirking an eyebrow.  She was holding very still, though; they'd learned the hard way that moving too much right now was a recipe for utter agony for her.

Helga's eyebrows rose.  "I see.  Well, I'll do my best, young shieldmaid, but no promises for you _either._ "

Astrid nodded, biting her lip, the skin around her eyes white with pain.  "At least it was my day-to-day outfit, and not my formal one."  Hiccup frowned.  She was putting on a brave face, but he knew that she loved that tunic.

Magnus, off to the side, suddenly called out, "Oh, thank the Lord!  Father Michael, over here please!"

Hiccup looked up to see that the priest had entered the hall.  As he walked towards his king, his robes were swishing around him, and he glanced at Hiccup and Astrid.  His eyes narrowed in disapproval when he saw them, making Hiccup wonder what the issue was.  Then a bunch of possible options all volunteered themselves. 

From the priest's perspective, this could look improper in a variety of ways—maybe it was the cuddling between _unmarried_ sweethearts, or it could be the robe, which rode up high on Astrid's legs, due to the height difference between her and Wulfhild.  Or it could be the fact that she was obviously wearing Hiccup's distinctive trousers, with the leather-backed inseams.  Yeah…

He gave a hesitant forced smile to the priest and a half-hearted wave as Helga bowed and left with their damaged clothes bundled under her arm.

The priest's face still set in disapproval, he turned to Magnus and bowed.  "Yes, milord king?"

"My guests here have come under attack in my own household.  I wish for you to bestow the blessings of Christ upon them, so that they may have a healthy and speedy recovery from their wounds," Magnus said formally.

The priest froze for a moment.  Then, speaking precisely, he said, "Milord, that would not be appropriate."

Magnus's good humor vanished.  "And why _not?_ "

Hiccup suddenly remembered from their voyage the sight of seeing a thunderstorm grow and develop in the sky over the North Sea.

The priest, however, stood his ground and said, "Milord, they are not followers of Christ.  Giving his blessing to those that do not follow him—"

Magnus slammed his palm down on the table.  "Christ is strong and protects those in need!"  He pointed at Hiccup and Astrid.  " _They_ are in need of his blessing!"

Astrid looked at Hiccup with a wide-eyed and puzzled look, which quickly turned into a hiss of pain.  He returned the puzzled look.  No, he had no idea what the issue was.  Why not just ask Eir for a blessing of healing?  Then he remembered that they only followed one god here.  He chewed on his lip.  No wonder the priest was holding back the god's blessing—the god, being all by himself, must be terribly overworked helping out his own worshipers, much less outsiders. 

"Milord, it is not _proper—_ "

"God is good!  God is kind!" 

"Sire, please, understand what you are asking!"

 Eyes darting in thought, Magnus set his jaw, and then said in a note of triumph, "And God told us to treat the stranger well, and take them in as if the stranger was Himself!"  He again waved his hand towards Hiccup and Astrid, and his voice hardened.  "And if you don't do for them as you would do for the least of us, as instructed by God, then you can go away as God said to depart from Him!"  This last was said in an air of menace that Hiccup did not understand _at all._

The priest blanched and stared at Magnus, who stared right back.

After perhaps half a minute, the priest cracked, and looked away. 

Then, muttering slightly to himself, the priest plodded over and gave a long and involved blessing in that language that Hiccup did not recognize, and then marched off. 

As they continued to wait for news and progress, Magnus continued to pace and fume, promising the pair of them bloody retribution for the attack. 

After the third poorly-hidden pained moan in the space of a few minutes, Hiccup leaned over and asked Astrid quietly, "Love… why don't you go lie down?"

She gave him a flat look filled with such menace that he unwillingly recalled that moment in the arena during their semi-final exam.

"I'm staying _right here."_

Hiccup sighed.  Vikings.  Stubbornness issues.  Right.

After perhaps another quarter hour, Roald walked into the great hall, back straight, his ax sheathed on his back.  The gaming companion of—dear gods, had it just been this morning?—had been erased beneath the stoicism of a thane on his sworn duty.  Hiccup watched him as he approached his king and knelt to one knee.

"Have you found something?"

"Aye, sire.  Thane Oskar Sverresson is missing from his post… and he matches one of the two bodies," he reported in a hard voice.  "And the other body matches his brother.  I have sent a squad to their home to investigate."

"Good.  You may rise."  Roald got to his feet, as Magnus looked contemplative, but still furious. 

Then he turned to Hiccup and Astrid in an abrupt fluid motion, sending the cloak around his shoulders swirling in a billow of fabric, and went to one knee as the cloak settled around him.  As he bowed his head to Hiccup and Astrid, Hiccup heard many voices in the great hall gasp in shock.

"My friend, my lady, I stand before you forsworn.  My honor is besmirched by my household.  I swore to give you hospitality and protection, and my own house thanes have attacked you.  How can I redeem my honor in your eyes?"

Astrid's jaw hung open, and Hiccup felt his own eyes go wide and round.  Everyone was staring at the king.  Maidservants were standing still, slackjawed, stacks of cordwood or dishes in hand.  The marshal and the regent looked stunned.  The regent had a hand over his mouth, while his son had clapped his hand to his forehead.  Yngvarr, near the door, was looking thoughtful, tugging at his ear with a smile growing on his face, while Sigvatr the skald had backed against the wall, looking intrigued.  The priest was watching, his eyebrows raised high. 

The moment passed, and Astrid hopped to her own feet and wobbled a little.  A hiss of indrawn breath and a lack of her normal grace were the only indications of her pain.  Hiccup followed suit just as quickly, even as his back wound screamed at him in protest.  No _way_ was he going to remain seated when Magnus was genuflecting like this.

Then the whole room turned to focus on _them._

Eep.

As the silence extended, Hiccup started thinking very quickly.  Panic was quick, wasn't it?

"We can hardly blame you, uh, for the actions of a renegade oathbreaker, my, my friend," he managed.  "You have been perfectly hospitable, and you have done what any man would do in the face of such an insult.  You," Hiccup flicked his eyes back and forth frantically as he searched for the right words, "You have my trust and faith that you will act appropriately and with honor going forward.  This was an attack on you as much as it was an attack on the two of us.  Treat with us as you have done already, and I will say that you are truly 'the Good.'"  He coughed and said, in a much more pleading—and quieter—tone, "Now can you please stand up?  You're making people nervous."

Magnus stood, and people relaxed a bit, and said, in a voice that projected to the whole hall, "Thank you, my friend."  Still grimacing, though, he looked at the two of them, and said, "If you will accept that as my apology, then I will back it up with deed as well as word."

Hiccup could see Einar develop a look of dread—like that of his own dad watching an impending catastrophe from the bad old days—even from this distance across the room. 

Magnus turned to the priest and said, "Father Michael, I require your witness."  As the priest walked forward, Magnus stood, his jaw set, clearly thinking over words. 

With the priest before him, Magnus spoke.  "Before all assembled, I swear on the blood of Christ that this man, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third of Berk, and his lady and Master of Dragons, Astrid Hákonsdoittor of the Hoffersons, are my sworn allies.  An attack on them shall be as an attack on me or my family.  Any who shall lift a hand against them will have it cut off by me.  Thus I swear my oath."

Hiccup felt his blood pool to somewhere around his foot, while the expression on Einar's face was pretty easily interpreted as _No, you hot-blooded fool!_

Meanwhile, the rest of the hall was reacting as well.  Wulfhild was hopping up and down on the balls of her feet and clapping her hands, and she wasn't alone in that—most of the servants and thanes were doing much the same.  Sigvatr the skald was applauding and beaming at his young king, and looked like he was memorizing the moment for some future saga.  Still others were staring wide-eyed at what had just happened, like it hadn't sunk in yet, while a few were looking horrified.

Well. 

That made the negotiations easier.  Hiccup had already been working towards getting a mutual defense treaty worked out, after all.  Now… well, all of that effort wasn't _superfluous_ , but parts of it had just become unnecessary. 

More importantly, though, was the fact that Magnus had just basically sworn to protect Berk, and Berk's future chief, in a completely one-sided oath.

Oh, yeah, that wasn't going to come back to haunt _either_ of them later, yeah.  For sure. 

Magnus turned to Hiccup and Astrid.  "My friend.  My lady.  Do you accept my oath?"

Feeling a little trapped, because what could they do?  Say no and humiliate their friend in front of his court?  Hiccup and Astrid shared a glance and then turning back, nodded.

Thinking fast, Hiccup replied, "And as you swear, we swear the same to you.  My friend."  He extended his hand, and Magnus shook it, firmly, before hauling Hiccup into an embrace and pounding him on the back.

Hiccup gasped and bit out, "Watch the ribs!"

Magnus instantly let go, looking a little sheepish.  "Apologies.  Caught up in the moment."

The assembled people in the great hall were applauding, even the ones that were just entering and clearly had no idea what was going on, caught up in the drama of the moment as well.

Smiling at them, Hiccup leaned in to the King and whispered, "That was a bit foolish."

"Meant every word."

Hiccup shook his head as Astrid moved forward and took Hiccup's hand at his side.

"Well.  Um.  So, I think that that settles most of our negotiations.  Doesn't it?"

"Oh.  I suppose," Magnus said in a tone of sudden bemused realization.

"Well, once we're healed up a bit, want to come back to Berk with us and get started on that dragon training?" Hiccup asked as the room continued to applaud.

Magnus grinned.  "Yes.  Please."

###

Gobber watched critically as the young smith worked the iron on the anvil.  To his credit, the former thrall wasn't letting nervousness get to him overmuch; he'd only made three mistakes of note so far, two of which he'd recognized in time to keep the ax-head he was forging from being ruined.  The third mistake—unevenly upsetting the metal where he would be putting the eye, which would have resulted in the cheeks around the eye being uneven and weakening the joint, and making the ax-head likely to break and fly off the haft when swung—he'd corrected when Gobber had pointed it out. 

Watching the dark-haired young man work the forge, his hair cropped close to his scalp and shining with sweat,  Gobber did his best to avoid comparing him to Hiccup.  His apprentice was in a league of his own when it came to forge work, and the comparison would do nobody any credit.

Even if Hiccup had been making better ax-heads by the time he was thirteen. 

On his own merits, Murchadh was a half-decent smith, that much he had to allow.  Gobber suspected that he'd been an enthralled assistant to a senior smith.  He had probably primarily been used for the scutwork, like brushing off the fire scale, handing over tools, and managing the fire—all of which he noticed the lad doing with panache.

But Gobber would happily let Niddhog gnaw on his entrails for a few afternoons rather than stick the lad back into his old role that he'd served as a collared thrall (and, yes, Gobber knew that he had seen twenty-six winters; Gobber had seen fifty-two, so he could still call him a lad).  Hence his little test to see what the lad could do. 

As the finished ax-head hissed into the quenching bucket, Murchadh looked up at Gobber, a cringing half-smile on his face.  "I know I made—"

Gobber cut him off with a raised hand.  "Lad.  Yeh need not worry that I'll holler and beat yeh.  Yeh need some polish and more training, yeah, but I'll give yeh that.  This was to see where you stood, and to get an idea of yer skills."  He crossed his arms and gave a wry smile.  "So my job's still secure.  A master smith yeh ain't, but we both knew that.  So yeh'll work as my assistant, which I'll need, with Hiccup having other demands on his time, and I'll teach yeh some of my skills as we go.  But yeh know yer way around the forge, and that's good enough for me."  He leaned forward.  "That good for yeh?"

Murchadh nodded enthusiastically.  "Yes, yes, of course!"  He gave a deep bow.  "Thank you for this…" he waved his arms to indicate the smithy, "and this," and he pointed to his calloused neck. 

"Never yeh mind," Gobber said fondly.  "I may not have the same passion against it as Stoick and the others do, but I still find the idea of a man or woman held in thrall to be detestable."  He leaned back against the workbench.  "Now, duty calls; I've evaluated yeh, as yer skills fall in my turf, but now I get to put on my steward hat and go check in on the others too."

Murchadh nodded energetically. 

"So, in the meantime," Gobber smiled, "How about yeh get yerself settled down a bit more?"

"Huh?"

"Well, all yeh got are the clothes on yer back, right?  You've got bed rights and food rights, being in the tribe, but yeh might want to think about something more permanent than the barracks."  The cramped spare hall had found new life as visitor accommodations, and now as a place for the freemen.  However, it was designed for short-term occupancy, long on practicality and short on comfort, back from the bad old days of being emergency post-raid housing for homeless Hooligans.

Murchadh blinked.  "Huh?  How?  All I've _got_ are the clothes on my back, and you just hired me!"

"Oh, right," Gobber said with a mischievous smile.  He reached into his purse and extracted a small handful of copper coins, which he tossed to Murchadh.  "That's for the ax-head yeh just made for me."

Murchadh, having caught the coins reflexively, almost dropped them in shock.  " _What?!_ "

"Yeh made me an ax-head.  There's yer pay for it."  He fished out another small handful of copper.  "Matter of fact, if yeh can take it to the carvers for a haft, I'd be most appreciative.  Here," he handed over the coins to Murchadh, who accepted them, looking stunned, "this should cover the costs, and yeh keep the change.  Take it to Woodnut clan Thorston; he does good work and won't overcharge yeh."

"I… you're _paying_ me for my audition work?!"

"Why not?  Yeh did the work, it'll be a good ax, and yeh'll need some basic personal stuff anyway.  If yer done before I get back, feel free to make nails," Gobber pointed to a small stack of barstock, "and I'll pay yeh for them too."

Murchadh, moving a bit numbly, walked out the door, holding the ax-head in one hand and his pay in the other. 

Gobber smiled to himself, satisfied.  Woodnut wouldn't accept a single one of the coins coming his way.  Not from a newly freed thrall, not when his father, wife, and son-in-law had all once worn collars themselves. 

He wondered if Murchadh would even notice, given how numb he was, when Woodnut would give him back the entire sum as change. 

His musings were cut short as there was a wavering knock on the door.  Opening it, he saw Oisin there, the even-younger freedman with claimed mason skills, looking hesitant. 

"Umm… you're Gobber the smith, right?" he asked.

Gobber nodded gravely.

Oisin held up a small leather purse.  "Rolf clan Jorgenson said that I needed my own set of chisels if I was going to be of any use to him and paid me this for the carving work I did for him."

"Well, lad, come in, and let's get yeh outfitted, shall we?  We could use more masons around here.  Now, would yeh like iron chisels, or Gronckle teeth?"

"What's the difference?"

"Well…" Gobber started to lay out his small stock of chisels for stone, mentally discounting them by about half as he went through them.

He might not be as passionate about it as Stoick… but he'd charge a new freedman full price on the day that Hel claimed him. 

###

Astrid sat across from Fishwings and Horsefeathers as they scribed out accounts of what had happened.

"So Toothless scooped both of you out of the river and brought you right here?" Fishwings asked.

Astrid nodded, and immediately regretted the motion.  She went to hold her hands to her head, but hissed in pain as her arm wound protested.  She could feel the stitches as little lines of fire through her skin, and the wound as a pulsing, burning hole in her arm, and it was getting increasingly hard to ignore.  When she'd hopped to her feet earlier for Magnus's dramatic gesture, the pain had nearly undone her. 

But there was no way that she was leaving Hiccup alone right now. 

"Sorry, Astrid, but you know how grand-auntie is about the tribal archives," Horsefeathers said.  "Got to write it down while it's still fresh."

She gave him as strong a glare as she could under the circumstances.  It wasn't as effective as normal, as he just shrugged apologetically, rather than immediately offering a more fevered forgiveness. 

"Um… excuse me?"

Both of the Ingermans looked up as Astrid turned towards the hesitant voice. 

Wulfhild was standing behind her and looking intrigued.  Behind her was Stormfly, looking protective, but she'd allowed the princess to approach, which was something.

"Can I ask what you're writing?" Wulfhild asked politely.

"An account of what just happened, for the tribal archives," Fishwings said, her charcoal stick running over the parchment, the tested focus of her typically-cranky tone only partially offset by her attempt to stay polite and diplomatic.

"Tribal archives?" Wulfhild asked in a puzzled tone.  "Don't you have skalds?"

"Aye, we do," Horsefeathers said, "but we learned the hard way that skalds can die just as easily as anyone.  But books kept safe are much harder to lose in a battle—and, even better, my brother can read books without pestering the skalds over and over."  He waggled his bushy blond eyebrows and cocked his head towards where the twins were talking with Sigvatr animatedly off in the corner of the hall. 

"But…"  Wulfhild looked puzzled.  "So are you two both writing up the same thing?  Why send two scribes?  Wouldn't one of you suffice?"

Fishwings snorted.  "No, I'm writing up the stuff on the attack while my brother is handling the treaty and negotiations.  My handwriting's better, too.  And the only reason why Astrid here isn't doing the writing herself is because she had the bad taste to get herself stabbed in her writing arm and thought that it would be funny to draw things instead with her off arm."

Astrid giggled at that.  It was so true.  The look on Fishwings' face when she had drawn stick-figure drawings of the attackers and Toothless swooping down to the rescue had been worth the effort of using her off-hand.  Fishwings had taken the parchment away from her at that. 

Wulfhild turned to her, surprise on her face.

Astrid shrugged, and hid a grimace of pain as best she could.  "What?  She insisted that I write down what happened.  So I did."

Fishwings grumbled something unflattering. 

"Well, umm… I was just surprised," Wulfhild said. 

"'Bout what?" Astrid asked, grinning.

"Umm… that you and Fishwings here can both read and write."

"Why _not_?" Fishwings said aggressively, and leaned in, a harsh smile on her face.  "Can't _you_?"

"I can… a bit," Wulfhild said, folding her arms in front of her defensively.  "But women aren't really ever taught.  The fact that you both know how—"

"We all can, actually," Fishwings said with a bit of an edge to it.  She smiled sourly.  "Doesn't help to write stuff down in books if you can't _read_ it, now does it?"

Wulfhild looked stunned, but before she could say anything in response, Roald and his squad of thanes marched back into the hall, looking grim.  Conversations died as they approached their king, and everyone was watching.  Snotlout even stood on top of one of the benches—or maybe tables, it was hard to be sure—so that he could see. 

Magnus turned from where he had been talking with Hiccup, and said to the thanes, "Report."

"The entire house was ransacked, sire, as if they had packed in a hurry to leave.  There wasn't a single scrap of food or coin anywhere in the entire place; their sea chests were gone, as were their personal weapons and kit.  They had even dug up something from underneath the floorboards, looked to be the size of a book or small chest.  The hearthstone's ashes were cold, and there were burned parchments in the ash."

"Wonderful," Magnus said sarcastically.  "Find where they fled to.  You have my authority to search ships for the traitors before they leave."

The thane bowed and left with his men for the harbor.

Tailor Helga passed them on the way in.  There was a pair of younger women following in her wake, both laden with bolts of cloth, while Helga was carrying a basket filled with the tools of the tailor's trade.

Magnus, seeing her, pointed her to where Astrid was standing.  He then took Hiccup by the wrist and pulled him over, so that they all met by the Ingerman siblings.  Toothless followed after them, sending people scurrying back.  Snotlout, eying the girls, followed in their wake. 

As Helga approached, Astrid whispered to Stormfly to let them close.  The Nadder chittered for a moment, considering, and then nodded. 

"Helga…" Magnus said, looking her and her assistants up and down.  "I take it that the news in your area is not good?"

"We might be able to save the lad's, but the lass's are only going to be fit for doing field labor where stains won't be an issue," Helga said bluntly. 

Astrid slumped.  She had liked that tunic.  Her mother and aunts had made it for her special, with wool that they'd spun themselves and blue dyes bought from Trader Johann. 

Magnus said gruffly, "I take it that you could make something new?"  He coughed.  "Stormfly here needs exercising, if nothing else, and she can't exactly do so in her full formal wear."

"Aye, milord.  Actually…" she gave a slight smile.  "I had a thought that you might find interesting…"

"Oh?"

She reached back and pulled a folded bolt of blue cloth from one of her assistants.  Holding it up for the king's inspection, she said, "With your permission, sire, I'd use _this_ for crafting Lady Astrid's new tunic."

Magnus looked at the cloth, blinked, and grinned.  "I think that is a wonderful idea!"  He turned to Astrid.  "Milady, could you come here, please?"

Quirking an eyebrow, Astrid approached, and felt both Stormfly and Wulfhild walking behind her.  One of the tailoring assistants—a young blond woman maybe her age—looked terrified, while the other, a young girl with curly black hair and dusky skin, looked awed.  If she hadn't been laden down with bolts of wool, linen, and whatever that other material was, she probably would have been trying to give Stormfly or Toothless a nice tummy rub. 

Behind the girl, she could see that Snotlout was making reaching motions; she shot him a warning look.  He looked confused and lifted his hands with a _what?_ gesture. 

Turning back, Astrid looked at the odd fabric that both the young girl and Helga were holding.  It shimmered and looked as finely woven as the best linen, and was patterned in some way that she couldn't make out, due to the folds in the bolt. 

Seeing her curious look, Helga grinned broadly and said, "Ah, so you have never seen such cloth before, I'd wager!"

"No… I haven't," Astrid said slowly. 

Next to her, Hiccup put an arm around her waist and shook his head in agreement.  "Same here.  What is it?"

"Roman silk, milord," Helga said with a grin.  "Sheer, soft, and worthy of a Norse lord—or lady."  She shook out the bolt she had picked from the pile her beaming assistant was carrying, and it unfolded itself into a lustrous curtain. 

Astrid gave a little gasp as the patterns became clear, and she thought that she heard both Hiccup and Snotlout give similar sounds of surprise.

The blue of the cloth was embellished with a gorgeous pattern of dragons.  The Great Tree of Yggdrasil wound its way in circles as wide as her hand across the cloth, the pattern picked out in gorgeous reds and greens, vivid atop the blue.  In the circles of the Tree, groups of dragons were embroidered or woven into the fabric, done in red, green and gold.

"I… wow.  No, you can't be serious," Astrid said.  "For _me?"_

"I can be, and I am," Magnus said.  "If you'll let Helga take your measurements, I'm sure that she'll produce something suitable for you."

"King Magnus, I can't… wearing something made from that on Stormfly wouldn't be practical!"

"Oh, I suppose."  He shrugged and turned to Helga, who had taken out her knotted string when Astrid wasn't looking.  "Two outfits for Milady Astrid, then.  One from the silk, and one from a nice wool."

"Aye, sire," Helga said with a wink.  "And perhaps the same for young sir here?  While my old eyes don't mind the view—"

Hiccup flushed scarlet, and Astrid smirked.

"—it'll take some time before his tunic is ready for wear again."

Magnus nodded, grinning.  "Aye, do that."

She looked to Hiccup, who wilted a little. 

"Wuss," she teased. 

He rolled his eyes.  "Magnus, are you—"

"Yes, I'm sure.  That's my silk and cloth, and I'll do with it as I see fit.  And getting you both fitted is what I'd like to see."

Astrid waggled her eyebrows at the opening.  "I'm glad that this is as it _seams_."

Hiccup groaned and gave her a pained look, while Magnus cocked his head, confused.

"Don't mind Astrid, she's just trying to _needle_ me," Hiccup said in a false whisper.

Now Magnus got it; he covered his eyes with his hand, and his chest started to shake with restrained laughter.

"Oh, _darn_ , he caught me," Astrid said with a grin. 

A surprised snort from Snotlout made her turn and see that he was standing by the pile of fabric that had been put on the table at some point when she hadn't been paying attention, a piece of the silk hanging from his hands and surprise at her on his face.  The blond-haired girl was standing nearby with a wax tablet and stylus.

Before she could do anything preemptive about Snotlout standing within range of a young woman, Hiccup replied, "Okay, let's _buckle_ down—"

" _Yarn_ it, I can't help if I'm _biased_ ," she interrupted, which made Helga shoot her a dirty look as she tried to restrain her own laughter.  Snotlout was giggling off to the side, having moved away with a piece of silk in his hands, and Wulfhild was making little gasping laughs behind her.

Hiccup was obviously searching for a reply, and she grinned and struck.  "Now that we've completely lost the _thread_ of this conversation and _warped_ things, let's _button_ up and let the nice tailor get to work."

Hiccup's jaw dropped, followed a moment later by his head sagging.  "I surrender.  You won this one."

She beamed and started to hold her arms up for Helga to loop the knotted string around her, only for the pain from her wound to cut through the pleasant moment like a bucket of ice-water to the face.  Filled with knives. 

Arms back at her side, she caught Snotlout's eye; he was still looking at her, perplexed, the stolen silk dangling from one hand.  She thrust her chin at him, irrationally angry that he'd seen her do wordplay like that.  For Bragi's sake, it was the first time she'd done that when it wasn't just her and Hiccup in private!

Then a gentle hand patted her left shoulder, and she turned to see Wulfhild, her face filled with concern.  "You okay?" she asked, and she could see Magnus behind Wulfhild, his own face asking the same question wordlessly.

Oh.

Right.

Friends that she felt comfortable around, not just Hiccup. 

When had _that_ happened?

 

###

Fishlegs sat in the side chamber of the Rookery, a piece of parchment tacked to a board on his lap, a charcoal stick in his hands.  Eyebrows knitted together in thought, he dashed off another line in the stanza.

"No, no, that doesn't scan—"

"Um… Sir… Fishlegs?" a quiet voice called out to him.

He blinked and looked up from his spot on the floor.  Heather was standing at the entrance to the chamber from the main tunnel complex, holding a tray of food.

"Yes?" he asked, and then his stomach rumbled.

"Well… I applied to work at the mead hall, like that Gobber fellow suggested, and… well…" she thrust out the tray.  "I made this to show them what I could do, and they said that I could have it."

Fishlegs pulled himself to his feet.  "What… oh wow."  He sniffed, and his mouth started to water, as his stomach impolitely reminded him that breakfast had been _hours_ ago…

Heather smiled shyly at him.  "I… I was a little scared to walk in here, to be honest.  But Gobber showed me where to go and where to find you."

Fishlegs took the tray and sniffed greedily.  Honey-glazed vegetables, simmered lambsquarters with a pat of fresh butter and some salt, a steaming loaf of bread, and a small bowl of fish in some kind of cream sauce. 

"You _made_ this?" he asked, delicately taking a piece of the fish and finding it flaky and tender.  And delicious, tasting of herbs and the rich cream.  He gave a soft moan. 

"I… I was a cook for the king of Vedrarfjord," she said quietly.  Then she smiled softly.  "This was just the basic stuff that I could do with what they gave me as a test.  Well, really, it's the leftovers.  That head cook, um… um…"

"Magnhild clan Jorgenson," Fishlegs offered helpfully, between bites of the tasty fish. 

"Yeah, thanks, well, she put out a bunch of things to see what I could do, and what she didn't eat is there."

Pausing before he finished the last of the fish, he said, "Um… did you get to eat any?"  Here he was, trying to treat her with respect, and he was already taking the food out of her mouth.

She gave him a weak, hesitant smile.  "I did.  Umm… well, I should get going back to the mead hall.  I need to help with dinner!"  She went to the door.  "See you later?"

He tore open the bread roll and poured the creamy sauce onto the steaming insides.  "Count on it!"

He paused as she reached the door.  Maybe she was the spy?  The food might be a way to get into his good graces, and he worked right with the dragons.

"Hey, Heather?"

She froze.  "Yes?"

"Why?"

"Why…?"

"Why'd you bring me this?  You could have given it to Gobber, or to one of the other cooks, or just eaten it yourself.  Why?"

She gave him a hesitant and wan smile.  "I… um… well…"  She took a deep breath.  "Hi, Fishlegs.  I'm Heather, former thrall of a brutal king, and you're the guy that they said that I was going to be given to."

"So why do you ever want to see me again?" he asked in response, his suspicion mounting.

"Because…" she blushed and coughed.  "Because you were nice to me.  And it's a small island.  And because, even before the Chief said I was free… you were being kind and polite."

"But why not?"

She gave him a sad smile.  "The fact that you can ask that… shows that you're worth trying to make friends with."

Fishlegs processed that for a moment, memories of stories from people absently rubbing at their necks running through his head.  And then he flushed, his face heating such that he was surprised that the parchment wasn't bursting into flames.

"Oh."

She leaned against the rough rock of the entrance and crossed her arms, looking at him with that same sad smile.  "So… I hope that this isn't being too forward… but… will you be my friend?"

Still blushing, he nodded.  "Happily.  Um… so…"

"I should get going.  Enjoy the lambsquarters!  They should be nice and tender!"

Fishlegs spooned up some of the warm leafy greens and took a bite. 

As he chewed, enjoying the delicious meal, he looked over the parchment, and the half-done poem on it.  He wanted to welcome the newcomers to his home… and one in particular, especially now. 

And… she didn't feel like a spy.  Oh, sure, he wasn't going to go around showing her all of their secrets, but she was so young…

Okay, so was he, but it seemed more likely that one of the older ones, the more experienced ones, would be the spy.  Brogan, that cranky chandler, struck him as a prime suspect.  He clearly didn't like it here, so why was he staying?

Taking a bite of the bread topped with cream, he contemplated the next line of his poem with a critical eye.

###

Roald approached Hiccup and Magnus and went to one knee.  "I'm sorry, sire, sir, but it appears that Thane Oskar's household boarded a trader's ship yesterday and sailed with the evening tide… and the harbormaster does not know where they went."

Magnus hissed through his teeth and turned to Hiccup.  "Could we find them from the air?  Like you did for the Vedrarfjord ships."

Hiccup took a deep breath and grimaced at the pain in his rib.  "Possibly, but they have a larger head start and, unlike the Vedrarfjord ships, we don't know where they're going.  North?  South?  West?  Also, that search took nearly a hundred dragons and riders, and we only have ten."  He shook his head.  "We could try, but I doubt it would work."

Magnus grimaced and then nodded.  "Plus, you and Astrid are in no condition to ride."

"Well…" Astrid started to say.

"You are in _no condition to ride,_ milady," Magnus said intently, and she inhaled sharply and nodded.  As Magnus turned away, she rolled her eyes at Hiccup, and then clutched at her arm near the wound, turning a bit green with pain.

Her moan didn't go unnoticed.

Magnus turned.  "Where is my healer!?"

Ten minutes later, the healer, shooting anxious looks at a much calmer Stormfly, had Astrid's arm in a sling.

"Don't move it overmuch," he said, "or you might tear the muscle more.  Also, for both of you, check your wounds every day; if they start to feel warm or smell as if they've turned, call for me straightaway."

Hiccup nodded, and Astrid gave a curt sound of understanding.

"Good.  Now, I imagine that that wound is paining you, so I have just the thing…" he reached into his basket and pulled out a covered soapstone mug about the size of Hiccup's doubled fists.  Once Healer Jørgen pulled the cover off, it let loose steam and a smell that made bile rise at the back of Hiccup's throat.  Heedless of the stench, he held the brew out to Astrid.  "This should help with the pain."

Astrid eyed it dubiously.  "What _is_ it?"

"Something to help with the pain, as I said."

Eyebrows raised in skepticism, she took the mug, raised it to her lips, and took a sip.

And promptly spewed it out, coughing, and handed the mug back to him. 

"By, ack, by the gods, it tastes worse than it smells!  No, thank you!  I'll deal with the pain!"

Jørgen looked at her and said, "And here I thought that you were a tough warrior."

Hiccup grimaced and shrank back a little.  This was going to be messy. 

Astrid glared at him and put her hand on her hip.  "Are you questioning my prowess?"

"No… but I would have thought that a warrior would be tough enough to handle a little nasty taste."

Glaring at him, she snatched the mug out of his hands and drank the whole thing in two pulls.  Hiccup's stomach roiled in sympathy as he watched. 

Handing the mug back to the healer, and visibly trying to keep the potion down with deep breaths, she said, "Satisfied that I'm a warrior?"

He shrugged.  "Didn't doubt it, but I've found that works every time."

She glared at him, and then turned pale, fighting down a retching noise. 

"The nausea should pass shortly," Jørgen said cheerfully.  "You might feel lightheaded or dizzy, and might want to go lie down—"

The glare that she gave him contained such peril that the marshal started to applaud.

"—or not, as you see fit.  Hopefully it should last through the rest of the day or so.  Don't do any heavy drinking while you're under the effects, though."

She nodded, and turned a little green at the motion.

Jørgen turned to Hiccup and Magnus.  "If she starts to babble or act like she can't feel any pain, please try to restrain her and fetch me immediately."

"Is that a risk?" Hiccup asked worriedly.

"Not especially, but it has been known to happen, especially when I give it to berserkers."

An appalled half-smile rose to Hiccup's face, and he glanced at Astrid.  Her as a berserker…

Eeep.

She caught his glance and gave him a sardonic half-lidded look, and mimed a punch to his shoulder.

"Well, with that, I'll take my leave.  Sire," Jørgen said, addressing this last with a nod of the head to Magnus.  Magnus nodded in turn and dismissed the healer with a wave. 

The afternoon wore on from there.  A summer thunderstorm moved in, and the rain sounded on the roof.  Astrid's color improved, and she managed to keep the potion down, which did apparently work on helping her with the pain.  Toothless and Stormfly gradually calmed down from their tail-swishing, smoke-snorting, hissing levels of anger and worry.  Toothless even took a short nap—curled up around Hiccup such that there was no way to get out short of climbing over the sleeping dragon encircling him.  Board games were brought out, and the hours passed calmly, between reports from Roald and the other thanes about their investigation, and their lack of progress.  The oathbreakers hadn't spoken to anybody, hadn't dropped any hints of their plans, not even to their neighbors.  They'd packed up, gotten on a ship, and left behind the two brothers.  They, in turn, had come up to the fort in the morning, and taken their chance when he and Astrid had gone off alone.

Hiccup looked up from the game board between him and Magnus as the door to the hall opened, and the sound and smell of a summer rainstorm entered in a gust of warm damp air.  Roald entered again, dripping water on the flagstones and rushes of the floor, and approached Magnus.  Going to one knee, he said, "My king.  I am sorry, but I must report my failure to you.  My men and I have searched the city from top to bottom.  We questioned the oathbreakers' associates and extended clan.  None knew of their plans or what caused them to break their oaths to you.  While we found malcontents, they knew nothing of this attack beyond rumor.  I can only conclude that the conspirators themselves have moved beyond our reach."  He bowed his head. 

"Rise, Thane Roald.  You have done your best, and that is no shame," Magnus said.  "I appreciate your efforts to safeguard my honor."

"As I have sworn to, milord," Roald said as he stood.  "Unlike others, I know the weight and value of my oaths."

"Well then, I have something for you to do," Magnus said.

"Anything, milord."

Magnus turned to Hiccup.  "I've been thinking."

Hiccup raised an eyebrow.  "Good habit, but it'll get you into trouble, I've noticed."

Astrid poked him in the side—thankfully on the other side from the broken rib—and he yelped.

Magnus snorted and said, "While I am satisfied with Thane Roald's efforts, I am choosing to err on the side of caution.  With no offense intended, Roald, I think some additional precautions are in order."

"That seems wise, milord," Roald said, nodding approvingly.  "My pride is not so fragile as to not take some nicks and dings."

"Thank you, Roald.  So what I'm going to do, Hiccup, is move yours and Astrid's rooms into _my_ wing.  That way, you'll be behind _my_ personal guard, and closer to Healer Jørgen, should you need him, and it frees up the rooms that you're staying in now for me to billet some additional thanes in, to guard the rest of your delegation."  He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows expectantly.  "Is that acceptable to you?"

Hiccup paused, rocking back on his heel a bit.  After thinking it over for a moment, he nodded.  "If you think it's a good idea…"

"I do.  And for that matter, I'd like Toothless and Stormfly in there as well…" he gave an apologetic look to Roald, "just in case."

Roald winced, but nodded.

"Excellent," Magnus said.  "Roald, would you see to that?"

The thane nodded and bowed, and then left.

The room was abuzz with whispers.  People were casting surreptitious glances at him and the other riders, and others from the household staff were coming in and lingering before they went. 

Hiccup tried to ignore the whispers as Magnus pulled him into a new game that Hiccup had never seen before.  This one involved pieces in two colors attempting to race around the board, which was decorated with two dozen long triangles pointing in towards the center; these were the playing field, it seemed.  Dice determined how far the pieces could move between the triangles, and the goal was to get your pieces to the opposite side and then off the board.  Complicating matters was that you could bump someone else's singular chit off of the board and sending it back to their start, but two pieces blocked that move. 

Other games were brought out, and people started playing; Wulfhild challenged Astrid to a game of draughts, Horsefeathers got pulled into a game of _hnefatafl_ , and his sister spectated (and made rude comments).  Others, like Snotlout, left the hall, escorted either by thanes or by their dragons. 

Rolling a two and a five, Hiccup frowned, looked at the board, and moved two of his pieces from their stacks forward onto the same triangle.  "I've noticed that you have a lot of games to play around here," he said observationally. 

"Long winter nights," Magnus said with a smirk as he rolled a one and a four.  "Have to have something to do, or start going mad."

Hiccup snorted.  "I can see that."

Magnus moved his pieces, and Toothless, watching them play, sidled up next to their table, arranging himself such that both of the young men could reach down and pet him.

As Hiccup scritched his friend's broad head with his left hand, he sighed in gratitude.  "Thanks bud."

Magnus grinned at him as he knocked one of Hiccup's lonely pieces off of the board.  "I second the motion.  Thank you, Toothless, for my friend and my honor."

Toothless made a happy little bark that Hiccup easily understood.

_You're welcome._

###

Following the squad of three thanes into the Hooligans' wing of the fort, Snotlout looked them over appraisingly.  Oathbreakers attacking his cousin.  Wow.  Snotlout knew that Hiccup could be infuriating, but that… that was a whole other level of messed up. 

But that was what Hiccup did. 

Mess things up.

The thanes were all talking in shock over the betrayal of one of their own, and talk quickly turned to discussion of the fate of the remainder of the traitors' household.

"If they're smart, they'll go as far away as they can manage," suggested one, the youngest, with a magnificent golden beard and an even more extravagant braid. 

Another shook his head, sending his long light brown hair, streaked with white, swaying.  "No.  Go too far, and they'll be the only Norsemen in the area, and will stick out like sore thumbs."  He held up his hand, which was missing half of his smallest finger and part of the ring finger.  "Iceland is too small; strangers will be easily noticed.  Same for Greenland.  Harthacnut is recruiting for his Thingmen, but they're only three thousand, and our lord will _definitely_ inquire there.  Nay, their best option is to flee south for lands not of the Norse."

The third thane, with dark hair cut neatly and styled, his beard bound in tight braids, snorted at that.  "To _where?_   The Rus' would send them right back, in little boxes a piece at a time, for oathbreaking.  And I came back from Greece only a year ago; they may try to flee there, thinking to escape our lord's justice, but let me tell you, they won't be the first to have _that_ thought.  The empress wouldn't even hear of it; as you well know, we police our own there, and Magnus's uncle is high in the Guard's ranks."  He smiled grimly.  "If they tried to present themselves…  well, I hope that they do."

The thanes noticed that Snotlout was watching them and waved him over.  "So, dragon rider, why do you think our fellows broke their oaths?"

Snotlout shrugged.  "I don't know.  I mean, that's the sort of things you see in the stories that tell you _why_ oathbreaking is such a bad idea.  I mean, even _Loki_ didn't do that sort of thing.  He always used loopholes."

"That's right, for sure," the second thane said, nodding.  "Hold to your oaths or be forsworn.  But this… this was not being forsworn because you were caught between two oaths, or broke your word unwitting.  No, this was active treachery, betrayal of the worst sort.  This was something that not even Loki Liesmith would contemplate."

The third one spat.  "Aye.  They deserve to be cast into the lake of fire where old Lucifer will teach them the errors of their ways."  Snotlout gave him an odd look, but before he could ask, the older thane spat again and said, "No matter the why.  They still did it.  And it was only because of the dragon that they failed."  He looked at Snotlout.  "Is your steed that loyal to you, milord?"

Snotlout shrugged and nodded.  "Eh.  Most days.  It's like any friendship.  Some days, you're best buddies, the other days… not so much.  But he's loyal like anything, and I'm sure that if someone tried to mess with me, he'd be right there."

Suddenly, without warning, Snotlout found himself in a grapple, his arm twisted behind him, and he yelped loudly in pain and surprise.

"What the—!"

There was a scraping noise on the outside of the wall, and then the shutters on the window exploded inward, showering the room with wooden fragments.  Hookfang's tooth-laden head burst past the window, and the slight chill of the rain vanished as little spurts of flame jetted from his nose, scorching the wood of the floor to blackness. 

The thane let him go instantly and tried to hide behind Snotlout. 

"Aye, aye, it was a test!  Call him off!  I meant no harm!"

Snotlout shrugged, grinning, and walked over to coo at Hookfang, who calmed down after a moment.  Hookfang took a moment to assure himself of his rider's health with an astringent lick, and then tried to retreat his head through the window.

Except that he was stuck, his horns hitting the wood above the window.

Snotlout turned and looked at the three thanes, who were staring in awe.

"Are you three going to help me get him out of there or not?"

They rushed in, and, a moment later, Hookfang was freed of the window frame's little trap, each of the four of them taking one of the horns and gently guiding it out past the edge. 

Hookfang crooned at him and flew off back to the rooftop.

Then Snotlout noticed that his bed had been set on fire, and was now smoldering and giving off little puffs of black and gray smoke as the straw and feathers burned with a noxious stink.

"Oh, come on!"

The second thane quickly said, his expression a mix of awe and fear, "We'll get you a replacement, milord!  Quick!"

They scrambled off, carrying away the smoldering bed and mattress, as Snotlout, with a sigh, popped open his sea chest and rooted around for his sewing kit.  He'd lost a few dragon-scales off of his armor, and it needed some repairs if he wanted to be able to ride Hookfang safely when he lit off his fire-aura. 

Taking a seat on the chest and popping off his boots, he set to work.  He found the gap that had let the heat in with ease, and taking the spool of cured dragon-leather thong, he stitched a few new scales onto the leather backing to cover the gap. 

As he worked, he considered that silk that Hiccup was going to get a new suit made from.  The small piece he had taken was so fine and soft, patterned with some kind of creature that looked like a cross between an eagle and a cat.  What to do with it, he didn't know, but maybe he could get some plain silk to line his suit with?  That would be nice…

Holding the repaired suit out at arm's length, he gave it a critical eye.  The new scales didn't precisely match the coloration of the surrounding scales, and while it didn't exactly look like a patch, it was definitely a bit off. 

The door reopened as he held the suit out, to reveal the three thanes with a bedframe and new mattress, the one at the front holding two of the legs, while the pair at the back were holding one leg apiece, plus other things under their arms. 

The thane carrying the foot of the bed paused at the sight of the suit—and was nearly knocked over by his two fellows carrying the back, who hadn't been expecting the sudden stop. 

"Ay, ay!  Hold on!" he called back, and they maneuvered the bed into the room as Snotlout watched, smirking slightly. 

The thanes put the bed down with a thump and turned to look at him.  With a smile, the pair who had been holding up the back of the bed presented a small keg and a string of tankards.  "After my little test, I thought an apology might be in order.  Up for a drink, milord?"

Snotlout grinned.  "Definitely!"

The cask was breached, and the fine ale poured into the tankards and passed around.  Snotlout was about to take a sip when he realized that the three thanes were waiting on him to make a toast. 

Holding up his tankard, Snotlout called, "Skál!" and was echoed by the three older men.

They sat and drank, Snotlout taking a seat on the new bed, and the three men variously sat on the floor, perched on his sea chest, or leaned up against the wall. 

After a moment, the one on the sea chest turned and looked at his dragon-scale armor lying there.  Whistling, he said, "I have to say, that's a fine piece of kit there, lad."

Snotlout preened.  He'd made it himself.  "Isn't it great?  When Hookfang shed his scales a few months back, I saved what I could, cured the leather, and made that."

The one on the floor blinked hard at that.  "That's real dragon-scales there?  That's worth a fortune!"

A shrug.  "Only if you don't already ride a dragon," Snotlout said.  It didn't hurt to reinforce exactly how much the dragons were worth to these foreigners. 

The thane on the sea chest gave a long look at the armor and then at Snotlout.  Shaking his head, he took a long drink from his tankard.  "Wondrous times.  Wondrous times indeed." 

"Aye," said the one seated on the floor, who was the one that had grappled Snotlout in the first place.  He gave a polite nod.  "I'm Vlademar, young sir.  It's an honor."

"Oddmund," introduced the one on the sea chest. 

"Mikael," said the one standing by the wall, holding up his tankard in a salute. 

Shrugging and smiling, "Well, I'm Snotlout."

"Aye, lad," Oddmund said.  "We was told."  He slapped his knee.  "Ah, I have lived much and traveled far, but God still has wonders for me to see!  Thank you, lad, for giving me such sights to see!"

Snotlout reveled in the man's regard.  "So, what _have_ you seen out there?"

Vlademar gave a chortle from his spot on the floor.  "Nah, young rider, we've all heard each others' stories.  Give us some fresh ones from dragonback!"

Not needing further prompting, Snotlout started to tell the tale of the raid on Brycgstow.

"…so we hit them just as the dawn was getting ready to break, flying up the river and over their walls in a matter of moments.  The night watch were wetting themselves, and the only one that got a shot off got his head split open by one of my aunties.  We ripped down the main gates with digging dragons, dropping rubble into the road to keep the carts from running, while Fritjof's dragon—the big two-headed one—blew up the main barracks hall with a quarter of the garrison still in it."  He took a drink of his ale.  "One of their officers managed to get organized inside of the mint, though.  So they couldn't come out without us waiting like a cat by the mouse hole, but they were waiting by the door."

"So what did you do?"

"Went through the wall instead," Snotlout said with false modesty.  "Well, two walls.  A few of them managed to challenge me," he swung his free arm to indicate the frenetic hand-to-hand, "but between me and Hookfang, they didn't have a chance."

The three thanes applauded.  "You should be proud, young sir," Oddmund said, satisfied.  "Cracking open a _burh_ , much less with no casualties… it's an accomplishment."

"Thank you, thank you!" Snotlout bowed.  "And, yeah, it was.  The officer that was in that mint was a real hardass, too.  Even when the walls came down around him, he didn't panic."  He toasted with his tankard.  "Fritjof took him down, and he died well."

"Hear hear!" said Vlademar, grinning.  "Well, young dragon-rider, I might not have gone a-viking, but I did take oath to old King Olaf, after he fled to the court of Yaroslav the Wise, as his sister-in-law's husband.  Old thane Roald picked me after a contest of prowess to be part of young Magnus's personal guard, before the rest of his father's thanes left with the king to regain his throne… God… eleven years ago now?  But they died at Stiklestad, and we were left there, until Jarls Einar and Kálfr came and found us."  He took a drink.  "And then we came back and restored Magnus to his father's throne, kicking out Cnut's usurpers, who fled."

Snotlout leaned in, grinning.  "Were there any big battles?"

"Sadly no.  The entire kingdom was up in arms against them.  Viceroy _Svein_ ," he said the name with a sneer, "was inspired by his half-brother Harthacnut's reign over the Danes, and decided to tighten the screws that much more."

"Aye," chimed in Oddmund, scowling.  "I heard about the new taxes and laws from my brother; my farm—my father's farm, at the time—was nearly confiscated.  I barely missed inheriting from my father because I was in Greece at the time, and managed to return home before his passing, otherwise the farm would have gone to the King."

"Not to your brother?" Snotlout asked, appalled.

"No, young sir.  And if my brother had gone to fetch me instead of sending a message that our father was passing, he would have needed the permission of Svein and his mother—or his own properties would have been forfeited to them."  He snorted in derision.  "Imagine how eagerly they would have given _that_ permission!"

"Eaugh…" said Snotlout.  "Thank the gods that you got rid of him!"

"Aye!  And Magnus repealed the lot when he returned!  No more having to give the Danish usurpers a bucket of butter," Oddmund indicated a bucket two feet across with his hands, "a measure of malt," the space between his hands grew wider, "and the thigh of a three-year-old ox for Yule!"

"What the… what kind of crazy… that's ridiculous!  What kind of a tax was that?"

"The kind that every hearth-keeper with land in the kingdom of Norway had to pay for five years, young sir!"

Snotlout grimaced. 

Oddmund continued.  "So when Magnus came back and repealed them all, and settled here in my own homeland, I came and took oath to him, having known his father and his uncle as men worthy of my oath.  And then the young lad went and showed that he himself was a good man as well."

"His uncle?  What happened to him?" Snotlout asked.

"Oh, I served with him down in Greece, in the Varangian Guard.  He gave me leave, personally, to return home to see my father before he passed and to claim my inheritance."  He sighed slightly, a wistful smile on his face. "I do admit, though, that I do miss Greece at times."

"Aye, when the cold wind howls through the cracks in the door and the sun shyly peeks above the horizon," Mikael interjected with a warm smile. 

"Ayep.  Not going to deny it.  Ah, Greece… it is a warm and verdant land, bathed in the sun, with Miklagård as its crown jewel."

Snotlout quirked an eyebrow.  They called their great city… _the large city?_   Okay.

Oddmund continued while Snotlout mused on the name.  "Even in the depths of winter, the water is only cool, not cold, and the lands blanketed in green…"  He gave a happy sigh of remembrance.  "I was there for ten years before lord Harald came.  I first took service with Basil the Bulgar Slayer two years before he passed.  A giant of a man, one of the greats; I saw him only in his twilight, and he was still… awe-inspiring.  War, rulership… anything he turned his hands to, blossomed."  He reached into his tunic and pulled out a golden chain.  Dangling from it was a golden cross three or four inches high, embellished with jewels. 

Snotlout's eyes went round at the wealth in front of him.  He'd taken a similar necklace off of one of the officers at Brycgstow, but that had been maybe half the size and on a leather thong.

"Aye, young sir," Oddmund said, smiling softly.  "When Basil passed, we Varangians were granted leave to loot the palace, in recognition of our stalwart duty in keeping him alive to three score and seven.  I took this as part of my share, and kept it alone out of the whole coffer that I had taken, in remembrance of the great lord that he had been."  He gave a dismissive shrug as he put the cross back into his tunic.  "When Basil's brother died three years later, we were given the same right once again, but Constantine… was not his brother.  I have no keepsake of his reign.  He was not worthy of it.  But I still remember the times I was there… ahh… the smell of the warm sea air—a bare month past Yule, mind you!—off of the Golden Horn…"

Snotlout, his eyes wide and round at the image of the wealth that Oddmund had casually mentioned, that the necklace was just a _part,_ asked in a choked voice, "So… tell me more about Greece?" 

Oddmund grinned and took a drink from his tankard, while Mikael said, "I was there most recently, on trade.  The venture turned sour from Pecheng bandits on the route home, but I can say that Oddmund barely tells a tenth of the glory of Miklagård."  He grinned, lost in his own memories.  "The city—which they say is the largest and greatest in the whole of the world, and I have no reason to doubt them—lies right next to a strait between two great seas, and controls the  pathways between them.  It is a crossroads unequaled, place of trade and commerce and glory and gold…"  He waved his tankard about so energetically that some of the ale sloshed over the side, spattering Vlademar with it.  Ignoring the younger thane's scowl, Mikael continued, "When old Rome fell, its glory lived on in the east, and the center of it all is Miklagård!"  He toasted enthusiastically, spattering Vlademar again with the ale.  With an irritated cry, the seated thane reached forward, grabbed one of Snotlout's boots from the floor and flung it at the other thane, striking him in the gut.

Laughter broke out for a moment as the two thanes had a mock duel with Snotlout's boots, each of them trying to whack the other on the head with one of the smelly bits of footwear.  Snotlout and Oddmund cheered and held their sides as the absurd fight took place, finally ending as Vlademar managed to batter his way past Mikael's arms and clout him firmly around the head.  The two dueling thanes were also laughing, their cheeks red.  Mikael refilled Vlademar's tankard as his forfeit, and the pair swapped places.

Once they had all calmed down, Snotlout, tears of laughter still streaming somewhat from his eyes, asked, "Sounds like an amazing place."

"Oh, lad, I wish that I could take you there and show you," Oddmund said, and then a smile slowly bloomed on his face.  "Oh… my…"  He reached out and grasped Snotlout by the hand.  "Lad, you could… could take your dragon and… and fly about the greatness of that city!  See the Hagia Sophia from the air, the great walls that have never been breached by siege!  They would welcome you and give you rank and honor among the Guard!"

Something twisted within Snotlout at his words.  _Rank and honor…_ He glanced at the angular lump under Oddmund's tunic.  _And gold._

"Would they?"

Oddmund looked him over and then gave a lopsided grin.  "Aye, lad, they would.  You have led men, and know what it is to fight.  You come from a tradition of warriors with few peers, from what we have heard of your tribe's war with the dragons, and, oh, yes, _you ride a dragon._ "

Mikael and Vlademar chimed in with, "Hear hear!" and a toast.

"But they'd have dozens of thanes al—"

"Not dozens.  _Thousands,_ " Oddmund interrupted.

" _Thousands!?_   No, you've got to be joking.  Where would there be room for everyone else?"

Mikael and Oddmund shared an amused look and burst out laughing. 

"We call it _Miklagård_ for a _reason,_ young Snotlout.  Your village is, what, a few hundred souls?"  Snotlout nodded.  "Large for a village, and Nidaros is perhaps three or four times that, counting the visitors and outlying farms." He waved his arms around, as if to indicate the settled valley.  "The Guard alone numbers ten _thousand_ housecarls, all in personal service to the Emperor and Empress."

Snotlout felt his eyes bulge out as he tried to picture that many people.  "But… but… then where is everyone else?  They'd overrun the place!"

Mikael snorted.  "Not hardly.  I _did_ say that it was the grandest city in the whole of the world, did I not?  The Guard may number ten thousand… and they are only one part in thirty, perhaps one part in _fifty_ , of the whole of the city behind the great walls."

Snotlout froze, trying to imagine such a vastness, in land and in people. 

"And the great city itself is only a small portion of the whole of the Empire," Oddmund said.  He gave another lopsided grin.  "And you would be the _only_ dragon rider in the whole of it."

"But I couldn't just go—!"

"Why not?" Oddmund asked reasonably, his cheeks a bit pinked from the laughter and the ale.  "Have a girl waiting at home for you, I take it?"

Snotlout froze, feeling like he'd been punched in the gut.

"No… I… don't."

"He was casting eyes at Sir Hiccup's girl earlier," Vlademar said sagely.

Despite his best efforts, Snotlout couldn't get Thor's lightning to come and strike down the too-wise thane with his glare at the man.

"Ahhhh…" Oddmund said in a tone of understanding.  "Small village, few girls… and the other man got there first?"

Snotlout gave a brief cry of anguish and hung his head, his fingers clenching around his tankard, which spilled a bit on the floor.

A gentle hand took the tankard, and he felt a pat on the shoulder.  "Aye, lad, I understand," Oddmund said.  "But then, I have to ask… why _not_ go?"

"Mayhap his chief will need him to go a-viking again," Mikael offered.  "He's shown a skill for it."

Snotlout slumped and moaned.

Sounding surprised, Mikael asked, "Lad, what's wrong?"

"I'm forbidden from leading more dragon-riders a-viking," Snotlout said woodenly.  "I swore it on my honor to my chief."

The three thanes looked at each other, wide-eyed and shocked. 

"What nonsense is this?" Mikael asked.

"Hiccup's.  He gave this whole idea of not wanting to convince the dragons that they need to steal for us again and crap like that."

"Feh," said Vlademar.  "Yet his dragon seemed to have little problem understanding that he was in trouble when he burned Oskar to a blackened crisp."

Oddmund had a thoughtful look on his face.  "Well, lad, you promised not to lead riders a-viking on raids, aye?"

Snotlout nodded.  "More or less, yeah."

"Then you could take up with the Guard with no issue.  They're housecarls for the Emperor; they don't go a-viking on their own—they go _aconquering,_ at the behest of the Emperor."

"I…"  Snotlout started to speak, and then paused as thoughts occurred to him.  Yes, he had pledged his honor and his word to Hiccup and Stoick.  And how had they thanked him?  By charting a course straight into disaster. 

Maybe… maybe this was his chance.  His chance to show them that he'd been right… 

Vlademar gave him a sympathetic and wry look.  "Lad.  Look, we are not going to tie you to a mast and ship yeh down to Greece."  He glanced at the broken window shutters, one of them still hanging forlornly from the leather hinge.  "Aside from it being a spectacularly bad idea for our own oaths, I imagine that yonder beastie would… object to that."

All four of them snorted.

"But, aye, I am a second son myself, and watched the object of my affections go into the arms of another man.  And I look back now and I see that if I had stayed… I would have _stayed._   Stayed a second son, stayed in a small river village, beholden to my older brother."  He held his arms out, showing his fine tunic and badge of office.  "Now… I am a trusted thane of a king."

Oddmund nodded in agreement.  "Aye, lad.  Staying home… you'll curdle on yourself like bad cheese.  Spread your wings.  Spread your _dragon's_ wings.  Go to Miklagård; one of my nephews is preparing to leave soon, and you could perhaps go with him."  He reached out and gave a friendly pat to Snotlout's shoulder with one hand, and handed him back his tankard with the other.  "Here, lad, you're going to be just one rider among many—and one forbidden from showing his prowess, too.  There…"  his eyes grew distant and a smile sprouted on his face.  "There, we are from far-off lands, tinged with the exotic, we serve their Emperor, we win glory on the battlefield…"  His eyes refocused on Snotlout's.  "Aye, lord rider, if your prospects at home are truly as dire as they seem… make your way to the Varangian Guard, and they will welcome you, welcome you with open arms."

"And that's not all that will be opened!" Mikael offered with a sly grin.

"Well, that goes without saying," Oddmund said in good humor, waggling his eyebrows at Snotlout and giving him a wink.

Snotlout huffed.  "Are the girls there pretty?" he asked after a moment. 

Mikael gave a cheerful little laugh.  "Oh, aye, they are.  With hair the shade of a raven's wing, in a glorious abundance of curls or in waves like the crest of the sea, and lips made for kissing…"

Oddmund gave a sigh, clearly visiting fond memories.  "Aye.  The girls there welcome the men of the Guard.  And with a dragon, you would certainly find yourself of much interest to them.  Imagine, la— _milord._   You could go from being one rider among many, to the general of a great empire."

A vision struck Snotlout, of himself, older, grizzled, riding atop Hookfang's back at the head of a vast army, moving towards Berk to protect it against another group of dragon riders, whose dragons had come from Hiccup's foolish attempts at peace and his unwise and ill-advised breaking of Berk's monopoly.  He imagined himself driving off the invaders with nerve and steel and strength. 

He imagined Hiccup grateful for saving him and the tribe.

…and Astrid leaving his cousin and coming to him as a hero.

Lifting the tankard to his lips, he took a great swallow of the ale against the lump in his throat and said, "Tell me more about the Guard."

* * *

 

Author's Notes: One of the longest chapters so far in this fic, with 13k+ word count; I think that this one will be at the upper limit for chapter size, and the only reason I didn't break it in two was that there wasn't a good spot to do so.  In other good news, I'm starting to get ahead of my buffer again, and hope to have a generous padding ahead of my schedule within the next few weeks.  I'm also intending to put up the first "chapter" of my appendices on AO3 soon (probably within the week).  Additionally, I'm hoping to recruit one or more new beta readers.  Details are here: https://athingofvikings.tumblr.com/post/162895682290/call-for-beta-readers  (and I'll remove this bit from the AN when I've got my "Machete Squad" up to full strength).  

In other news, there is a non-zero chance that I might be taking a week or two off from posting in early August; I'm getting married and going on my honeymoon with my fiancee, and while I love you all to bits, that  _does_ take precedence ;)  So that's going to depend on how hectic things are over the next few weeks.  

Beyond that, thank you to everyone that's been reading, and especially to those leaving comments!  I'm so glad that you're enjoying the story thus far!


	17. ...And Partings

**Chapter 17:** **…And Partings**

_Most historical analyses of King Magnus I of Norway focus excessively on the larger figures in his life—his regent, wife, sister, friends, and dragon, most typically.  Insufficient focus tends to be given to a quieter figure in Magnus's life, a state of affairs that is ironic, due to the man's profession as a skald._

_Sigvatr Þórðarson (a.k.a. Sigvatr Tordarson, 995-1044), King Olaf's court skald, has a distinct tendency to stay in the background in most depictions and discussions of the king's life.  This is unsurprising, as the man's sagas are one of the few primary sources on the periods of King Olaf's life and the childhood of his son, with over three hundred surviving verses of his poetry; in those sagas, he spent his efforts recording the efforts and achievements of others than those of his own.  Furthermore, by the time Magnus reached adulthood and his alliance with Berk, Sigvatr had become a background figure in the king's court.  However, this does him a disservice in his impact, as many subsequent historians have focused on the influence of Hiccup Haddock and Einar Thambarskelfir upon the king, and ignored Sigvatr's._

_Sigvatr was made Magnus's godfather when Magnus was born, was responsible for naming the baby (after_ Karla Magnus _—King Charlemagne), and had been the skald and friend of King Olaf for years prior, also serving as the king's_ stallare _(marshal).  He traveled with Olaf and Magnus when they fled to the Kievan Rus', raised young Magnus in exile, and returned with him when Einar Thambarskelfir came seeking a puppet he could control.  Even then, Sigvatr continued to act as mentor and father figure to the young king, counseling kindness, moderation, temperance and forgiveness.  It was due to Sigvatr's advice that Magnus refused to have the men who had killed his father executed, which would have removed two of Einar's rivals for power permanently._

_Sigvatr's influence on Magnus's personality, as the sole consistent father figure in the young man's life, is noticeable in many areas.  These include Magnus's interests in the arts and sagas, his noted tendencies towards dramatic gestures, and a general bearing that was regularly referred to as gregarious and outgoing—an impressive achievement for someone who lost his home and his father by the age of six, his mother in his teen years, and who lived in exile for most of his childhood._

— _Dragons of the North: Profiles Of The Viking Lords, Waterford University Press, 1733_

As the afternoon passed into early evening, the fort's household filed into the great hall, whispers sounding as they exchanged stories of the day's events.  A few people spoke more loudly when they entered the hall, but they were hushed by their neighbors, with significant looks being cast at the dragons. 

Hiccup sighed from his spot; it had been a long, painful day, and it hurt to see people scared of his friends because Toothless had defended him.  And the only person who had gotten hurt was the traitorous thane—Gunnarr Ketilsson was fine, if a bit cranky over the state of his muddied clothes.

The household assembled, Hiccup and Astrid were once again seated at the High Table next to Magnus, and the meal was blessed and served. 

As the first course was brought out—a savory green soup, swimming with fresh summer vegetables, finely minced and simmered to perfection—one issue immediately arose.  Astrid tried to clumsily feed herself the soup with her spoon first in her right hand, and then in her left hand, and was having little success.  The potion that the healer had given her was helping with the pain to at least some degree… but with the wound, her arm just didn't _work_ right. 

After the fifth attempt resulted in half a spoonful managing to actually make it to her mouth, Hiccup leaned over and said, "I am not patronizing you.  But can I help you?  Please, love?"

She inhaled sourly and nodded, clearly hating the circumstances, and let him spoonfeed her the soup, while clearly _daring_ anyone to say anything mocking. 

He wasn't doing that much better, as every time he leaned over, his rib ached and his whole side spasmed in pain.  It wasn't a massive degree of pain, but it still was noticeable. 

To Astrid, at least. 

"Hiccup, I can feed myself.  You're hurting yourself," she said after the tenth spoonful and his sharp inhalation of pain, while Magnus was looking on with concern.

"Okay.  Go ahead."  He handed her back the spoon, and motioned to the bowl.

Firmly, she clumsily held the spoon and scooped up a spoonful, but her offhand shook slightly.  A significant portion of the soup splashed back into the bowl and onto the robe as she raised it towards her mouth.

Frowning, she mutely handed the spoon back to him, and let him feed her the rest of the bowl.  The next course was a roast duck that Astrid could handle with one arm, at least. 

Conversation was mostly quiet, people talking about the events of the day, although it looked like Snotlout was bending Tuffnut's ear about something.  He was gesturing enthusiastically to Tuff, while Ruff looked bored next to them. 

As Hiccup put the cleaned bones back on his own plate, someone in the room, either ignorant of the tension in the room or looking to clear it, started calling for him to resume his story.  Within a minute, they were all clamoring to hear the story of how to tame a dragon from the dragon tamer himself. 

Magnus rose and spread his hands placatingly.  "People, people!  Our guests have had a long, trying day!  We should not be rude and demand more of them!"

"We want to hear the story!" someone called out.

"Yeah!  We've heard— _seen_ —how dangerous they are!  How did you manage to tame them?" someone else called out. 

Hiccup smiled and turned to Magnus.  "Magnus, may I?"  This could be his chance to help convince everybody that, no, they had nothing to fear from his friends.

Magnus looked at him, dubious.  "Are you sure?  My people here are being a bit rude, and you _are_ injured."

"If I need to stop, I will.  But let me be a good guest to match your efforts as host, all right?"

With a wave of his arm, Magnus made a magnanimous gesture—Hiccup had to fight down a smirk at the accidental pun as it occurred to him—motioning for Hiccup to stand.

Drawing himself up to his full height and doing his best to breathe carefully, Hiccup picked up from where he had left off the night before.  Fortunately, even with the pauses he had to take, his audience's attention was rapt as he continued, describing his efforts to attach the new tail fin to an unhelpful Toothless, and their first flight, with him clinging to his friend's tail.  The rib turned out to be a major problem and he had to pause to catch his breath and push the pain down just as he started describing his sudden apparent increase in competence at dragon training. 

He felt a touch at his hand, and looked down to see Astrid looking up at him.  "Hey.  Let me handle this bit," she said softly. 

"You sure?"

"Hey, I only have a cut, not a broken rib.  I can breathe without wanting to scream."  She stood and pushed him gently into his seat—more gently for her own sake than his, as she did it one-handed. 

With that, she took over in the telling of the story, and started describing how the town screwup had started completely dominating the dragon-training, where before she had been the top candidate.  Not quite making herself the butt of the joke, she did a fair job of getting across the astonishment that everyone had had at Hiccup's sudden turnaround.

Frightening Zipplebacks into their cage—and he thought that Barf and Belch, off to the side, were giving him a mildly irked look about the whole thing as she told it. 

Knocking down Gronckles and Nadders with a touch… and her own feeling of utter befuddlement at watching a dangerous Deadly Nadder collapse to the ground in front of her. 

Getting a Terrible Terror to walk back into its cage willingly. 

And, of course, she described her own frustration, in terms of axes-to-trees, at having been upstaged so thoroughly, which was also roundly appreciated by virtue of her imagery and passion, even tempered by her wounds.

However, much of the appreciation was still somewhat forced, even though the tension in the room had decreased from before.  But the court was still somewhat in shock over what had happened earlier, and whispers were abuzz.  And Astrid was still feeling the effects of her wounds, so they cut their story short before reaching that fateful meeting in the cove, as Astrid finished up explaining her confusion at Hiccup mysteriously disappearing into the smithy.

As the meal wrapped up, Hiccup leaned over to Magnus, and whispered, "If you're still thinking about talking with Ruffnut, you've got time.  But we have an alliance now, with what you swore today."

"Aye, we do, but I think I'll… pursue that anyway.  My advisers still are pushing for something a bit more substantial than our oaths." 

Hiccup cocked his head a little.  "Why?  That was a pretty potent oath."

Magnus frowned.  "The thinking goes that a blood tie is much more permanent as an alliance.  And, well…" he hunched a little, "one day I'll be recalled to God—hopefully not anytime soon, mind you!—and I'd like there to be those who have reason to keep my oath alive."

"Uhhh…" Hiccup stammered for a moment.  Right.  Chief-thinking.  It still made him uncomfortable, in the extreme.  "Well… you said you like her, right?"

Magnus nodded.

"Well, it can't hurt to try, right?"

Astrid coughed next to him.  "Ruff is still a shieldmaid, Hiccup."  She looked around Hiccup to Magnus.  "If you're interested in some advice, I'd suggest trying to impress her."

Perking up, Magnus looked at her eagerly.  "What might work?"

"Hmm… pranks, maybe.  Wait, no.  Compose some verse, she'll love that," Astrid confided. 

"Verse?" Magnus asked, his face suddenly looking radiant.  "Are you sure?"

Astrid nodded.  "She's a skald in training, and her uncle is one of the tribal skalds."

" _Really?_   Oh, good…" he said, suddenly looking much more confident.  "I think I can handle that.  I mean, I was thinking on it, but the risk of her not liking it or taking objection to it…"

Astrid rolled her eyes.  "Trust me on this one, Magnus."

"Oh, I will!"  He hopped to his feet, looking practically perky.  "But first, I think conducting you two to your new lodgings is in order."  He motioned for them to follow.  "Come on."

Walking to the door of the hall in step with Magnus, Hiccup could hear his friend starting to mutter to himself, sounding out rhymes, and smiled. 

###

Sitting in the mead hall, Fishlegs could feel his pulse pounding in his ears with sheer nerves.  About half of the tribe was currently present for the meal, with the remainder having gone off for private eating in their own homes or still working on something or other.  With the inclusion of the dragons into Berk, some things had gotten much, much easier—food gathering, for one—Hiccup's innovation of a group of dragons dragging a net through the water had helped massively with their fish catches.  Wood chopping, likewise, was easy with the Sharp-class dragons.  But the dragons had their own needs, too, and that took a great deal of effort on the part of the tribe.  Especially since something like a tenth of the whole tribe, mostly the elders, wanted to have nothing to do with the dragons, and they were having to work around them. 

Without the increase in traders coming and going, they'd be in trouble, labor-wise; a few dragon scales or dragon leather was enough to pay for badly-needed supplies, and it seems like Trader Johann's prediction had come true about the number of merchants who would risk the voyage.  Stoick's idea of dragon patrols had already stopped three pirate attacks on merchant ships coming to Berk, and he'd actually ordered that they let the pirates flee—so that they could spread the word that these were Berk's waters now.

Chestnut stood up from his seat, and Fishlegs focused on the skald reflexively.  He clapped to get attention, and after a few moments, while the side conversations didn't cease entirely, people were watching him with interest.

Looking out over the gathered tribe, the skald boomed, "Hooligans!  What a year it has been!"

"Hear hear!" called out Frode clan Ingerman, Fishlegs' grand-uncle, slamming his tankard on the table with enthusiasm.

"It is one month past mid-summer," Chestnut declaimed.  "A year ago, it seemed as if our choices were a fast death in hunting the Nest, or a slow death in being raided to the last sheep!"  He clapped his hands together with a sharp crack that echoed against the stone walls of the mead hall like distant thunder.  " _Now,_ though, things have changed!  Our foes are our friends," he turned and patted his adolescent Thunderdrum on the head, who purred, "and our tribe is growing!"

The big blond man turned to the tables where the new freedmen were huddled together, pounded the table in front of him for attention, and smiled at them. 

"I, and others, wish to welcome you to our tribe.  We know that we seem odd—and loud—and strange to you, but know that you are welcome, and that many of us once were thralls as well!  You are part of us!"  Spreading his arms wide and stretching his smile almost to the point of absurdity, he said, "I was actually preparing something of my own for the occasion—the first freedmen to join the tribe since the end of the Dragon War!—but another, who wishes to remain anonymous, came to me with their own words." 

Fishlegs squirmed a little, as it seemed as if Chestnut's gaze met his for a brief moment as he said that, but the skald, holding his hands in front of him, inhaled deeply and began to speak.

" _This is Berk, where once danger lurked,_

_Ax and fang, chain and net, fire and wind,_

_Home claimed and held, herds thinned,_

_War upon war was the warrior's work,_

_Chains hold fast but change comes swift and stronger;_

_Strange to see deadly dragons now dear_

_Thralls turned freedmen and kin, winter storms clear,_

_This island a harbor and home, strange no longer._

_From killing winters sprout new springs;_

_Well we remember the feel of fear and fetter,_

_But here you may cast it aside for a better,_

_And know the strength of soaring, sheltering wings."_

People applauded as Chestnut finished and bowed his head, and the freedmen looked overwhelmed.  Oma was openly weeping even as she smiled, and Heather looked stunned, like she had forgotten how to breathe.  Meanwhile, Brogan's usual grumpy expression had intensified, and Fishlegs could see that his jaw was set tightly. 

"Thank you for listening," Chestnut said.  "Please, enjoy your meal!"

With that, the moment ended, and the clatter and chatter of dinner resumed.

###

Magnus led Astrid, Hiccup, Toothless and Stormfly through his three-story-tall wing of the fort; he, his sister and their immediate aides lived on the middle floor, with Einar's family in the ground-level rooms.  Open and spacious, it was large enough for the dragons to get through without being too cramped, but was otherwise much like the space that they had stayed for the last two nights.

"My room is here," he said, pointing to one set of doors.  "And yours is here," he pointed to another, and opened them. 

Hiccup blinked.  The last rooms that they had been in had been nice, but clearly belonged to mid-level members of the household who had been evicted to houses in the city or to smaller chambers elsewhere.

These… these were almost certainly Magnus's private rooms.  Rich tapestries lined the walls and a lush series of carpets and furs lay on the floor; the room had a private raised hearth, and a series of flat stones for the dragons were laid out on the floor, the fresh scuff-marks on the stones and nearby floorboards making it clear to Hiccup that they'd been put there in the last few hours.  A pair of luxurious beds sat up against the walls, with a privacy curtain standing between them; either of them would be big enough for two people.  A table and two chairs sat near the hearth, their seats and backs padded for comfort.  Their trunks had been hauled up and placed next to each bed, and had been somewhat unpacked by the servants into nearby cabinets.  Toothless and Stormfly bounded in as Hiccup looked around, and settled themselves onto the groups of flat stones.  Then Hiccup realized one _slight_ issue.

"Uh…  Wait a moment," he said.  "A _single_ room?"

Magnus, with a guileless expression on his face, said simply, "Well, yes.  I only have so many to spare, and I'd rather not volunteer my sister's room.  Is there a problem?"  He walked over to the privacy curtain and, putting his hand atop it, leaned against it lightly.  "I know that it's an imposition on you, but it's the best I have to offer."  Still a little stunned, Hiccup looked at Magnus, who winked and waggled his eyebrows.  "Really, Hiccup, Astrid, I don't see what the problem is.  From what Yngvarr said, your village follows the tradition of having multiple families per household; such considerations for privacy must be typical back home for you, yes?"

Hiccup and Astrid shared a wordless look.  Hiccup remembered the disapproving look of the priest at the proximity between the two of them—still unwed and unbetrothed.  And remembered Astrid's aunt's own disapproval.  After a long moment, went to open his mouth again, only to be interrupted by Magnus holding up a hand and his face turned dour, his guileless humor of a moment before vanishing underneath a stern tone.

"Not a word, my friend.  You both came to injury in _my_ household, _by_ my household, and I could not stop it; your own friend," he scratched at Toothless's head, who purred, "had to step in to salvage what was left of my tattered honor.  At the _very_ least, I owe it to you to give a safe, quiet _,_ comfortable, and private place to recuperate before you dare try the rigors of a sea journey again."

"Magnus, think about what people will say—" Hiccup started to say.

His friend interrupted him.  "Oh, I have.  Hiccup, look.  I trust my men with my life, and," his face hardened as the gloominess disappeared, replaced by anger, "I want you to have Toothless and Stormfly in here in case that trust turns out to be misplaced.  _Again."_  He crossed his arms and took a deep breath, visibly calming.  Then, in the same guileless tone he had used before, he said, "But I only have so much room to spare up here, and I feel that it would be infringing on their honor if I insisted that my sister share her space with Lady Astrid while giving you a room to yourself.  And, um… no offense, but my room is mine, and I have some composing to do.  Without an audience."

Hiccup snorted and Astrid scoffed. 

"And for simplicity's sake, it's also easier to put the two of you in the same space.  One door to guard, with two dragons inside.  I figure that'll make any attackers think twice—or at least _once._ "

"But—"

"Hiccup.  You're not going to win this argument, so I suggest that you stop trying, and start focusing on healing.  I've seen warriors die from wounds less serious than yours that took rot, and the fevers killed them.  Jørgen is literally right below you—if you smell anything odd, it's probably his potions—and I'll see you both recover from this attack.  Am I clear?"

Hiccup blinked at the hard tone in his friend's voice.  Magnus kept bouncing back and forth between friendly jesting to deadly serious, and it was a bit off-putting. 

"All right…"

"Splendid!"  Magnus' grin returned in full force.  "Now, as for my thanes, I'll try to keep them out from underfoot.  You won't hardly know that they're there."  The edge in his tone was easily decipherable as _And if you do, I'll take it out of their hides._   "But they are well trained, and will investigate… _unexpected_ noises in the night," he said, raising his eyebrows significantly.  "Beyond that, their discretion is absolute."

Hiccup felt his cheeks heat, and saw that Astrid was turning a bit pink as well. 

Magnus grinned, and then flushed a bit himself.  "Well.  I should leave you two to your rest and recuperation, while I attend to my scribblings."  With that, he turned and closed the door behind him.

Astrid slumped into one of the padded chairs, grimaced the movement jostled her arm, and sighed.  Hiccup followed, taking care not to jar his rib, and sitting gingerly.  Toothless and Stormfly, looking around the room, gave their riders concerned looks from their spots on the flagstones. 

The two humans looked at each other and gave tired smiles.  Then Astrid cracked and gave a tired laugh.

"Aren't we a pair?  Three working arms and three legs between the two of us."

Hiccup scoffed and nodded.  "Yeah.  Reminds me of those three-legged races they have at the harvest festival…"

Astrid gave a smirk at the image.  "You realize that that means that we'd have our arms and legs tied together?"

"Sounds good to me," Hiccup grinned at her.

They both leaned back into their chairs, looking around the room and shaking their heads. 

"Do you think Magnus is going to feel better about this at any point?  Because if he keeps up at this rate, we might end up owning some of those islands Yngvarr pointed out," Astrid asked, trying to resist the urge to rub at her arm.

Hiccup shrugged.  "We can hope that he comes to his senses soon.  Right now, though, I can understand why he's acting this way.  I mean, an oathbreaking thane?  That's the sort of thing that gets you sent to Helheim for Hel's and Nidhogg's personal attentions, after Thor and Odin plot something particularly appropriate for your death."  He shook his head.  "What did he say?  That we were out to corrupt Magnus?"

Astrid shrugged, and winced.  "I was a bit busy bleeding at the time, but that sounds about right.  Also something about heathen devil worshipers."

"Yeah, that was odd.  But…"  He sighed, holding his arm against his ribs.  "I remember Magnus saying something… about demons? the other day, right after we arrived."  He shook his head.  "We'll just have to ask him tomorrow what is the issue there."

Astrid nodded, and then sighed.  "So… Hiccup…"

"Yes, milady?"

"During the fight… you saved both of our lives.  By pulling us into the water.  If we'd stayed on that wharf, we would have died," she said in a slow voice.

"But you saved us first by seeing them coming and then keeping them from chopping me to pieces on the ground while I managed to crack my own gods-damned ribs," Hiccup pointed out.  "So, if we're keeping score, you're in the lead."

Astrid rolled her eyes.  "I just… you had the right idea.  My blood was up.  _Beating_ them was my first thought.  But it was the wrong thought.  You made us retreat, but it not only kept us away from the swordsman, it gave Toothless a clear shot.  Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out how to counterattack and take him down until you dragged me clear."  She looked at him, a vulnerable, loving look in her eyes.  "Thank you," she said softly. 

Hiccup stood, bent over, and kissed her.  "Of course.  And you would do—did!—the same for me."

"Partners?"

"Partners."

They smiled at each other, and she said lightly, "Hopefully, though, next time, I'll be able to have a nice, stand-up fight.  None of these attacks from ambush or knives in the back."

"Or boyfriends needing rescuing?"

She snorted.  "Hey, I still managed to take down a fully trained thane on my own, and held off another.  Admittedly I managed the first because he underestimated me, but I managed that without even my preferred weapon.  I feel pretty good about that part.  I just had to admit the fact that, against both, I would have lost.  And I know it."

Hiccup nodded.  "In a straight-up fight, you would have taken down both, I'm sure."

She grinned at him.  "Maybe.  But now I know a bit better of what I can do.  And I _will_ do better next time."  She then looked over at the bed as he sat back down.  "You realize that Magnus is expecting us to sleep together for the rest of our stay.  The two beds are excuses."

Hiccup nodded, coloring slightly.  "Yep.  He figured it out when we talked the other night, because I couldn't hide my blush."

"And rather than telling us that we're being improper…" she gave an assessing look at the beds, piled high with furs.  "He gives us a room like this and has an entire squad of thanes that will swear that they didn't hear anything 'unexpected' in the night."

"Yep."

"I like him.  Can we keep him?"

"After today, I doubt that we'll ever get _rid_ of him," Hiccup said with a smirk and a fond tone.

"Fine by me," Astrid said primly, and then smiled.

Hiccup laughed, and then grimaced as his rib twinged.  "Of course…" he looked at the bed, "if we're going to use that for anything other than _actually_ sleeping… we're going to have to rethink a few things.  Because loving you with this…" he motioned to the cracked rib, "or that," and pointed to her own wounds, "is going to be a new exercise in pain."

"Just like dragon training, remember?" she said, grinning.

"Yep.  Pain.  _Love_ it."

She laughed.  "It's only fun if you get a scar out of it," she said with a touch of sarcastic mirth.

"Oh, I think we disproved that the other night," he said, winking.

She grinned.  "Yes.  Yes we did."  She stood, swaying a bit, and then bent over to kiss him.  It turned into a long kiss, and they were both breathing heavily by the time it was over.

"So… bed?"

Hiccup nodded, his eyes locked on hers.

Getting their clothes off was an experience in pain; the robe and smock that Astrid was wearing were both thankfully loose, with generous sleeves, but she was still ready to scream by the end of it, the line of stitches a torturous bit of agony, even as she did her best to let her arm hang.  Hiccup's own borrowed shirt was easier, being baggy and loose to allow his bandages room to breath, but as he stretched his arms up over his head, his rib reminded him—loudly—that it was cracked, and the long cut along his back wasn't much happier.

Gingerly, they climbed into one of the beds after placing the privacy screen carefully, and had Toothless and Stormfly push the furniture around a little bit for better placement.  What followed was much less frenetic and energetic than it had been on previous nights, and was frequently marked with pained intakes of breath and gasps of agony as their wounds protested. 

After a few minutes of this, biting back a scream of pain, Astrid gently lowered herself into the mattress and said to Hiccup, already lying there, "I don't think we can do this, babe.  I move… and it hurts.  It hurts so much."

He nodded, his own back in agony, and rolled over to her on his uninjured side.  "Don't worry.  I… yeah.  Come here.  Can I touch you?"

"I was going to ask the same…"

"With your good arm only," he said as sternly as he could manage.  "No hurting yourself more."

"Same to you," she said, a note of pain in her voice.  She laughed bitterly.  "All the privacy we could want… and we hurt too much to use it."

Hiccup nodded and started running his hand up and down her body.  "Well… we can still use it a bit…" he said gently, stroking her side and back. 

She laughed, and started directing his hands.

After that, they gave up on anything that required motion, beyond using their uninjured arms to simply touch the other person and use their older skills in giving each other some joy, or simply take comfort in their presence.

 It was as gentle and loving and enjoyable as they could manage under the circumstances, and both of them had to remind the other at one point to not hurt themselves for their love's sake.  As they drifted off to sleep by the dim embers of the fire, they were thoroughly entwined with one another, Hiccup lying on his uninjured left side with Astrid nestled in his arms, her injured right arm curled loosely in front of her.

###

Fishlegs walked down the hill from the mead hall, feeling replete.  Everyone had liked his poem, and Chestnut had sung it for him, a fact that made him feel warm inside.  Although that might just be the food. He'd had a nice stack of pan-fried carrots, peas and mushrooms, two bowls of a fish chowder, a small bread roll with a mixed-berry jam, and a baked apple tart.  It had cost him a nice bit over and above his normal ration allowance, but between his scribe work and his supervising of Hiccup's projects while his friend was off playing diplomat, he had coin to spare. 

Although, if another merchant showed up with books again, he might have to cut back in order to add the volumes to his personal library—assuming one of his clanmates didn't beat him to it and buy it for the clan library.

Well, maybe he'd let them do that; it wasn't like he didn't have access—

"Fishlegs?" came Heather's voice from nearby.

He jumped a little, and realized that he'd zoned out a bit in thought as his feet had carried him home.  Heather was standing in front of him, looking amused.

"Uh, yes, sorry, sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?  I wanted to say thank you for the poem."

"Huh?  Um, what?  What are you talking about?  What poem?" he babbled.

She cocked her head and folded her arms sardonically.  "Fishlegs.  I saw you when the skald was reciting that poem.  _You_ were nervous.  Everyone else was just listening."  She reached over and gave him a light pat on the shoulder.  "So I wanted to say thank you." 

He stared at the arm reaching to his shoulder, and managed to stammer out, "Yeh-yeh-you're welcome."

She pulled back and smiled.  "Also… you wrote that for us?"

He nodded convulsively.

Her voice caught for a moment as she said, "Like I said… you're someone that I want to be friends with."  She held out a hand.  "Friends?"

He looked at the hand like it might bite him, and then jerkily reached out and shook her hand.

"Thank you," she said.  "Um… do you want to talk a bit?"

"I… um… I have work in the morning," he said, pointing to his house agitatedly.  "Later?"

She nodded, smiled, and turned and walked off.

Fishlegs watched her go.  Then he swiveled on one foot, and stiffly marched into his parents' house. 

Closing the door behind him, he managed to give voice to the question at the top of his mind. 

"Does… does she _like_ me?"

The darkened house didn't answer, and Fishlegs, through force of long habit, went and rebuilt the hearth-fire from the glowing embers in the firepit. 

As he worked, the routine activity calmed his nerves, and he started to ponder things analytically.

Maybe Heather did like him.  Or maybe she was simply trying to be his friend.  He didn't want to be like Snotlout and assume that she was interested in him just because she smiled at him.  He'd seen the difference between Snotlout's frustration and Hiccup and Astrid's shared joy, thankyouverymuch. 

Even if her cooking was glorious.  He hoped Magnhild would let Heather do some of the cooking on her own in the meadhall, just based on what she'd already made.

Then the nagging thought returned as the tinder caught underneath the stacked wood. 

_What if she's the spy?_

He groaned, and tried to shove the thought away.  He didn't want to think about it. 

And then pulled the thought closer, just to pummel it. 

It just didn't seem _likely_ that she was the spy!  She was the youngest, and she'd already been singled out by being given to him by the Vedrarfjordians!  It made no _sense_ that she'd be in a good position for being a spy, based on what they knew!  As far as they would have known, he'd had been just one more dragon rider, not Hiccup's right hand man!

He sat back on his haunches, chewing on the thought mercilessly. 

So, if, for argument's sake, Berk _was_ like most Norse holdings and kept thralls, what would that have resulted in?

All right.  Berk.  As a thrall-keeping Norseman tribe, such as they had once been generations ago, and their neighbors typically still were. 

Out of all the thralls in that scenario…

Well, Heather had been given to him specifically, so he couldn't go too abstract.  So how would that Other Fishlegs react?

He grimaced as some of the stories that he'd heard came to the fore. 

Yeah, probably like that.  Heather, with that collar around her neck, in his bed, just as the Vedrarfjord king had intended.  And that Other Fishlegs would probably have been fine with it; he didn't know any better.

But Fishlegs did, and he took a deep breath to stay focused. 

So.

Heather as a thrall to that Other version of himself.  Would that Heather make for a good spy?

After pulling out a few stories and applying them to his scenario, he turned it over in his mind a few times and thought it out. 

After a few minutes, well… he didn't think so.  That Other Heather would have perhaps the least mobility and access to the general populace of the tribe out of all of the thralls, with Rathnait the baker or maybe Maire the weaver being also in that category, as their professions didn't require them to have much access to people or mobility.  The same could be said, maybe, for Una the leatherworker, but… well, no.  She'd need intimate contact with the dragons to make their saddles, thrall or no.  Same for Bridget the tailor, which put them both higher on his list. 

Of the other five, the arguments from the night before still stuck in his head and he started to chew on them in the light of his "Still Thralls" scenario. 

Brogan the chandler seemed less likely (even though his attitude made Fishlegs want to move him higher up the list), just because, as the man himself had pointed out this morning, dragons would be more dangerous to his stock than helpful.  On the other hand, that could be the perfect cover; the man who had nothing to do with dragons wouldn't be suspected of trying to find out details on them or other spying activities.  But, as a thrall, he'd be stuck in a chandlery for working… or, perhaps, made into an errand boy for Birchnut clan Thorston, since she was the primary chandler in the tribe.  Soap-making, especially the leeching of the potash from the wood and kelp ashes, was a messy business, so that wasn't something he could draw a conclusion from.

Even if he wanted to.

Maghnus, the brewer, had much the same arguments against him being the spy, although being a brewer, he did have a much more people-facing profession.  But, again, as a thrall, he'd be stuck in the back of his master's stall.  Same for Murchadh, but that would put his position near Hiccup's workshop, which had alarming implications, and put him to the top of Fishlegs' list.  Oisin and Seamus, as mason and carpenter, were the only two that had jobs that would give them mobility, and even then, they could easily be set to working on the less pleasant chores for their masters, so that was no guarantee of access. 

But out of all of them, Heather just seemed the least likely to him.  She was the youngest and therefore least experienced, and looking at the stories, if she had _stayed_ a thrall, she would have had the least mobility around the village out of all of them.

With the fire in front of him now burning merrily, Fishlegs stared into the flames and continued to think. 

###

The next morning, Hiccup grimaced as Healer Jørgen prodded the cut on his back, the bandages having been removed. There was exactly _one_ way for him to lie down that didn't have him lying on either the cut or the rib, and, of course, he wasn't allowed to.

"Does that hurt?" Jørgen asked, prodding part of the skin below his shoulderblade.

"Yes," he said through gritted teeth.

"That?" Jørgen pressed elsewhere.

Hiccup yelped.

"I'll take that as a yes," Jørgen said dryly.

Hiccup looked to the other bed for commiseration in misery, but, of course, the privacy screen occluded his view of Astrid, who was also being examined.

A few minutes later, the healer washed their wounds with something that had a sharp and astringent smell, and then rewrapped both of them in fresh linen bandages, with a liberal salving of a honey-based ointment that smelled like flowers.  Instructing them to put back on their clothes, he stepped out past the privacy screens, and opened the door to the hall, to find Magnus and Wulfhild standing there.

Hiccup could imagine his friends' faces, both filled with concern. It had been the same expression Magnus had worn an hour ago when both Hiccup and Astrid had found that their wounds were hot, painful, and sensitive to the touch.

"Well?" asked the king.

"Their wounds have a mild infection. I rewrapped the bandages with fresh ointment and will check again this evening. I recommend bed rest and minimal exertion for both of them, along with hearty foods. Keeping the wounds clean will also be important."

Hiccup, his shirt back on, walked around the privacy screen. Astrid having thrown back on the smock, was already standing there, looking at the healer, worried.

"Will we be okay?"

"I don't see why not. You are both young and hale, and the wounds are not terribly severe. Soup, meat, and other foods to keep your strength up, bed rest," his eyes flicked for a moment but otherwise made no comment, "and I will examine you daily as needed." He turned back to Magnus. "My lord. If that is all, I have more duties to attend to."

"Yes, yes, of course.  Dismissed."

"Thank you."

As the healer walked off, Magnus looked at them both with concern, as Stormfly and Toothless walked back in, Wulfhild patting the Night Fury's neck crest.

"I know that I have no right to give _either_ of you orders, but I've been getting reasonably friendly with these two," he said, giving the dragons a pat on their heads. "So, Toothless, Stormfly?"

The dragons looked at him.

"If these two try to go out and do anything that might make them sicker, I want you to sit on them."

The dragons laughed and nodded as Hiccup and Astrid looked at their friends, vacillating between amused and indignant.

"We'll behave ourselves," Hiccup said, and grimaced as the bandages rubbed against the cut, which was hot and sensitive.

"But we do have to go out at _some_ point," Astrid said. "I don't want to know what people will say if we don't show our faces for a day."

Magnus said, deadpan, "Either 'I hope they're not dead' or 'Lucky them,' I'd guess."

Astrid blushed and Magnus grinned, and Wulfhild gave a slight smile. "Jesting aside, my friends, I want you _both_ to be okay."

"Magnus, we still need to see our people," Hiccup said.

"Aye, aye. But at the same time, I want this to be at _most_ your sickroom."  His eyes narrowed.  "Not your deathbeds.  Infections _kill._   So you will treat this with all seriousness."

They both nodded reflexively. 

"Good.  Now, I'll have meals brought up, and you can go about the fort, but save your strength for fighting off those infections.  Wulfhild?  Can you stay and keep an eye on them?" 

The king's sister nodded and, with that, he turned and left the room.  Wulfhild gave them both a worried look.

"What's wrong, Wulfhild?" Astrid asked.

"I just… you two are my friends.  And I'm worried.  My mother died of an infection," the princess said worriedly.  "And that was only a little thing…"

"We'll be fine," Astrid said with a pained smile.

"I hope so.  But you two need to rest."

Astrid looked at Hiccup, and then gave a huff of an exhalation that caused her bangs to flutter, and then grimaced.  Sitting down gingerly on the chair by the table, she sighed as Hiccup joined her. 

"Yeah, I agree with that one," he said tiredly.

Wulfhild looked at them expectantly, and they waved her over.

"Who knew that having a king for a friend would have him turn into a mother hen?" Astrid said, as the dragons simply looked at them expectantly. 

Before Hiccup or Wulfhild could answer, the door opened after a quick knock, and a pack of servants descended with bowls of fish for the dragons, and a wide array of boiled eggs, fresh-baked bread, a small bowl of honey, smoked fish, and a sharp, soft smoky cheese was laid out before them, along with a pitcher each of whey and milk.  Three sets of nicely carved soapstone plates and cups were put on the table as well, combined with iron cutlery sets.

As the door closed behind them, Astrid blinked at the spread.  Then she looked up at Hiccup, a wide grin spreading across her face.

"So… think there's enough?  Given that you've been hiding a bottomless pit in there."

"Ha, ha," Hiccup said, even as he started loading up their plates with a little bit of everything.  Astrid grinned, and Wulfhild gave them both a smile, and the three of them ate in companionable silence for a while, punctuated by the occasional hiss of pain as one of their wounds protested.

Another knock sounded at the door as the plates were nearly empty.

"Come in!" Hiccup called, and the door opened to reveal Snotlout, who walked in with Tuffnut behind him.

"Wow, you two look like dragon crap," Snotlout said, glancing at Wulfhild, who gave him an unperturbed look back.

"Thanks, 'Lout," Hiccup said dryly. 

"Yeah.  So, look.  We're not going back to Berk with you."

"Wait, what?!" Astrid blurted out.

Snotlout looked around the room and sneered at them.  "I.  Am.  Not.  Going. Back. To.  Berk.  With.  You."

Hiccup looked at his cousin, eyes narrowed.  "Why not?"

"Because there's nothing for me there!" Snotlout said angrily at him.  "You took it all away from me!  I'm not going to be chief, I'm not going to get—" he cut himself off as he looked at Astrid, who scowled at him.  "I can't even _raid,_ like a Viking does!  And I found out about this place down in Greece that _will_ give me honor, and glory, and a chance to be a proper Viking!"

Hiccup's jaw dropped.  "You're going to join the _Varangian_ _Guard?_ " he asked, incredulously. 

"Yeah, I am.  Thanks for telling me about it, _coz._   I had to hear about it from some household thanes.  So, yeah.  I'm going to go down there, with Hookfang, and we're going to be badasses." 

"But your family—!"

"So?  I'll be back.  With gold, and glory, and honor, and a girl—that _you_ won't let me have!"

Hiccup grimaced and clenched his teeth.  Astrid did much the same for a moment, before she lost her fight with her temper.

"Do you really think that Hiccup 'took' me!?" she stood up and marched towards Snotlout, her shoulders set in fury.  "Do you _really_ think that you had a _chance!?_   You bloody _ass,_ I am my own _person,_ and you don't get to treat me like some _thing_ because you _want me!_ "  She towered over Snotlout by nearly a handspan normally, but he seemed to shrink even further as he finally pushed her too far.  Wulfhild watched with wide eyes and kept quiet.

"I'm with _Hiccup_ because I _want_ to be!  Because he's a good man, you _lout,_ and you _aren't!_ " Astrid poked him in the chest with her right hand angrily, her fury overriding the pain of her injury, backing him into the wall by the door.  "Did you _really_ think that I would choose _you?_   You, who has all of the worst attitudes of what it is to be a Viking!?"

"But you said that I _was_ one when I hit those eyes with a hammer," he said back angrily.

"Because it _was_ heroic, and it was awesome, but now you're just acting like a whiny child!" she shouted back.  "Acting like I have no choice!  Thinking that I'm just some kind of _thing_ for you to fight over with Hiccup!  Blaming Hiccup for _your_ own failures!"  She shoved him in the chest and he staggered back into the wall with a reverberating thud.  "I wouldn't want you if you were the _last_ Viking on Berk!  You're so amazed with yourself you forget that the rest of us might _not_ be!"

Hiccup, Wulfhild and Tuffnut all watched with wide eyes.  Hiccup thought about intervening, but, after a moment, reconsidered.  His cousin had made his own bed.  Let him lie in it.  And this was Astrid's fight.  If he jumped in, that would undermine everything she was saying. 

Plus… a part of him was enjoying watching his cousin, who had bullied him for years, getting his ass chewed out by Astrid.  Who, as she was pointing out emphatically, had _chosen_ him.

So he simply made calming gestures to the two dragons, who were watching the argument with wide, anxious eyes.

Snotlout clenched his teeth and nearly shouted back, "And _that's_ why I'm leaving!  Because I'll show you what it means to be an amazing Viking!  I'll make _his_ saga," he said, pointing at Hiccup, "look like a joke!  I'll come back, and you'll come to me, and I'll say _no!"_

"You… you…" Astrid sputtered, her fury becoming incandescent.  "Then _leave!  And when you come back, I'll laugh in your face!"_

"We'll see who laughs at who!"  He marched to the door and said, "And Tuffnut is coming with me!" he said before marching out and slamming the door behind him.

"Yeah!" Tuffnut said, a grin on his face after watching the two of them fight. 

"Uh…  what about Barf and Belch?" Hiccup interjected.  Astrid was busy swearing creatively at the closed door.

"What about them?"

"Tuffnut, unless you're going to drag Ruffnut off with you, they're _her_ dragon too."

"So?  Maybe she'll want to come with me!  Besides, the Guard gets to blow stuff up _all_ the time.  Of course she'll want to come!"

Hiccup looked at Astrid, who was working at getting her breathing under control, and then back at Tuffnut.  "Uh… Tuff?"

"Yeah?"

"Magnus is going to offer for her."

There was a brief pause as that bit of news dribbled into Tuffnut's head.

_"WHAT?!"_

Hiccup grimaced.  "Yep.  Well.  Not for sure.  But he likes her."

Tuffnut stared at Hiccup, eyes wide with shock.  And then the wheels started turning again.

"Wait, so…" he looked around the room, taking in the rich furnishings.  "We'd get to live like this?"

"Uh… well, you're her brother, but…" Hiccup paused as it became clear that Tuffnut wasn't listening.

Tuffnut grinned and walked out of the room after Snotlout.  As Hiccup went and closed the door after him, they both heard, "Hey, Snotlout!  I changed my mind!"

As the door closed behind him, Wulfhild visibly relaxed, and Astrid grimaced and muttered angrily to Hiccup, "But there's so _little_ to change."

Hiccup gave a little choking laugh, which she joined in on after a moment.  Wulfhild gave a little trill of nervous laughter.

"Well," Astrid said ruefully and still a bit angrily.  " _That_ could have gone better."

"Yep."

"Sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?  He deserved everything that you said to him," Hiccup said, a look of irritation on his face, aimed at his cousin.

She nodded emphatically, and then, after a long moment, gave a growl of utter vexation.

"Astrid?"

"Yeah?"

"He made his mistakes.  Don't take that away from him."

"I'm not.  I'm just realizing that _we_ are going to have to explain _this_ to his father.  And there's no way that he's going to take it well when we come back without his son."

Hiccup's jaw dropped open and he wordlessly mouthed obscenities for a moment before giving a howl of frustration at the ceiling. 

Astrid looked at him and nodded flatly as Wulfhild winced in sympathy. 

"Yeah.  My sentiments _exactly."_   Astrid hugged Hiccup.  "Even after he's left, he's still leaving _you_ to clean up his mess."

Hiccup hugged her back, and then his eyes widened as he noticed that her arm was bleeding through the bandage.

A handful of minutes later, Jørgen was back, and scowling as he unwrapped the linens.

"What did you do to it?" he asked with a note of irritation.

"Uh… shoved his cousin up against the wall because he was being an ass," she said.

"With how much force?"

"Enough that he thumped," Wulfhild commented.  She had closed up again when Jørgen had entered the room, but Hiccup thought that he heard approval in her tone. 

"Hmm."  The healer poked at the wound, which made Astrid hiss with pain.

"Will she be all right?"

"Oh, yes, yes.  You managed to bleed a bit, and hopefully it won't prevent your arm from healing cleanly, but you didn't pop any of the stitches, which was my first worry.  Why were you thumping his cousin?"

"Because he's such a self-centered jerk that, if I was on fire and he had the last bucket of water in the city, I'd sit myself down and enjoy the warmth rather than give him the opportunity to lord it over me."

Wulfhild gave a brief grimacing laugh at the image, before clicking her mouth shut as the healer looked at her.

"Well.  That's an image," Jørgen said dryly, turning back to Astrid.  Behind him, Wulfhild caught Hiccup's eye and gave a rueful nod that confused him.  "I've met a few young men like that.  Usually, they end up becoming old men like that."  He rewrapped the bandage.  "You _will_ stop moving it, or I will put it in a splint anchored to the bed, so help me.  Understood?"

"Yes," she said, gritting her teeth as he tied the linen wrap off tightly. 

"Good.  Now.  Rest."

Jørgen rose and looked over Hiccup.  "Do _you_ have any percussive issues that I need to be aware of?"

Hiccup shook his head.

"Good.  I will take my leave, then.  Until later."

###

Ruffnut toyed with the ends of her hair as she sat in the great hall.  Her brother was off somewhere with Snotlout, and she was bored.  She didn't _dare_ pull any pranks here, though.  Not after the way Astrid had put her foot down on the topic.  

Said foot had been on Ruffnut's belly while Ruffnut had been on the floor, moaning in surprise. 

So she was limited to playing pranks on the other Hooligans in order to deal with her own boredom.

She wondered if Fishwings had found the little gift that had mysteriously been put into her sea-chest yet, and took a light sip of her ale as she waited for the inevitable reaction.  Fishwings was such a sourpuss that it made her such a wonderful target for pranks; you would always get a grand reaction from her for something relatively minor.  Horsefeathers, on the other hand, was so calm and collected that Ruffnut felt like _she'd_ been somehow pranked in reverse when he uncovered her jokes and just went about his business as if he hadn't noticed.  Meanwhile, spiking Snotlout's drinks at dinner so that he'd be too drunk to harass Astrid and Hiccup had lost its entertainment value.  She'd done it that first night just for fun, but now it was just becoming routine.

Mostly, though, she was so, so _very_ bored.  They spent half of the day talking.  Yesterday had been exciting for a bit… and then it'd gone very boring all afternoon.  And after two and a half weeks at sea when Barf and Belch could only fly when they had the ability to make landfall, she needed to do _something_ to keep the boredom from liquefying her brains and sending them running out of her ears, reducing her to a gibbering moron, or her brother.  But she repeated herself. 

Yesterday definitely had been interesting, though—at least in what it implied, if not the monotonous time spent in here under guard.  She wondered why someone had tried to kill Hiccup just for talking, and what it was he had said that had been so bad that it had been worth breaking an oath over. 

Magnus's own oath had been impressive, though, and she had already taken a few notes to share with her uncle for when she got back to Berk for him to add to the sagas. 

As she mused to herself, the king walked back into the great hall, talking intently with that fat adviser of his, Einar.  While they didn't wave their arms around as much as Hiccup did—you could read _his_ body language from the other end of a field—it was pretty obvious that they were having a pretty intense discussion, and she wondered what it was about. 

Well, it wasn't her business.  No, her role here was to back up Hiccup, help guard him if necessary—although Astrid and Toothless had that covered, it seemed—and represent her clan to the royalty and nobility of Norway. 

She shrugged.  On that thought, she'd managed to make the king laugh when they'd been out flying on her dragon the other day, and he'd been fun to fly with.  They'd bantered a bit, and it had turned out that they'd both memorized _Beowulf_ , so they'd ended up making a little game of it by accident.

 He'd been quoting the stanzas where Beowulf had gone to fight the dragon at the end of the saga, and had paused for a brief moment—to appreciate the view, she thought later—and she'd picked up the stanza from where he'd left off on reflex, as she normally did when she and her brother did the same game.  He'd been _really_ surprised, and she'd recited the next three stanzas letter-perfect, and then paused.  He'd simply grinned at her, and picked back up from where she'd left off.  From there, it had turned into an actual game, with each of them having quoted one bit back to the other, who had to continue it. 

And, thanks to her brother—not that she'd ever admit it to him—she was _very_ good at that game. 

So the King seemed to be impressed with her.  And that had to be good for her clan, right?

Their argument seemed to be slowing down, their arms waving around a bunch less, and then, after they kept talking for another few moments, the old noble glanced in her direction for a moment.

Huh?

Ruffnut, confused, glanced to either side of herself, wondering if it was someone else that the old nobleman was looking at, but no, the benches on either side were empty. 

She looked back at them after a moment, still confused, but Magnus was walking away from the nobleman, who was looking at him… and Magnus was walking _towards_ her.

In a bit of a panic as he reached her table, she said reflexively, "I didn't do it!  It was Tuffnut's fault!"

The young man blinked and looked at her more closely.  "What?"

"Whatever the problem is, I didn't do it," she insisted.  "It was Tuffnut's fault, promise."

He looked at her, confused, and laughed after a moment.  "I… I think you're mistaken as to why I'm here, milady."  He smiled at her.  "I was just wondering if you'd be… well…" he blushed.  "I don't want to seem too forward… um… well…"  He grimaced and swallowed before giving her a painful smile.

Ruffnut had _no_ idea what his issue was, but she didn't seem to be in trouble, so she just nodded encouragingly. 

"Well, so…"  He took a deep breath and sighed, and stiffened himself.  Then he bowed to her and said, his voice dropping into a singing register,

" _The skies stretch, the land lies low,_

_The mountaintops strewn with snow,_

_Whipping in winds, hair of gold,_

_Ringing old rhymes of deeds bold._

_Distant domains, chiefly concernings,_

_Wit whetted and young yearnings,_

_Rapport requited, repartee ribbing,_

_Jubilant jests, lively laughing._

_Water for the withered, draught for the dried,_

_Sip slightly satiated, and suit supplicated,_

_Petition for a portion of potion of peace,_

_My quatrain question quietly quiesce."_

Ruffnut stared at him in utter shock, her eyes feeling like they were going to pop out of her head.

After a long pause, as Magnus looked at her worriedly, her thoughts lurched back into motion, and she made a noise of _recovering_ shock.

Oh gods. 

Magnus had just declaimed a _mansǫngr_ for her, a love-poem, a _maiden-song._   Oh _gods_.  Legally, he had effectively just asked her to marry him, or for her to at least consider it.  And, potentially, although it was all straightforward, her family could still take offense, legally…

And he'd done it _in public,_ too.  People were staring. 

She could hear Frigga laughing.

And… well…

He was look at her, his heart in his eyes, and she suddenly realized that she had barely breathed since he finished…

And everyone was looking at _her._

No.  He _couldn't_ be serious. 

No way. 

It wasn't possible.

He was a king.  Why would he be interested in _her?_

And then she looked at him and realized that… he was.

For whatever reason, he _was_.  And while there wasn't more than a handful or two of other people in the great hall, they were _all_ looking at the two of them.

But he was just looking at her.

And he was terrified that she would say no.  That she'd just shut him down right now… like she had Snotlout.

She blinked and stood and bowed to the king… to _Magnus,_ the first man to look at _her,_ and not just as the nearest available girl.  He'd composed that _for_ her, and in just the last two days… and with killers underfoot, no less. 

Her heart melted, and extending her arm up in front of him, she started to hum, and whispered to him, "Yes.  Yes.  And do you know this one?"  Vocalizing to get herself in tune, she began to sing a song she'd heard around Berk many times, beginning with the woman's part…

_"My dearest one, my darling dear,_

_Your mighty words astound me._

_But I've no need of mighty deeds,_

_When I feel your arms around me."_

Magnus, his eyes shining and a grin that stretched clear to his ears on his face, put up his own arm and they started to dance.

_"But I would bring you rings of gold_

_I'd even sing you poetry_

_And I would keep you from all harm_

_If you would stay beside me,"_ he sang to her, apparently knowing it as well.

She grinned to match as people started to clap and they started to circle around each other. 

_"I have no use for rings of gold_

_I care not for your poetry_

_I only want your hand to hold_

_I only want you near me."_

Dancing around each other, forearms a few inches apart, she and the king sang the chorus, and they whirled around each other.

###

 _Then_ _leave!  And when you come back, I'll laugh in your face!_

"We'll see who laughs at who," Snotlout said furiously to the memory as he stomped across the courtyard, away from the king's wing.  He wanted to scream.  Or punch something.  Tuffnut had turned on him too!  Tuffnut, his literal partner in cattle raiding! 

He didn't know what Hiccup had said to him, but Tuffnut had abandoned him too!

Well, he was going to show them.  He was going to show them _all._

He marched towards the great hall, intending to raid the kitchen.  He'd only picked at his breakfast, his stomach sour from his hangover.  It must have been something about the food here, because he'd had a hangover every single night so far, and he swore that he had counted his cups last night.  Maybe it had been the ale that the thanes had shared? 

He shrugged.  It didn't matter.  What did matter was that he was hungry… and…

Huh?  There was singing coming from within the great hall, and a great deal of clapping and foot stomping. 

Something was going on.

Going to go investigate, he stepped inside… and froze.

He thought that he'd felt betrayed before.

And now…

Ruffnut and the king were dancing around each other, singing, and it was a song that he recognized. 

His vision swam and he felt like he'd been punched in the gut.

Breathing heavily, he stared at Ruffnut, but she didn't even seem to notice him standing there. 

 _Nobody_ seemed to notice that he was standing there.

Backing out of the great hall, he ran off, towards his room in the guest hall. 

A king.

How could he compete with a king?!

Bad enough that he had his cousin to deal with.

Now even _kings_ were poaching!

Gah!

Well, then nobody would even notice that he was going to _leave!_

* * *

 

  **A/N:** A huge thankyou to my beta reader,  **batyatoon,** for helping with editing, and most  _especially_  for helping with Fishlegs’ poem.


	18. Leavetakings

**Chapter 18: Leavetakings**

_On the topic of Snotlout Jorgenson, Astrid Haddock's journals frequently refer to the man in epithets, at turns variously angry, vulgar, or frustrated, rather than by name.  However, given their own tangled history, this is hardly unsurprising.  Jorgenson had a long history of clumsy attempts at seducing her in their youth, despite her repeated efforts at emphasizing that such interest was both unwanted and unrequited.  These culminated in a confrontation at the court of Magnus the Good—an event that Jorgenson himself later wrote as being one of the definitional moments of his life.  This shared history and established dynamic became the foundation for their infamous interactions as adults._

_Interestingly, until her attention was brought to the significance of the moment years later, Astrid's own journals gave little mention of the incident that prompted Jorgenson's departure, beyond a few notations on having to explain matters to Spitelout Jorgenson, Snotlout's father and the marshal of Berk at that time.  Once the significance became clear, however, her journal entries on the topic essentially summarized to the points that she was not responsible for his choices or desires, that it was his own responsibility to control himself, and that her only regret was that she hadn't hit him harder that day.  This is, of course, excluding a significant portion of extremely creative vulgarity in regards to Jorgenson, to the point where it is suspected by historians that her friend and lifelong associate Ruffnut Fairhair I had some input into the layered kennings in the later journal entries, built upon earlier epithets (Fairhair having had her own negative adolescent experiences with Jorgenson and his attentions)._

_—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd._

After having had both a heavy lunch and a chance to stop and think for a bit… a very long bit, Hiccup walked down the hallway to the rooms where the rest of the Hooligans were quartered. 

Bracing himself, he knocked on Snotlout's door.

"Go away!" his cousin's voice came through the door.

Sharing a look with Toothless, he sighed, and then spoke.  "Snotlout!  I need to talk to you."

The door burst open a moment later, and Snotlout, breathing heavily, stood in the threshold. "What do _you_ want, Hiccup!?  An apology?  Are you here to try to get me to behave?  Or is this just for gloating?"

Hiccup folded his arms and shook his head.  "No… I'm… look, Snotlout.  We're kin.  And I'd love it if we could be friends.  But… I don't see that happening.  Do you?"

Snotlout snorted and walked back to the saddlebags he was packing.  "No," he said sullenly. 

"Yeah.  So… instead, I'm going to do three things and then I'll leave you to your choices… whatever you want to make of them," Hiccup said, staying in the doorway.

"Three things.  How traditional," Snotlout said with a sneer.  "Alright, I guess I owe you that much.  What's number one?"

Hiccup sighed.  "One… can you write a letter or something to your dad?  He'll worry about you."

Snotlout's fists clenched and then released.  "My dad.  Worry.  Yeah, I guess.  Sure.  I'll have it for you by the time I leave.  What's two?"

"Two is this," he said, holding out a small leather purse. 

His cousin stalked back over and snatched it, and it gave the tinkle of coins.  Opening the drawstrings, Snotlout poured some of it into his hands, revealing copper, silver, and even a pair of gold coins. 

"It's not much," Hiccup said apologetically as Snotlout stared at him, shocked, "But…" he sighed.  "But it should be enough for you to buy passage and supplies for you and Hookfang for the trip there."

"Why?"  Snotlout poured the coins back into the purse and looked at him, suspicion on his face. 

"Because three," Hiccup said, and extended his hand.  "We're kin, cousin.  And… maybe we haven't gotten along as well as we could have… but… well, kin help each other.  They look out for one another.  And, when one starts a new path in life, kin wish each other well and the blessings of the Norns." 

Snotlout looked at him, and then looked away. 

Hiccup tried not to hear the sniffle.

And then his cousin looked back at him and took his hand and shook it.  "Kin."

"Kin."

"I'm not changing my mind," Snotlout said resolutely.  "There's nothing left for me in Berk."  He looked at Hiccup with an undecipherable expression on his face.  "Nothing."

"I understand," Hiccup said.  "So I'll wish you a safe journey and many blessings for you for when you get there."

Snotlout sniffed and then, for the first time in a long time… he hugged his cousin, thumping Hiccup on the back, making him gasp from pain as his cut and rib were crushed and thumped.  But Hiccup returned the embrace as best he could, and then they pulled apart. 

One last look, filled with everything that they could have said to each other… and couldn't, and Snotlout turned away to continue packing.

And Hiccup walked away.

###

The net wriggled as the fish within it twitched and jumped, but the four dragons carrying it by the corners had no issues with carting it through the air.  A few fish managed to jump free, but before they hit the water below, other dragons caught them in midair with relish. 

Thornado gave a self-satisfied belch below Stoick as the four-foot-long cod vanished down his gullet. 

Stoick gave his dragon a sidelong look.  "Aye, and here I thought that you didn't like cod."

Thornado shrugged, a mid-air ripple of his back that jostled Stoick in his saddle. 

"It was there?"

Another deeply satisfied belch issued from the Thunderdrum, and Stoick snorted.  He turned to Mulch and Bucket, who were supervising the fishing team, and called out, "Get this batch over to the salting crew!  We're going to start laying down provisions for winter!"

"Aye, Stoick!" Mulch called out from the back of his dragon, and they flew on.  The work never ended.  Aye, the dragons made it easier in some ways, like the fishing, woodcutting, or even some basic gardening, but they had to be fed and handled too. 

A motion below caught his eye; turning, he saw Gobber waving to him and motioning him to land by the smithy.

In a rush of wings and air, he and Thornado touched down in front of the growing assembly of dragon dummies in the yard.  A few half-finished saddles were placed on them, and the village leatherworkers were busy cutting and shaping, including the new one, Una.  She caught him looking and reflexively looked away.

With a sigh, Stoick held up a hand to Gobber.  "One moment."

"Aye, Stoick," his friend said.

Stoick turned and walked over to the freewoman.  "Una."

"Aye, milord?" she asked nervously.  "I didn't mean nothin—"

"Una!" Stoick said, exasperated.  "Yeh're a freewoman.  Not a thrall.  I understand that it's hard, and it's only been a handful of days, but yeh needn't apologize to me for looking."  He held out a hand.  "Promise me that yeh'll try to remember that."

She glanced down.  "I'll… I'll try.  Milord."

"Aye.  And it's Stoick.  Save the 'milords' and the like for when it's appropriate."  He held out a hand.  "Agreed?"

She looked slightly awed and nervous, but managed to extend her hand and shook his.  "All right," she said in a small voice.

Stoick smiled at her and patted her on the shoulder.  "Aye.  So, how's it working with dragon leather?"

"I'm still learning what it can do," she said, "but give me time.  I'll do it."

"No worries there," Stoick said, and turned to leave.  Just before he walked back to Gobber, he turned his head and, giving Una a smile and a nod, said, "Remember!  Freewomen bow their heads to nothing on Berk!"

She smiled slightly, and got back to work trimming the leather for the girth of the saddle she was working on. 

Gobber was smiling at him as he strode back.  "Ah, Stoick.  Give them time.  They'll adjust."

Stoick cocked his head and gave his friend a sidelong look.

"Then again, yeh never have been one to just leave well enough alone," Gobber said, quirking an eyebrow.  "Come on."  He gave a motion to follow, turned and went into the smithy.

Following, Stoick found Spitelout and Fishlegs already inside.  "Ah.  On that, eh?"

"Aye.  The lad had a good thought."  Gobber turned to Fishlegs.  "Tell 'im."

Fishlegs swallowed nervously and said, "Um… so, the thought I had was that we might want to look at things from the point of view of 'What if Berk kept thralls?'—"

Stoick instantly felt his mood darken at the thought.

"—for determining who the spy might be…"  He trailed off, looking worried, and Stoick realized that his own face had turned stony.  Composing himself, he motioned for the lad to continue.

"So… um… yeah.  So they wouldn't know that they'd be freedmen here, so…"  He looked down, bridging his fingertips together and bouncing them back and forth.

Stoick sighed.  "I see yer point, lad.  Any more thoughts?"

Fishlegs nodded.  "Well, um… I think the most likely ones would be the ones that would have the ability to go around the village freely, or be in close contact with the dragons."

Stoick chewed that over for a moment, looking up at the ceiling in thought. 

As he thought, Fishlegs said, "While it wouldn't let us eliminate anybody from the list, it would let us figure out who is more likely?"

"And who _is_ more likely?" Stoick asked.

"Well, I… um…" Fishlegs hesitated.

Stoick looked at the lad and rolled his eyes.  "Fishlegs.  I know that yeh have a first rate mind and that yeh've already thought on this.  So, who are yeh thinking are most likely?"

Fishlegs looked down at the floor and said, "I think Oisin and Seamus, followed by Murchadh and Una."  He looked up and raised a fist, and then extended his index finger.  "As people working on buildings, the first two would have the ability to wander around without too much issue," he raised a second finger, "and the second two have crafts that could be— _will_ be—helpful with the dragons."

Spitelout cocked his head to the side in thought.  "Aye, that makes sense."

Gobber rumbled.  "Aye, lad, but you're forgetting something."

"What?" Fishlegs asked.

"If we're talking about them as still thralls, then what about the lass?"  Gobber stepped forward and patted his hammer-hand against his flesh-and-blood hand.  "She'd be right with yeh."

Fishlegs flushed and muttered something to the floor.

Spitelout smirked and said in a false-considering tone, "Aye, but she'd be a touch… busy to be a proper sp—"

He cut off as Stoick glared at him and interrupted. "Spitelout!  That's enough!"

"What?  Why?"

"This isn't a joke, Spitelout!  We have an entire village to protect here, and your sense of humor isn't helping any—"

There was a hard knock at the door, which swung open after a moment too brief to be given the label of 'pause.'

Stoick suppressed a groan as he saw one of the visitors that had been flocking to Berk standing in the doorway.  The visitor, a noble Francian, was only a few years older than Hiccup, and had perhaps half the sense of his son—on one of his son's bad days.

"Jarl Stoick!  There you are!" the finely dressed man said, a slightly wild look in his eyes.  He'd been pestering Stoick since he'd gotten to Berk yesterday morning; Stoick had offered the man hospitality when he'd arrived, and was already coming to regret it. 

"Yes, Sir Henry?"

"Well, my good Jarl, I would very much like it if we could discuss my petition!" the Francian man said, stepping deeper into the smithy. 

Stoick looked at the man with narrowed eyes and a set jaw.  "No."

"Jarl Stoick, I feel that I've been quite reasonable!  So why are you being so difficult?!"

Stoick marched up to the man and loomed over him.  "For the last time, _no._   I will not sell or trade dragons to you, or your father!"

"Five purebred head of cattle per dragon, from my own herds!" Henry said intently.

"No."

"Ten!"

"No."

"Fifty!"

_"No."_

"You drive a hard bargain, my good lord.  But what do you say to one hundred head of cattle, the finest that Brittany has to offer, for a single measly dragon?"  He spread his arms wide.  "It's not as if you'll miss it, you have so many!"

Stoick glared at the man.  " _No!_   And do not pester me about it again!"

Henry reached out and grabbed at Stoick's wrist guards, his demeanor near-frantic.  "Milord, _please—_ "

"Get.  Your.  Hands.  Off.  Of.  Me," Stoick bit out. 

Henry jerked his hands off of Stoick as if they'd been burned, and said plaintively, "But, milord, if you'd just consider…"

Stoick turned to his marshal.  "Spitelout.  I am rescinding hospitality for Sir Henry of Brittany here.  Escort him to his ship and send him on his way."

Spitelout looked saddened at the loss of the free entertainment, and sauntered over.  "Come on, now.  Let's go!"

Henry, his eyes wide with disbelief, said, "No wait, milord!  Listen, you don't understand—"

Spitelout, irritated, grabbed the smaller man by the arm and started to pull him towards the door.  Henry struggled as best he could, and his tone and bearings becoming increasingly unhinged. 

"I'm sorry!  I shouldn't have!  I apologize for my disrespect!  Please!"  He grabbed hold of the doorframe posts as Spitelout grunted with effort.  "Listen, listen!  Five _hundred_ head of cattle for a single dragon!  Just one, please—"

" _No!_ " Stoick said, exasperated.  "Now go!"

"Milord, it is a matter of honor!  Please!"

Stoick sighed again.  "Spitelout, hold."

With a sigh of disappointment, his marshal stopped hauling on the annoying young visitor, but didn't let go.

"Milord, I swore a wager—an ill-thought wager!—on my honor, and now you are my only hope!"

Stoick sighed.  "What was the nature of the wager?"

"With my brother, milord, my younger brother!  If I don't come back with a dragon, I'll lose my inheritance!"

With an appalled look at the young churl, Stoick asked, his voice a little strangled, "And what did your _brother_ wager?"

"His betrothed, Lady Joan, one of the greatest beauties—"

Stoick cut him off.  "So whoever wins this… _bet_ gets both the inheritance _and_ the lady?"

"Aye, milord!  So you see the stakes for which I am indebted to you!  Please, aid me!"

"And what does the lady think of this?" Stoick asked softly, keeping a tight lid on his growing fury.

Sir Henry gave him a blank look, as if he couldn't understand what Stoick was asking. 

"Aye… that's what I thought.  Spitelout?  Get rid of him."

Spitelout heaved, and Henry's hands came loose from the door, in a manner that left Stoick surprised that there weren't divots carved in the wood. 

As the man's screams of protest echoed and diminished as Spitelout manhandled him down to the docks, Gobber ambled over to the door and closed it.

"Do yeh think he even _has_ five hundred head of cattle?" Stoick asked idly.

"Him? Maybe," Gobber said.  "His lord?  Almost certainly, if he wanted to go into debt."

"Oh, Odin, who is he going to crawl over to and rile up at us?"

"Well, he said that his lord was…" Gobber looked up in thought.  "Count Geoffrey Martel of Anjou.  From what I've been told, a nasty fellow."  He shrugged. 

Fishlegs made a quiet noise.  When Stoick and Gobber looked at him, he asked, "Why didn't you say yes, then?"

Stoick sighed and rubbed his forehead with his hand.  "Because, lad, do you think a man who acts with such disrespect would be capable of respecting a dragon?  No, he and his lord would treat it like a horse with wings, and I've seen enough of the dragons to know that they are close enough to men that selling one into such slavery is _not_ something I'm going to say _yes_ to!"

Before Fishlegs could say anything to that, there was a much more hesitant knock at the door.  After a moment's shared glance, Stoick opened it, to reveal Una and Heather standing there, Heather holding a mead hall tray in her hands. 

Una peeked in.  "So… what was that?"

Stoick growled.  "An outsider who thought that I'd put profits over my principles."

Gobber scoffed lightly, and Una and Heather looked thoughtful.  The younger girl stepped forward and, holding out the tray, said, "Magnhild said that I could bring you this, since you skipped lunch."

Stoick smiled at her and took the tray.  "Thank you." 

She bowed politely, and left. 

Stoick glanced at Fishlegs as she walked out the door.  The lad was obviously trying not to ogle her, which spoke well of him.  Honestly, she could do far worse, in Stoick's opinion.  He scoffed.  Like his glory-brained nephew.  If he started harassing the freedwomen when he got back…

Stoick took a plate of food from the tray—some small cherry tarts, drizzled in honey—and started to snack on them as he thought.  Aye, if Snotlout treated any of the women who had just arrived like he treated Astrid, he was going to have _words_ with the young man on how to behave himself. 

Oh, yes. 

He turned back to Fishlegs and Gobber.  "Should we wait on Spitelout, or continue?"

Gobber snorted.  "I say we go on.  At least then the lad here can get a thought out without Spitelout trying to embarrass him."

Fishlegs blushed slightly, and Stoick snorted.  "Aye, truth there.  So, lad, what other thoughts do yeh have?"

"Well… I was also trying to figure out what a spy would look like.  I mean, obviously, we don't have any books on the subject—I think; maybe Auntie Bladewit has some in the clan library that I don't know about—but that just meant that I had to think about it from first principles."

"And what have you figured out?" Stoick asked.

Fishlegs shrugged helplessly.  "Not much.  I just… I just don't _know_ enough.  I keep building models in my head and thinking 'oh, that's got to be it!' and then I check them for assumptions, and the whole thing comes crumbling down.  Like, if I wanted to train a spy to send to Vedrarfjord to find out stuff on their king, who would I send?  How would I prepare them?  And I'm not sure!"

Stoick sighed.  Great.  The most agile mind that he had available was having confidence issues. 

"Lad.  What _do_ yeh know?"

Fishlegs sighed.  "Like I said, not much."  He spread his arms out helplessly.  "I'm _guessing_ that whoever is the spy is older, though."

"Why?" Stoick asked. 

"Training time… and maturity," Fishlegs said wryly.  "Could you imagine someone like Snotlout—or even _me—_ as a spy?  We'd get caught on the first day!  And Hiccup?"  He shuddered dramatically, making both Stoick and Gobber laugh.  "But someone older… someone that's had time to get some experience…  I think that they'd be more likely.  Which takes Oisin and Seamus down on my list."

"What about Heather?" Gobber asked.

Fishlegs sagged.  "She's my age, Gobber.  Can you imagine Astrid or Ruffnut being able to pull off an act of being 'just a thrall'?"  He shook his head.  "And she doesn't fit the sneaky part of the pattern.  I mean, if she'd been stuck as a thrall… with me…" he said this last bit hesitantly, "then she wouldn't be part of the larger group of thralls that would belong to you.  She'd be a single household servant—and that wouldn't give her the time to go off and spy on things."

Stoick pondered that for a moment.  There seemed to be something off with that line of thinking, but he couldn't figure out what that something was.  "Aye, lad," he said.  "Good reasoning.  Keep up the good work."

Fishlegs nodded and smiled.  "Thanks, chief."

###

Astrid hissed in pain as the fur cloak settled on her shoulders.  Instantly, Hiccup lifted it back up, but she motioned for him to put it back down.  With the tailors still working on their replacement clothes, and not wanting to go back out in the motley of borrowed clothes, she was back in her formal clothes for dinner, and so was he. 

A knock at their door sounded, and Wulfhild's voice came through the wood.  "You two ready?"

"Just finished!" Hiccup called back, straightening her brooches and necklaces.  She gave him an indulgent smile and, holding hands, they left the room. 

Magnus and Ruffnut were also waiting out in the hallway, holding hands.  Ruffnut was bedecked in necklaces and gems atop her own formal outfit, which hadn't been the case before.  Astrid suspected that the source for the sudden array of jewelry had been Wulfhild's own jewel-boxes.

Looking at her fellow tribeswoman, Astrid said with a smirk, "So… I heard that Magnus here threw caution to the wind?"

Ruffnut blushed wonderfully and Wulfhild, standing off to the side, gave an amused quirk of her eyebrows. 

"I always knew that the poetry and rhymes he liked so much would get him into trouble one day," the princess deadpanned.

Magnus shot his sister a hurt look, and she laughed.  "Sorry, brother, but declaiming a _maiden-song_ in front of the entire great hall for a woman that you haven't even known for a week…  I'm not taking it back."

The young king shrugged and gave Ruffnut a grin, before saying, "Well, I'll take that over the usual courtship for a king." 

Wulfhild shrugged and nodded.  "Point."  She made a dramatic bow towards the staircase.  "Shall we?  They're expecting us."

"Yep.  We have to get out at least _once_ today," Astrid said.  Not that it hadn't be a wonderfully indolent day.  She had basically spent nearly all of it naked in bed under the covers, letting her wounds heal.  While a large bit of her had chafed at the inactivity, as she always did when convalescing, the fact that Hiccup had been with her for the majority of the day, and in a similar state of undress, had made the time much more enjoyable—even if their wounds had kept them from doing anything terribly athletic.

They made their way to the great hall, talking lightly about Magnus' proposal.  As they walked, Hiccup thankfully knew better than to try to treat her as too fragile.  Holding hands, though, was acceptable. 

Reaching the doors, Magnus and Ruffnut entered first, also holding hands, and a flurry of applause came from within.  Before stepping over the threshold, Wulfhild took a deep breath and seemed to… diminish before Astrid's eyes; instead of the excited young woman that she'd come to know as a friend over the last few intense days, she suddenly seemed as lively as a rag-doll. 

She tried to catch Wulfhild's eyes before the other woman walked into the mead hall, but failed. 

Then it was her and Hiccup's turn.  They entered and were seated at Magnus's left hand, while Ruffnut was now on his right, with Sigvatr next to her.  Meanwhile, Wulfhild was next to Astrid, and Einar the regent beyond the princess. 

The priest stood and blessed the meal, which was then served; a line of servants emerged from the kitchens, carrying plates of roasted meat, stewed fowl, and baked vegetables.  The serving dishes were placed on the tables, and the smell wafted over to where Astrid was sitting, making her mouth water.

Before anyone started to eat, though, Einar stood and spoke.  "Today is a blessed day!  Our king, whose skill with words is exceeded only by his reputation for goodness, has made a choice that brings us closer to our new allies, the Dragon Riders of Berk!"

The room applauded.  Tuffnut was clapping enthusiastically between Fritjof and Horsefeathers, and she noticed that Snotlout was absent. 

Good.

"Now, let us feast!"

With that, people dug in. 

Using her left arm, Astrid awkwardly grabbed as many tasty-looking things as she could manage—there was some chicken or other fowl marinating in some kind of fruit that looked interesting.  Her plate loaded, she watched Ruff and Magnus trade stanzas back and forth, which made her have to stifle a laugh. 

Sigvatr, watching the whole thing in deep amusement, leaned over to catch her and Hiccup's attention.  "So, young sir and lady, as you're the heads of this delegation, do you think there will be any… objections to this back in your home?"

She and Hiccup shared a glance and they both burst out laughing. 

"Let's go with a 'no,'" Astrid said, imagining the Thorston clan's reaction to the idea.

"Emphatically so," Hiccup said. 

The regent, Einar, toying with the slice of boiled and roasted ox on his plate, said in a practical tone of voice, "Sigvatr is right, however.  We'll have to start negotiations in earnest shortly, but as I understand it, you two are in no condition for extended travel regardless.  But matters _are_ complicated by the fact that her only kin here is her brother… and you, Master Haddock, are the official leader of this expedition.  So matters are somewhat complex on the question of who we should be negotiating with."

Hiccup quirked an eyebrow.  "We'll talk, but I think you're making this way more complicated than it needs to be, sir."

"Perhaps," he said, and got back to his roast meat. 

A group of thanes and other members of the household approached the high table, carrying musical instruments—drums, flutes, and some kind of weird wooden object that Astrid couldn't identify—and bowed to the king. 

"Milord," the leader began, carrying the wooden… _thing;_ it looked like a half-covered bowl with a long handle, with strings stretched across the handle and the bowl, "we wish to petition you for the honor of providing joyous music to you, your intended, your guests, and your household on this most blessed of days."

Ruffnut's jaw was hanging open; if Astrid had to make a guess, she wasn't used to being the center of attention in a positive way.  Astrid smirked at the thought; as pranks on the prankster went, this was pretty good. 

Meanwhile, Magnus grinned at his thane and said, "Please, Ketil, my good man!  Lift our spirits even higher than they are now!"

With a whirl, the thanes grabbed seating and began to play.

Astrid blinked as a sort of music she had never heard began to echo through the great hall.  The thane was using a bow to play the bowl-instrument, and it echoed grandly, and the others, having clearly played with him before, struck up a jaunty tune that set her feet to unconsciously tapping against the flagstones.  People started to clap their hands and pound the table, even as they ate.  As the meal went on, singers joined in for single songs between courses, and other people went and got their own instruments to join in. 

During a moment of silence when the musicians were quenching their thirst with beer and revitalizing themselves with something to eat, Astrid leaned over to Magnus and Wulfhild and asked, "What instrument is that?" mimicking the side-to-side stroking motion that the thane used with his bow. 

Magnus grinned.  "It's a Roman lyra; he brought it back from Constantinople when he returned from Varangian service two years ago, and a number of other instruments.  I personally love the music,  but he won't let any of the craftsmen look at them to try to replicate them.  So I offered him a position as thane so that I could hear _him_ play them."

Wulfhild leaned in and looked at Hiccup.  "Do you think that you could make a copy of it, Sir Hiccup?" she asked quietly; her eyes darted to the side for some reason as she asked.

Hiccup took a long look at the instrument, which the thane was holding like it was a young babe in swaddling blankets, and nodded.  "I can try, when I get back home and have access to my workshop again.  But I work mostly with metal and leather; I'm not a carpenter, although I know the basics."

"Caveat noted," Wulfhild said with an acknowledging nod.  "But that would be amazing.  I like Ketil," she nodded her head in his direction, "but," she leaned in close, "he's so selfish with his instruments."

"Sister dearest," Magnus said with a chiding—and half-agreeing—tone, "It's still _his_ lyra.  I won't be a tyrant and demand that he play it."  He sighed and closed his eyes as Ketil began to play again.  "Besides, this way, I can appreciate it for the gift that it is."

Wulfhild rolled her eyes and closed them in the same manner, as did Ruffnut after another moment. 

Astrid just shook her head and focused on eating her food one-handed.  It _was_ beautiful music, but she wasn't as hedonistic as the others were being about it. 

Then again, her sense of honesty nagging at her, given what she and Hiccup had been doing repeatedly over the last few days and nights, to her own deep enjoyment, she was the _last_ person who had any right to snub what other people found enjoyable, or their own focus on that indulgence. 

Her cheeks flushed a bit, and she took a quaff of sweet ale to hide it. 

Yep.  Not a hypocrite over here, nope. 

And then there was her own focus on martial prowess, and on flying. 

Yeah… she was just going to appreciate what she could out of the music, and accept that they liked it on a deeper level than she could. 

Wulfhild was unconsciously drumming her spoon in time with the music after she finished her roasted fowl, which brought a smile to Astrid's face.  Clearly, whatever was wrong with her friend was getting better.

Then Einar leaned over from his seat and muttered something to Wulfhild.  She paled, and jerkily placed the spoon down on the table.

Oh.

Astrid suddenly understood _something_ there.  What it was exactly, she didn't know, but a jumble of facts suddenly came together.

This place was Einar's holding, not Magnus's.

Until yesterday, it seemed like Magnus had to consult with his advisers on every decision he made.

And now Wulfhild was cringing back like a scolded hound—or worse—around Einar… and the fort's staff.

And the saga that Sigvatr had recited on their first night here had been the sum total of Wulfhild's mother's courtship—she hadn't even met the old king before they'd been wed.

With that in mind, she could see why Magnus was willing to take a risk on Ruffnut, despite having only known her for a few days…  And Wulfhild was still unwed.

She was going to have to talk with her new friend as soon as she could get her alone.  And maybe bring Ruffnut in on the conversation as well.

For the moment, with her wounded arm, she found Hiccup's hand and squeezed it tightly, and he squeezed back.  That didn't requiring moving her upper arm that much, thankfully, and she'd drunk another one of those foul brews from Healer Jørgen that helped with the pain.  Hopefully the effects would last through the rest of dinner.

An idea sparked through her head, and, after a moment, it caught the tinder of a plan and started to flicker. 

Smiling at the idea, she stood up; Hiccup gave her a look of concern, which she dismissed with a wave of her hand.  The work of a few moments let her corner one of the recovering flutists off to the side for a quick talk, which grew as they bounced ideas off of each other; explanations from her were met with him nodding in emphatic agreement, and then he offered a few suggestions of his own. 

Returning to her seat, she tucked back into her meal as best she could with one and a half working arms as the musicians continued to play.  It was peaceful, lively, and beautiful, with an air of celebration.

Plus there was the hilarity in watching Ruffnut's reactions to being the center of celebrated attention.  People kept coming up and offering their blessings to her and Magnus, or dedicating a piece of music to them, or, Astrid's personal favorite, Ruffnut's utter bewilderment at the cooks coming from the kitchens bearing a honey-, cheese- and nut-filled cake that the head cook proudly called a _plakountas tetyromenous,_ apparently made from some Greek recipe. 

Astrid got a slice of the pastry, and enjoyed the tangy, crunchy sweetness of it every bit as much as she enjoyed the look of utter perplexity on Ruffnut's face of _What, for me?_

Meanwhile, next to her, Hiccup was eating his own slice, but a frown crossed his face as he chewed and swallowed, and he sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"I… uh… Astrid… I was just thinking about Snotlout, that's all."

"Oh."  She looked down at her plate, with the sticky doughy crust in pieces.  "Right."  Forcing a smile to her face, she said airily, "Well, if they eat like this where he's going, then he's not missing anything tonight, is he?"

Hiccup snorted.  "I guess not." 

As they ate, the music continued to build around them.  As the meal had progressed, more people had brought in drums, flutes, tambourines, lyres and a few other oddities that she didn't recognize.  The strangest one looked like a goatskin bladder with a flute attached to it; the musician had a wooden pipe in his mouth, which he was using to keep the bladder inflated, which seemed to be excessively complicated as a way of playing a flute to her. 

As the meal wrapped up, someone started calling out for her and Hiccup to continue their story from the night before. 

Magnus just gave her and Hiccup a hopeful look.  Hiccup gave a wide grin in response.  "Of course!" he said, and stood up.  "We were just getting to the really good parts, after all!"  He bowed with a flourish to the room, and she was pretty sure that only she and Magnus heard his hiss of pain as his rib and wound protested at the motion. 

But his face was smiling as he came out of it and addressed the room.  "So, to remind people, let's see…  I was hiding in the smithy, desperately trying to fix the bent hook on the saddle before someone noticed that I had a _freaking dragon_ in the village, when suddenly…"  He bent towards her.

She grinned and called out, "'Hiccup, are you in there?'"

The audience laughed.

"So I'm panicking, because, hey, it's Astrid.  And I think that that's pretty much exactly what I babbled out, after I darted out through the stall shutters and slammed them shut behind me.

She nodded in confirmation.  "Yep.  And then I said that he'd been acting weird.  Well, _weirder._ "  She snorted.  "As soon as I said that, I think Toothless saw something interesting, and then suddenly, Hiccup gets pulled up against the shutters… and then pulled _through._   Oh, and the hinges went the wrong way."

A couple of people hissed and winced in sympathy.

"So I fling open the shutters… and no Hiccup."

He waved his arms about.  "Toothless had spotted a sheep and wanted to investigate.  So off we went—whether I wanted to or not!"

As her boyfriend described his father's return, and Gobber's revelation of Hiccup's skill at 'dragon fighting' to Stoick, which made people laugh and smirk, she caught the eye of the flutist and made a motion for him to get ready. 

And then, as Hiccup started to speak about his first full test flight with Toothless, she motioned to the flutist, who began to play, gently.  He'd apparently talked with the others as well, as they began to play along with his story, which she'd outlined during her chat.

Hiccup looked surprised, but continued on gamely, and the flutists kept working with him, describing their early fumblings through the sea stacks, and the dropping of the cheat sheet.

The entire room held their breath as he described the thousands-feet plunge down the side of Berk, the flutists joining in in full melodious glory of the moment.  Then he recounted, his arms waving about for emphasis, the high-speed flight through the maze of sea stacks, he and Toothless working as one, and emerging from the sea mists and shore rocks victorious.

The room burst into applause and the flutists trailed off.

As people clapped, he looked at her and gave her a wink, which she returned. 

Calm returning slowly to the room, Hiccup narrated the wonderfully awkward talk his father had had with him in his workroom.  It was fun to watch the realization cross people's faces as he talked, and his imitation of his father's accent was roundly received with amusement.

Then, wrapping up with his acceptance of the 'breast hat', a description that sent a good two thirds of the room into howls of laughter, he handed the next part over to her.

She stood and, with a bow, described her frustration at the semi-final exam against the Gronckle, how she was going to win this moment and be the one to fight the Nightmare… only for Hiccup to drop Meatlug like a sack of wet meal in the time it took to say it. 

Her own stealthy pursuit of him as he fled to the cove, she described in some detail, noting that Hiccup… lacked the sort of woodsman skills that might have helped him evade pursuit.  

"…and, going for as much surprise as I could muster, I hopped up on top of the boulder that he had knelt down in front of, talking about how he was going to be leaving—forever," she managed to resist a pained look at him, "and just set myself to sharpening my ax… casually."  People tittered. 

"Then I started asking him how he had gotten so good.  I maaaay have been a bit too aggressive about the whole thing," and her sense of honesty chimed in with an affirmative, but she whacked it back down; they'd talked about that and put it to bed already, "and he's a _terrible_ liar.  His excuse?  Making _outfits._ "  She snorted dramatically.  "Well, I didn't buy it… and proceeded to give him a little ass-kicking for the lies and everything else."  There was applause and laughter.

"Then, well, I had the shock of _my_ life when suddenly I'm face to face with an angry Night Fury, oh, and Hiccup here disarmed me." 

He shrugged humorously as people laughed.

"My eyes must have been _this_ big.  Here I am, no ax, no knife, staring at an angry black dragon hissing at me, and what does Hiccup here do?" she tousled his hair, " _Introduces us._   'Astrid, Toothless.  Toothless, Astrid.'"  She huffed dramatically, deliberately aiming her breath to send her bangs fluttering.  "Since he'd _clearly_ lost his mind, I bolted for the village… only to get snatched and dropped into the high boles of a pine tree while Hiccup here tried to convince me that the dragon was his _friend._ "

More laughter.  Toothless was standing behind her, doing his lovable fool routine, eyes wide and tongue hanging out, and he bent down and gave her hair a lick as she said it. 

Looking up at him, she rolled her eyes and flattened her hair back down from the spikes that the Night Fury's tongue had pulled them into, and continued.  "So I'm looking down at the ground fifty feet below, demanding that they put me down, and Hiccup here demands—"

"Asks!  I asked you, and said please!" Hiccup interjected with a grin.

" _Demands_ that he be allowed to show me that this big lug," she reached up and poked Toothless under the chin—away from the pressure point, the last thing her wounded arm needed was a limp dragon landing on her, "was friendly."

Toothless just gave his draconic chortle, with a decidedly humorously sadistic tone to it.

"So I climb on, and rather than going _down_ as I had asked…"  She flipped her working arm up into the air, describing a high arc, terminating with another poke to Toothless's chin, "he proceeds to take me for a ride.  High in the air, drop into the water, high up again, spinning, whirling…"  She held her arm up in the air as a sort of hopeless gesture, a wry grin on her face.  "So here I am, on the back of a lunatic dragon, holding on to another lunatic," she patted Hiccup on the head again, "for dear life, certain that I'm about to fall to my death and go splat, and I do the only thing I can think of.  I said I was sorry."

Toothless huffed and gave her another slobbery lick as everyone laughed. 

"After that, well, I got to see my home from the air, fly through the clouds…  yeah.  It turns out that a dragon who _likes_ you can show you some amazing things… and open your eyes to other possibilities."  Her insides seemed to flutter for a moment in sheer happy remembrance of the moment… and the happy moments since.  But as much as she wanted to dwell on them, she had a story to tell, so she continued. 

"Of course, then we had other problems—like realizing that Hiccup was going to have to fight Hookfang in the morning, and then, just as we're dealing with _that,_  he," she pointed to Toothless, who had sat back down behind the high table, "hears the Green Death's homing call.  We ended up being the first people on Midgard to see the inside of a dragon nest and tell the tale."

Her smirk turned bleak.  "So we're inside the Nest, hiding up in the top shelves of this giant cave inside the mountain on Toothless's back, dragons on every side, eggs stuck to every wall.   The flock comes in with us, and we're watching them drop food down into the foggy pit below… and then this little Gronckle, with only a single fish to drop, just gets _eaten_ in one bite by this set of jaws that would fill most of this room."

People hushed.

"So we manage to get _out_ of there in a _big_ hurry and fly back, arguing the whole way; Hiccup is thinking that they're all thralls, and I'm arguing that it's like a beehive, and the big dragon is the queen bee."  She shrugged.  "We're still trying to figure that part out.  But he convinces me to not tell his father, and, well, we'd just almost gotten eaten, and I'd just had my eyes opened up to this bigger world, so," she punched Hiccup on the arm, prompting a yelp of surprise from him, "that was for kidnapping me," she said, and the room laughed.

Then she bent down and gave him a much more chaste kiss than they'd been sharing lately on the cheek, "and that was for everything else."

The entire hall cheered and applauded. 

As Magnus's court expressed their approval of the story, she looked around.  Being honest with herself, she was exhausted, from the pain and the sheer effort involved in telling a long story with the wounds she bore.

But it felt like a cheat to end it here for the night… and then an idea came to mind. 

Once everyone quieted down, she said, "From there, well," she looked at Ruffnut from her spot a few seats down on the table, who had been listening and clearly taking notes to give to her uncle, "I think someone _else_ in here can tell _that_ part."

Ruffnut looked back at her, eyes wide, and then a slow smile crossed her face.  She stood as Astrid sat, and, in a clear voice, started to recite Chestnut's saga from where Astrid had left off; Chestnut had glossed over most of the parts that she and Hiccup had just told over the last few days, but he'd been there for the exam, Toothless's capture, and the fight at the Nest, and had gotten the details down more or less accurately. 

The room was stomping its feet in time as Ruffnut gave her uncle's saga to the room.  Astrid just leaned up against Hiccup, who had an amusing stuffed expression on his face.  Unlike last time he'd heard it, here he couldn't sit in the back and let his mind wander off unattended. 

Contented, she enjoyed listening to the saga, her lover next to her, him occasionally cringing in embarrassment, but not as bad as it had been previously. 

Life was good.

###

Snotlout checked the straps on the saddlebags again and loosened them a notch.  "How's that?"

Hookfang made a satisfied rustle. 

"You sure now?  It'll be hard to fix in midair."

Another approving rumble.

"All right then!" Snotlout beamed at his best friend.  "I think we're just about ready!"

Hookfang nuzzled against him and purred, and Snotlout patted his head.

Off to the side, Fritjof was leaning against one of the palisades, watching, and keeping his thoughts to himself.

He and the old thane had argued about this yesterday.

It hadn't gone well.

Fritjof was his father's best friend… and he was more worried about how Spitelout would take this than what Snotlout wanted.

And Snotlout had made it very clear that the only way that Fritjof was going to get him to come back to Berk was by knocking him out and throwing him on Nott and Delling's back. 

Then the smarmy old bastard had _tried!_

He'd forgotten, though, that he'd taught Snotlout how to fight, and fight dirty.

They'd both ended up wheezing on the floor, crying in pain, and then laughing together.

It had felt like a goodbye.

A voice came from behind him.  "So, young sir, here's my nephew, as promised."

Snotlout turned to see Oddmund and another young man about his age, tall, thin and blond, with a scraggly beard, looking at Hookfang slack-jawed in awe and fear, a leather rucksack dangling from one hand and another hanging from a shoulder. 

"Sir rider, this is my nephew, Karl.  He was already planning on joining the Varangians; he knows the way to Uppsala, and my thoughts were that he could trade swift passage there against that knowledge.  What do you say?"

Snotlout came over and extended his hand.  "Sounds great to me!  And here I was planning on just flying around until I bumped into the right spot!"

Oddmund snorted, and Karl seemed to jump out of his haze.  "Right.  Um… wow.  I brought some supplies, but we'll have to get more on the journey.  I can help barter for them, and we'll have to be careful when passing through the waters of the Danes—"

"Huh?" Snotlout said, and then realized.  With a smirking grin, he said sharply, "Karl."  The other man jumped, blinked, turned and focused on him. 

"Yes?"

" _We're not going by ship._ "  He pointed a thumb at Hookfang.  "How far is it _over the mountains_ to Uppsala?"

Karl's eyes grew wide.  Well, wider.  They'd already been near circles.  "Uh… I don't know.  Nine or ten _mil?_ "

"We can make that in a day, maybe two," Snotlout said dismissively, and preened when Karl seemed to grow faint.  Nonchalantly, he held out his hands.  "Well, give me your stuff.  We'll pack it in here, no problem."

Numbly, Karl handed over his bags.  It was the work of a few minutes to get them squared away in the saddlebags.

As he worked, Snotlout said diffidently to Oddmund, "So, you promised some letters of introduction?"

"Aye, I did.  And here they are," Oddmund said with a smile.  "I even got Steward Mark to stamp them.  Present them to Lord Harald when you get there, and you should have no problems whatsoever."

Smiling, Snotlout took the parchments from Oddmund and stowed them into his saddlebags after wrapping them in a small length of oilskin. 

Everything settled, Snotlout put his hands on his hips and looked around.  "I think we're ready."  He looked up, and saw that the sun was at its zenith… more or less.  It was a little hard to tell, this far north, as Sunna didn't exactly drive her chariot high above the horizon, the lazybones.  But the morning was definitely past.

A few minutes later he and Karl, buckled in with his spare safety harness, were on Hookfang's back, climbing up the side of the great hall.  Reaching the roof, Snotlout looked out over the city below, and the fjord beyond, and took a deep breath of the salty air. 

A gentle nudge of his friend's horns and Hookfang spread his wings.  Behind him, Karl gasped.

A downbeat and a rush of wind, and they were in the air.  Hookfang flew west, downhill, building speed and altitude, and then banked around to head east and towards Uppsala.

They overflew the fort one last time.  Snotlout looked below, seeing how open it was, how vulnerable… how easy it would have been to take.

And, standing on the roof of one of the buildings, was a Night Fury and a single human, watching him go.

There was suddenly a lump in his throat, and, impulsively, he took one hand off of Hookfang's horns and waved.

The figure waved back.

Fighting a tear, Snotlout turned his eyes back towards the horizon.

And glory.

###

Hiccup, hopping from leg to peg, walked quickly and carefully to the latrine closet with all possible speed; he and Magnus were still hammering out some of their negotiations, specifically on the expedition to Berk for him and others of his court to get dragons, and, well, he'd had too much sweet ale to drink.

He sighed in relief as he managed to get to the latrine before he couldn't hold it any longer.  Once he finished with his business, he took a moment to appreciate the nice basin of rosewater kept at the side, and scrubbed his hands in it.  That done, he then stepped back out of the closet—to find Einar standing there, his arms folded across his chest and looking stern.

"Oh, sorry—" he started to say, only for Einar to look at him flatly, with narrowed eyes and his lips set in a thin line, and say, "We need to speak frankly, young dragon rider." 

"About…?  And why not do it in the negotiations?" Hiccup asked back.

Einar looked at him for a moment in a way that felt so _very_ familiar to Hiccup; like he was a too-clever walking disaster.  "Boy.  Do you _truly_ think that an eleven-year-old child would have been able to seize a throne for himself?  I know that you have a working brain, so _use it._ "

Hiccup crossed his arms and gave a flat look of his own at the elder.  "So what?  He's king now."

"Aye, and I've spent a great deal of effort making sure that he _is_ king.  But he listens to _me,_ because I _put_ him there.  Am I clear?"

After a long moment, Hiccup gave a short nod.  "Yes.  You are."  And it explained a great deal of why Magnus had to keep listening to his 'advisers'.  "So why are you telling me this?"

"For a few reasons.  One, I first wanted to emphasize that _I_ did not order the attack on you.  I want you _alive_ , boy, and I want your dragons, either in my possession or as allies, and I know which is more likely.  Call me cynical, but you seem to be far too idealistic to attack an ally, and I'd rather have you in _that_ category than have your father demanding my head on a plate for your death."

"So who ordered it?" Hiccup asked, ignoring the rest of his comments; he'd think on _that_ later.  Also, Einar was old, and Magnus wasn't; his friend would be around much longer than this crafty and cynical elder. 

"That, I don't know, and assuming that Magnus's ham-handed efforts at investigation haven't driven them all underground, I _will_ be looking.  Think of me what you will, but I _will_ control my own house."  He quirked an eyebrow at Hiccup.  "And that's two.  Magnus may wear the crown, as a descendant of King Fairhair, but _I_ rule here.  Don't forget that.  Give the boy a dragon for him to ride, and some for the rest of his court, and I'll make sure that we fulfill our side of this alliance.  Is that satisfactory to you?"

Hiccup gave a brief blunt nod, his own face as set as he could make it.  "I guess it'll have to be, won't it?"

"I just wished to make certain that you _are_ satisfied.  You are the stronger one here.  I have no doubt of that.  So _you_ are the one that gets to set terms of satisfaction."

Mouth hanging open, Hiccup just stared at the older man.  "What in the names of the gods are you talking about?"

"Well, boy, what else do you want?" Einar asked.  "Coin?  Land?  Warriors?  You've got a woman already—and, yes, I know that you two are plowing furrows in the mattress out of wedlock, naughty, naughty—but if you want more, I could arrange it." 

"What kind of person do you think I am?" Hiccup shot back, offended. 

"A person.  A mortal, fallible, sinful person, despite what some at this court are coming to think—impressive work on that, by the way.  But, boy, I was raised in the old ways.  Even the All-Father made mistakes and acted out of greed, lust, and fear.  And you _aren't_ better than your gods."  He gave a satisfied smirk.  "The sooner you realize that, for all of their loftier claims, people are only really interested in coin, power, revenge, and sex," he quirked an eyebrow at Hiccup at that last one, "the better a lord you'll be when you come into your own titles."

Hiccup ground his teeth together, and then bit out, "I see.  Thank you for summing that all up.  Anything else?"

"Not much.  You've already managed to get rid of the one thorn in your side that I'm aware of—bravo, by the way, that was well done—and sent him into exile thinking that it was his idea all along."

Appalled, Hiccup gaped at the elder.  Did the man _really_ think that he'd managed to somehow trick Snotlout into leaving?  And did he _really_ think that that was a _good_ thing?

Not noticing Hiccup's reaction, or not caring, Einar kept going, "But I do have to ask what else you might be interested in.  An alliance is all well and good, but, as you've pointed out, we're getting more from you than you're getting from us, and I feel that that's… unwise, from my perspective."  He shrugged those vast shoulders.  "Being completely honest, I'd rather be in _your_ debt than the other way around, given how much power you have."

Hiccup shrugged  angrily and started to walk away.  "There's nothing that you can offer me that I'm interested in.  I'm here for an alliance and making friends, nothing more."

As he left, Einar said from behind him, "Oh, you little virgin boy.  You may have known a woman, but you don't know what it is to rule.  I vaguely remember being that innocent once.  Well, offer's still open for when you want it."

Hiccup walked away, feeling somehow unclean in a way that soap and rosewater wouldn't touch, and filled with shame from Einar's approval.  Returning to the council chamber, he continued to negotiate with his friend… but now it felt… off.  He could see the puppet strings. 

And wondered how he could help Magnus cut them. 

###

With a rush of wings, Snotlout, Karl and Hookfang descended towards Uppsala.  It had taken them three days to get here; they'd hit the coast of the Swedes by nightfall the first day, but they'd ended up far north of the port.  Flying south, they'd managed to find their way by following the coast and asking at various little villages as they went.  That had brought back memories of the trip to Alba.  Thankfully, Snotlout hadn't had to set anyone's house on fire to make a point; at a few places, they'd even been given free food and directions as a bribe to go away.  It had happened twice before he'd even had to make vague threats! 

But that wouldn't work at Uppsala.  It was a big city, larger than Nidaros, and many longboats were visible in the harbor, which was deep inside a fjord's winding channels, miles away from the coast. 

From their height a moment ago, though, Snotlout could see all the way to the waters of the Baltic Sea.

Below them, people were pointing in awe and fear.  Not wanting to start a riot—or an angry mob like they had at one of the first villages—Snotlout directed his friend to land at the outskirts of the city.

By the time the first warriors had reached them, he and Karl were nonchalantly waiting.  Waving to the men, he called, "Hello the folk!"

The leading men slowed for a moment, and one of them called back, "Hello the dragon!  What business do you have here!?"

"We're just passing through!" Snotlout called.  "We're on our way to Greece to take service with the Varangians!"

"And… and the dragon!?"

"Oh, he's with me!" Snotlout called.  "Don't worry!"  Hookfang was curled up nearby like a giant scaly dog, and he scratched his friend around the base of his horns, just as he liked it.  "He's well behaved!  We heard that an expedition to Greece was being gathered!  Does it leave soon?"

The oncoming men had paused, and were conferring.  After a minute or so, one of them stepped forward, his dress rich and his weapons fine.  "Aye, it leaves soon.  You want to take passage?"

"We do!  I promise that Hookfang here will behave himself, no worries!"

"…Aye.  We'll see.  You'll have to leave your dragon outside the city, but we can escort you to the docks."

"Can I take Hookfang to the docks?"

"He can't enter the city!"

"So we'll go around!"  He crossed his arms.  "Tell you what.  I'll stay with Hookfang, so that he doesn't get nervous without me, and you go tell everybody that we're peaceful, and we'll fly down to the docks.  That way, we don't have to enter your city.  Does that work?"

"…Aye."

As the men left, he turned to Karl.  "And you were worried."

Karl shrugged and rolled his eyes.  "Aye, a strong face made them turn back.  Well done.  But we're only getting started here."

Snotlout nodded.  "Yes.  Yes we are."  His saga was starting out strong; he'd wanted to bring Tuffnut along to be his skald, but his friend had said no.  Well, his loss.  He wouldn't be remembered as the skald who witnessed glorious moments and composed the saga to commemorate them for eternity. 

So it was up to Snotlout to record those moments until he could get them into the hands of someone worthy.  He'd even written some of it down on precious parchment, so that the auspicious details wouldn't be lost.  Thus far, even just starting out, he'd had many people bow and scrape the ground in recognition of his power and prowess—with the grand city of the Norse in the distance being the latest. 

He smiled, imagining himself being greeted at the gates to this great city that Oddmund and the others had spoken of, with a thousand-thousand people all pointing in awe and recognition of the glory that had come to them. 

Yes… yes that was a great image. 

And if this moment was any indication—he looked towards the city, and to the people who were watching and talking with the warriors, warriors who were still casting amazed glances at the three of them—that moment might well become true.  He basked in the thought, and in the moment; his feeling of self-worth, battered and bruised after the last several months, soaked in the deference and regard, like a farmer taking a hot bath after a week of working the fields.  Men, skilled martial men, who stood a head or more taller than him, were looking at him with respect. 

And that was just here, in this grand city of the Norse.  What would happen at this great city to the south, where they were so weak and fractious that they needed the aid of the Norse to hold together? 

He would have to find out. 

* * *

A/N: A big thank you to  **batyatoon**  for her beta reading, and to gameofthrawns for joining the team of betas.  

Meanwhile, my wedding is in two weeks, but I’m pretty sure that I can get enough of a buffer proofed before then in order to not need a hiatus.  Hope that everyone is enjoying the story!  


	19. Liminals

**Chapter 19: Liminals**

_The Norse temple and associated cult at Uppsala was one of the last major bastions of the Norse religion during the attempted Christianization of Scandinavia in the 10th and 11th centuries.  Razed in 1044 and rebuilt in 1056, the original temple featured statues of the gods Odin, Freyr and Thor on a triple throne, a sacred well and a sacred grove.  When the temple was first destroyed by Christian Crusaders, many of the priesthood managed to evacuate to Berk, where they formed the core of…_

_—The Second Flowering Of Yggdrasil: An Analysis Of The Norse Resurgence, 1710_

Head propped up on her arm, elbow on the table, Ruffnut watched Magnus with a happy smile on her face.  He and Hiccup were figuring out how to handle her marriage contract, and being quite honest, she was glad that it was Hiccup doing the work and not her brother. 

She was trying to pay attention to what they were saying, but… well…

_"With hair of wheat, and hands a'fleet…_ " she thought in her head—as opposed to out loud, as that tended to irk the people around her—composing another little ditty about Magnus.   She had been accumulating a fair number of them over the last few days, since the proposal.  Odes to his swordsmanship, his eddas, his beauty… She considered the line she had just composed.  Wait.  No.  That didn't work.  She wanted to imply that his hands were fast and skilled, not that his hands were a group of longboats.

"Lady Ruffnut?" a voice came from the side, and she blinked and turned. 

It was whatshisname, the priest.  She riffled through her little ditties that she'd been composing to herself over the last few days as memory aids for the members of Magnus' court.  Most of them were at the level of barely passable doggerel, but they helped her keep all of the new faces straight. 

Right. 

_Son of Henrik, Michael,_

_Tied to a book called Bible,_

_Worships a god called Christ,_

_Who was some kind of sacrificed._

_Always talking about sinners and sin,_

_Doesn't care that his hair has gone thin,_

_And his belly has gone all paunchy,_

_But gets angry at anything raunchy._

Putting her very best smile on her face, she asked sweetly, "Yes?"

"I again beseech you to please consider accepting Our Lord, Jesus Christ, as your Savior.  Please."

She shook her head.  "I'm a child of the All-Father, thank you."  And a devotee of Loki, but people tended to misunderstand that.  And she didn't expect this man, with his foreign god, to respect that.

"Milady, this is quite improper…!" he hissed.

She rolled her eyes.  "I don't belong to your god, so I don't understand why it's any of your concern."

"Milady, this is a matter of the direst importance!"

Narrowing her eyes, she whispered harshly back, "Look here!  I am _not_ abandoning my gods just because you make dire noises at me.  I am _not_ giving up my place in Valhalla.  My mother is waiting there for me!"  She sat back and folded her arms against her chest, her mood thoroughly ruined.

"Milady—!"

With a huff, she got up and marched to the door.  Before she reached it, though, Magnus spoke up, his voice etched with concern.  "Ruff?  What's wrong?"

"Gythi Michael here is being a bit… _pushy,_ " she said crossly.  "I'm getting some air."

She marched out into the great hall, and leaned against the wall, her fists clenched, eyes closed.

Footsteps sounded near her after a moment; she opened her eyes just as Astrid was reaching out a hand to her shoulder.

Pulling back her unwounded arm, Astrid asked, "What happened in there?"

Ruffnut huffed.  "That… that… _priest_ , he keeps pestering me to convert to his gods!  And he hasn't stopped!"

"Have you talked to Magnus about it?"

Ruffnut looked down.  "Not really, no.  I… well, I have other things I want to do when I get to talk to him."

Astrid quirked an eyebrow, and Ruffnut rolled her eyes.  "Oh, I _wish._   But, no, of the two of us, you're the lucky one there."

Her friend snorted.  "Well, come on.  I'm taking Wulfhild out for a flight.  Want to join us?"

"Um…"

"Stormfly needs the exercise… and I really think that you could use the time to clear your head," Astrid said reasonably. 

Ruffnut nodded.  Yeah, a flight would be great.  She'd taken Magnus out for a few flights over the last few days, but he was busy talking with Hiccup right now. 

A little while later, they were airborne, skimming low across the fjord, her and Wulfhild on Barf and Belch, and Astrid on Stormfly.  A number of longboats were coming in, and they flew past and waved as the sailors stared in awe.

Astrid directed Stormfly back over the city and towards one of the mountain peaks south of it, which Wulfhild identified as the Vassfjellet.  The river valley ended quickly, and the mountain climbed below them. 

Then Astrid called out, "Let's land!" and pointed to the small tarn near the top of the mountain. 

Shrugging, Ruffnut did as Astrid said, and they landed by the small mountain lake; it was maybe a hundred paces wide, surrounded by pine trees.  Barf and Belch, as soon as she and Wulfhild had dismounted, sauntered over to one of the trees and proceeded to scratch an itch against the rough bark. 

"Why'd we land?" Wulfhild asked.  "Is something wrong with Stormfly?"

Astrid shook her head.  "No.  Sorry, Wulfhild, but I needed some privacy to talk with you, and I brought Ruffnut along because I think that she needs to hear the answers," she said firmly.

Wulfhild suddenly looked a bit trapped.  "Talk about what?"

Astrid gingerly folded her arms.  "Wulfhild.  You've been dodging this for days, and I understand why—especially given the talk that Einar had with Hiccup yesterday.  I think you're my friend and I've seen how you… fold up and quiet down around him, especially since the attack.  What happened?"

Ruffnut watched, concerned, as a wave of mixed emotions crossed Wulfhild's face.  Anger, sadness, fear, surprise, pain, understanding, worry, terror…

"Wulfhild?  Are you all right?" Ruffnut asked quietly.

The woman was hopefully going to be her sister-in-law… and Astrid was right.  For the last few days, she'd been very withdrawn at times.  Maybe it was because she was older and still unwed?  She was already in her twenties, and Magnus was four years younger than her.  Maybe she was jealous?

As softly as she could, Astrid asked, "Wulfhild.  Are you frightened of the regent?"

There was a pause, and then, almost convulsively, Wulfhild nodded. 

Ruffnut blinked.  Of the regent?  Huh?  Why?  He was just a jarl, while Magnus was a king.

Astrid moved her and Stormfly in a touch closer.  "Wulfhild.  Why are you afraid?"

"I…"  Wulfhild began to speak, and then looked away.

"Wulfhild.  Nobody is going to overhear.  The nearest people are hundreds—thousands—of yards away in the valley.  And Ruffnut needs to know what she's getting into.  For Thor's sake, _we_ need to know what we're getting into!  Please, Wulfhild, don't let us stumble around in the dark!  Give us a light to see by!"

The princess sagged and said quietly and with a touch of resentment, "Easy for you to say.  Your man is powerful and kind.  Me, I've got nothing.  I'm a pawn.  Just a pawn."

"Einar said that to you?"

Wulfhild nodded. 

Ruffnut, confused, spoke up.  "But how does he have any say?  He's not the master of your House…"

Wulfhild laughed bitterly.  "Oh?  That's news to me!  He's been the master of my house and my fate since I was fifteen!  And after Astrid and Hiccup were attacked, and Magnus made his oath, he spoke to me and reminded me of my place."  She slumped.  "To him, I'm just a playing piece, to be sold for an advantageous marriage alliance.  He _reminded_ me that I need to be _proper_ and _decorous—_ or at the very least _decorative._   Because if word spreads that I'm somehow not a perfect princess, I'm not as valuable to him!"  Her tone turned even sharper and mocking, imitating the portly old jarl in cadence and accent, with a vicious nastiness that Ruffnut hadn't heard from him… yet.  "'Bad enough that you're a barbarian Norse princess from the far north from their perspective.  Behave, and maybe we can find you a nice duke's heir.  Maybe.  But endanger that, and I doubt anybody above a gutter baron would be at all interested.'"

Ruffnut jerked back in her saddle at the mocking vehemence in Wulfhild's voice, and then started to think about what Wulfhild said.

Astrid, however, simply nodded, as if this was exactly what she had been expecting to hear.  "Well, that's not what you are to us.  But I needed to know if he was telling Hiccup the truth, or if he was just boasting and trying to make himself look more important."

Wulfhild looked at her, pain on the princess' face that Ruffnut could see plainly.  "And what am I to you?"

"A friend," Astrid said softly.  "Aren't you?"

"I…"  Wulfhild looked at Ruffnut, uncertainty on her face.

Without even thinking on it, Ruffnut moved over, reached out, and pulled the older girl into an awkward hug.

Wulfhild sagged into the embrace, and shook for a moment, and a few tears soaked Ruffnut's shoulder.

For a long stretch, there was just the sound of the wind through the leaves and pine needles, the dragons rubbing up against the trees, and Wulfhild's quiet sobbing.

Then Wulfhild pulled back, sniffing slightly, and said, "I'm all right.  So… what did he tell your man?"  This last was addressed to Astrid.

Astrid gave a wry grimace.  "That he's your brother's puppetmaster, essentially, and he's the real king around here.  Oh, and that he wasn't responsible for the attack."

Wulfhild, still holding onto one of Ruffnut's arms cautiously, nodded.  "More or less, although I can _promise_ you that Magnus' oath wasn't his idea.  That really upset him; the next day, he came to me and…"  She slumped a bit.  "He reminded me of my place here, like I said."

"And that's why you were so withdrawn during dinner, before the musicians came out?" Astrid asked.

Wulfhild nodded, and gave a small sniff.  "And… well… he's right.  This is his home fief… we, our family, have holdings in the south, but not here… most of the thanes were picked by him, the staff is all his… and I'm pretty sure that he has blackmail or other strings on some of the men that he doesn't outright control.  But he doesn't control everybody; there are a few outside his sway, like Yngvarr."

Ruffnut made an encouraging noise, even as she thought about what Wulfhild was saying. 

So… her king was a puppet-king, controlled by his senior adviser, who was a corrupt and vicious old man.  And here she was, coming into his kingdom, until now completely oblivious. 

She wondered when Einar would have tried to control her… or if, as a woman, he wouldn't see her as important enough to try to control.  Wait, no.  He'd been trying to control Wulfhild.  Then again, there was a difference between a married foreigner and a virgin princess.

Eh, well, it didn't make a difference to her; if he tried, she'd have Barf and Belch set him on fire.

Not knowing Ruffnut's thoughts, Wulfhild continued.  "But don't get your hopes up. Yngvarr has no power.  He lets his brother command their fief, while he runs around playing messenger for my brother."  She looked at Astrid.  "I don't know.  It doesn't fit him to be behind the attack, but…"

Astrid nodded, and so did Ruffnut. 

Sighing, Wulfhild looked at Ruffnut.  "I hope that I haven't just scared you off.  It would break my brother's heart."

Ruffnut snorted.  "If Einar tries anything, I'll carry him up to the bottom of the clouds and let him drop."  She smiled at Wulfhild.  "I'm sorry, but you're stuck with me."

Astrid made a noise of deep approval, and Wulfhild cracked a wane smile. 

"Thanks for telling us," Ruffnut said to Wulfhild.

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as Wulfhild slumped a bit.  "What does it matter?  He still controls everything around here."

"Not everything," Astrid pointed out.  "Otherwise, he never would have allowed your brother to make that oath."

Wulfhild glanced up swiftly, her eyes widening in brief hope—and then seemed to deflate again, and nodded.  "…Right."

Astrid asked, concerned, "Everything all right?"

"I… I hadn't thought of it that way.  But it won't matter," Wulfhild said.  "I can… I can hope, but the fact of the matter is, he still got what he wanted—your people to protect him as allies—even if it wasn't in the _way_ that he wanted.  He's still in control around here, and I shouldn't get my hopes up."

Astrid's eyes narrowed.  "Well, we'll see about that."

Ruffnut smirked.  "Ayep."  She crossed her arms.  "Stoick, my dad and my step-mom have been trying to control me for years.  And I'll have Tuffnut here as backup."

Astrid winced theatrically.  Ruffnut considered giving her some pointers; she was really overselling it.  But Wulfhild seemed to buy it. 

"So, shall we have that flight?" Astrid asked carefully.  "We're out here, and I've been itching for a bit of flying for days!"

Wulfhild sniffed, rubbed at her eyes, and nodded.  Cautiously, Ruffnut helped her remount Barf and Belch, and they took flight again.  As they flew, Ruffnut considered what Wulfhild had said.

_So, the old fart thinks that he's in charge around here?_

She grinned evilly. 

_Try to get your hooks into me, you old bastard.  I bite back._

###

Snotlout bowed before the gods.  Thor, Freyr and Odin sat on their thrones before him as he prayed.  To Odin, he prayed for wisdom.  To Freyr, for prosperity.  And to Thor… for _glory._

As he prayed, he heard the sacrifices behind him being offered up at the altar.  He'd dipped into the purse that Hiccup had given him in order to purchase a hearty and healthy ram, and he and several of the other future Varangians were joining together to offer the sacrifices to the gods.  Those other young men knelt around him before the idols of the gods; they also were praying to the gods for their favor as their rams bleated their last behind him, and the priests chanted with each cut of the sacrificial knife.

The sacrifices given, he continued to kneel for some time, chanting in prayer, as  the priests then came with the bowls of collected blood and sprinkled it using bundles of branches from the holy grove outside, dipped the leaves into the hot liquid and sprayed the blood with a flick of the wrist across the kneeling young men and on the statues of the gods, chanting all the while.  Behind them, the cauldrons, each large enough for a whole ram, were holding the meat, just starting to simmer for the feast in a few hours, and the smell… brought back memories of his mother's kitchen. 

Regret and homesickness bubbled up for a moment, and a seductive thought came with them… that it was not too late to turn back… that he could go… home…

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, he focused on his prayers with renewed fervency.  Go home?  To ridicule and an existence where the things that he did best he was forbidden from doing?  To be known as the boastful incompetent, standing self-condemned as the one who turned and fled back from the unknown as soon as the waters grew rough?

No thank you!

No, if… _when_ he returned to Berk, it would be as a great and glorious war-leader, respected, honored, lauded, _revered_ , with gold and jewels dripping from his fingers, arms and neck, with a loyal and devoted retinue, and a beauty on each arm that made As… _hers_ look pallid!

_Then leave!  And when you come back, I'll laugh in your face!_

He scowled as that memory came to the fore again, and tried to banish it by focusing on the images of the gods—Odin in his armor, Thor with his hammer, and Freyr with his phallus. 

Well, if he wanted to be a respected man…  Men respected honor, they respected wealth, they respected prowess, they respected authority, they respected solemnity. 

And his name was not very solemn.  Karl had guffawed when he'd told the older man his name…  and other memories came bubbling up when he heard it.

He shook his head to clear it as he knelt before the gods.  Well, it wasn't as if tribal tradition didn't allow for someone to take a new name when they reached adulthood.  He was a man now, with a man's honor, and a man's glory to seize, and so he needed a man's name to go with all of that.  It had to be a proper name, one that would command respect, accrue honor, depict wealth, and be appropriately solemn. 

And he needed it sooner, rather than later, as the men around him would be his comrades  in Varangian service. 

He looked at the three gods honored here in this temple of Uppsala, one of the last bastions of the Aesir on Midgard according to the priests.

Thor.

Odin. 

Freyr.

He continued to pray to the gods.

And then his new name seemed to come to him, as if granted by the gods in answer to his prayers.

_Sigurd Trondsson._

Yes…

_Victory Guardian, Son of Prosperity._

Rising from his prayers, he bowed to the priests politely.

As blessings went, that was a bountiful one.

###

Covered in rock dust, clipboard in hand, Fishlegs strode down the length of the mead hall, heading for the Broodery.  The hatchlings were growing fast, and he had preparations underway for getting ready to move them from the nursery out to the main Rookery.  The Rookery was likewise being expanded, with Hiccup's design plans mostly implemented. 

He was so focused on the clipboard that he almost missed the sounds coming from ahead of him in the short tunnel before the Broodery door. 

But a frustrated cry of "Argh!" caught his attention and he paused.

"How do we open this thing?" he heard Brogan's voice say, irritated.

"Well, there's a keyhole here…" Murchadh's voice came.  "Maybe I can get it open…"

Alarmed, Fishlegs turned the corner, and saw the pair of freemen standing in front of the metal-faced door to the Broodery; they'd originally made it entirely out of wood, until the Sharp-class hatchlings had started chopping their way through, leading Gobber to cover the lower half with metal plates.  The lock had been added when the Changewing hatchlings had figured out how to open the door handle.

"What's going on?" he asked the pair.

They spun around.

"How do you get this door open?" Brogan asked with exasperation.

"Why?" Fishlegs asked, trying to keep the suspicion from his face.  Had he just caught the spy… _spies?_

"Because Birchnut sent me to get potash and dried kelp from the village stores, and Gobber sent Murchadh here to get some barstock, too," Brogan said snidely.  "So can you let us in so that us _outsiders_ can do our errands for our betters?"

Fishlegs crossed his arms in front of him and stared, unamused, at Brogan.  "I can let you in, but you won't find any potash or iron inside."

"Huh?" Murchadh said.

Fishlegs sighed.  "You're in the wrong place.  This is the Broodery, where we have the dragon eggs and hatchlings.  The stores are back in the main village.  Come on, I'll take you there."  He turned and motioned for them to follow.  Either they were genuinely lost and needed the information, or they were spies that already knew.

As he walked back up the length of the main hall, the pair of freemen in tow, he pondered if they were really lost… or if it was something else. 

Brogan strode up next to him.  "Why the lock, boy?  Don't you _trust_ us?"

Fishlegs sighed.  "Trust you?  Yes."  _No._   "Trust every visitor?  No.  And we don't trust the baby dragons not to get loose again.  That's why we have the lock.  Since we put it on there, we've gone from over two dozen escapee hatchlings per day to an average of one every other day."

The pair of freemen shared a look.  "Wait, there are little baby dragons back there?"  Murchadh asked.

"Yep."  Fishlegs glanced at the smith.  He'd been saying that he could get the door open… maybe he was the spy?  Or maybe it was from him being a smith…

Gah, he hated this suspicion business!  Why couldn't he just _talk_ with them? 

Doing his best to keep his suspicion off of his face, he said, "About a hundred and fifty, and watching them try to walk and fly is adorable."

Murchadh chuckled.  "I bet.  Like kittens with wings?"

Fishlegs nodded, and they stepped through the doors and down the stairs.  Leading the pair of them to the entrance to the village stores, he mused to himself. 

One thing was for sure; the pair of freemen had just shot to the top of his list of suspects.  While he wasn't going to make any accusations, he _was_ going to tell the chief about this incident.

Reaching the doors down to the village stores, he turned and said, "Down here; we've got them sorted in side-tunnels labeled by type.  Food, timber, iron, cloth, and so forth.  I don't know where the dried kelp is exactly, but I think that you can find it near the weaving supplies."

Opening the doors and entering the tunnels, Brogan looked around, then glanced at Fishlegs, and then went for the door to the lumber. 

Fishlegs frowned.  "Uh, Brogan?"

"Aye?"

"It's that way," he said, pointing to the door labeled _Weaving Supplies_ in big runes on top and in Gaoidhealg underneath in smaller letters.  Murchadh vanished down the tunnel to the smithing supplies off to the side.

Brogan scowled and said, "I can't read your writings, Norseman."  But he turned and went the way that Fishlegs was pointing.

Before Fishlegs could turn and leave, though, he heard a grunt and a woman call "Help?"

"Hello?"

"Down by the food!" he heard.

Heading in that direction, he found Heather leaning up against the wall of the tunnel about halfway to the storage chamber, her arms filled with loose turnips, parsnips and leeks that had obviously started to slip from her grasp.  One of her feet was still on the floor, while her other knee had pinned a leek to the tunnel wall; her left arm was hugging around her midsection to hold the armfuls of roots against her belly, as she hunched over to try to keep them in place, while her right arm was awkwardly holding another half-dozen vegetables in-between splayed white-knuckles and the wall.  If she so much as twitched, much less tried to stand up straight, there would be a brief rain of root vegetables.  Even in the dim lamplight, it was pretty clear that she'd tried to carry them all at once, started dropping them, and had managed to catch them before they'd hit the floor of the dragon-dug cave.

She looked at him gratefully as he came into her sight, but didn't dare even nod her head, as that might dislodge the turnip held under her chin.

Fishlegs crossed his arms and tried to keep from laughing.  "Need a hand?"

"Ha ha, very funny.  Help?  Please?" 

 Smiling, he reached out and plucked the vegetables most vulnerable to falling free from her grasp.  As he worked, his arm brushed against her and he tried to keep from blushing.  Hopefully she wouldn't notice in the dim reddish light. 

Having been divested of her precarious burdens, she straightened and sighed.  "I'd been like that for a few minutes.  Thanks."

"Why not drop them?" Fishlegs asked. 

"And risk getting yelled at?"  She shuddered.  "No thank you."

"But… how would they know?"

She shivered.  "They'd know.  They always seem to know."

"Are… are you all right?"

She shuddered all over, like a dog shaking water from its fur.  "Yeah.  Thanks.  They were starting to slip free.  You…"  she trailed off.

"I… what?"

"I was about to say that you saved me from getting yelled at, maybe even a beating, but that wouldn't happen here, would it?"

Fishlegs grimaced and shook his head.  "No way."

They started walking to the entrance.  "Settling in all right?" he asked.

She nodded, smiling.  "I like it here.  I have a comfy bed, all the food I can eat… I'm even getting _paid_ for cooking it!"  She beamed at him.  "I even managed to buy a new kirtle already!  I can't believe how cheap the tailors said it would be!"

He grinned.  "Glad to hear it." 

As they walked, Hákon clan Hofferson walked past them, carrying sacks of flour.  He nodded to the pair of them, but kept walking.

Heather turned and watched him go.  "So… why do we cart this all down there, only to have to carry it all back up?"

Fishlegs shrugged.  "Mostly it's saved for the winter.  I know that the mead hall kitchens have pantry space up in the mead hall itself.  Why didn't you get these from there?"

"We're out," she said simply.  "But why not carve a tunnel down from the mead hall down here?"

"The Broodery is in the way," Fishlegs said.  "And letting in a constant stream of hot air into here wouldn't do the stores any good."

"That makes sense," she said, and with that, they reached the entrance.  "Thanks for the assist!"

He shrugged.  "I can help with the rest of the way."

"You sure?"

He smiled and said, "Well, if you want, I could stand back and watch you try to juggle them again."

Rolling her eyes, she said, "Well, come on then."

Smiling widely, he followed after her, and she described some of the dishes that she was looking forward to cooking as they walked up the hill to the mead hall. 

###

Snotlout hit the ground cheek-first with a grunt.  Before he could try to scramble away, a strong hand gripped his arm and twisted, and a foot swept out his own feet before he could get a toehold.  An arm pressed against the back of his neck and spots started to dance before his eyes.

With a cry, he tried to buck his back to either throw the grappler off of him, or wriggle free, but the hold was too expertly done and all he succeeded in doing was wrenching his arm against the grip.

He was toast.

"Victory to Gunnar Bræsisson!" he heard the judge call out, and he slumped into the grass as Gunnar let him go. 

Rolling to his feet, he flushed as everyone applauded the victor… which wasn't him.  He'd come in second. 

After a long afternoon of kicking ass and taking names… he'd come in _second._

_Second._

He looked around the circle of young men; he was one of the shortest ones there, but he'd proven himself their better… except for Gunnar. 

Now they were all applauding him.

He looked at Gunnar and sighed.  At least he'd been beaten by a proper Viking.  Tall—at least a hands-length taller than Snotlout—with blond hair that was bound in a braid that Snotlout had tried to use as a grapple point, only to find that it was bait, and solid muscle underneath a layer of hard fat, with tattoos and scars all over his torso. 

Karl tossed Snotlout his shirt and, sighing, Snotlout pulled it back on.  They'd stripped down to trousers for the glima competition between the Varangian-hopefuls, and you put your shirt back on when you lost a bout.  He'd gone a dozen bouts, winning every one… until the very last one. 

He joined in on the clapping, so that he didn't stand out as a poor sport.  Glima had strict rules on sportsmanship, and he wanted the respect of the other young men, not their contempt. 

A call from the fire drew everyone's attention.  "Food's ready!"

With a rumble of excited chatter, the mass of young men moved off to the river to wash up from the bouts.  Dirt was scrubbed clean, hands were washed, and a few of them even jumped into the water for a nice dip with a splash.  Returning to the open pasture field where they had set up camp, Snotlout and the others went up to the giant cauldron and the cook that they had hired, getting portions of simmered pork and goat, and stewed grain.  Snotlout's stomach rumbled; taking a seat on one of the logs nearest Hookfang, who was digging into his own meal of a cauldron of fish with enthusiasm, he proceeded to chow down on the tender meat  with a happy sigh.

Next to him was one of the men that he'd beaten early in the day, Thorred Folkmarsson. He leaned over and held up his pork bone, some significant bits of meat still clinging to it.  Talking to Hookfang, he said in a loud whisper, "Hey, dragon!  Want my bone?"

Hookfang looked up, considered for a moment, and then huffed out a small wisp of fire before returning to his fish.

Snotlout scoffed.  "You'd have more luck with a herring."

"Huh?"

"He likes fish," Snotlout said with a smirk.  He'd settled into a comfortable state of affairs here in Uppsala while they waited for the trader to make sail; he'd talked with the city lord and paid a bribe to get hospitality, and started making allies among the other potential Varangians.  While some were determined not to be impressed by him—like Ketilbjorn, over on the other side of the fire, who was apparently the third son of some high lord to the north—others were in awe of him as a dragon rider.  A little talking had resulted in getting some allies that would watch his and Hookfang's backs. 

"Fish?  Really?"

"Ayep.  Isn't that right, Hookfang?"

Hookfang snorted, reached his snout into the cauldron, and then flung a mouthful of fish into the air.  Then he caught them on the way back down, dramatically swallowing them.

The others applauded.  Fridgeir and Hrafn, who were eating fish on the next log over, started to toss Hookfang theirs.  Hookfang snatched them out of the air like a striking snake, to general approval, and then nuzzled up next to the two blond men with an anticipatory air, his eyes closed. 

"By the gods, he's like a giant cat!" Fridgeir said with a laugh.

Hookfang just started purring, which made them both laugh. 

A solid blow landed on Snotlout's shoulder, and he jumped.  Hookfang's eyes popped open and he made a warning noise.

Snotlout turned to see Gunnar standing there, having clapped him on the back and nearly knocking him off of the log.  "Sigurd.  Well fought," he said, and extended a hand. 

Trying to keep his own face equally impassive, Snotlout nodded and shook the bigger man's hand, motioning Hookfang to calm down with his other. 

"Later, I wish to spar with you more.  I have not had such a bout in months," Gunnar said formally, smiling.

Snotlout blinked in surprise and nodded.  Before he could say anything more, however, a call came out from nearby.  "Hallo the fire!"

Everyone turned to look, seeing Vidkunn Guthhersson, the trader who would be taking them all south, and a trio of other men following him.

Snotlout looked them over with a critical eye, and then his eyes widened.  Vidkunn stood out among this crowd, as his hair was wavy and his skin brown, both of which his son, Balli, had inherited.  And Snotlout had seen some others in the city that had brown skin as well, including a few of Trader Johann's sailors, so that was nothing new to him.  But the third man…

For a moment, Snotlout thought that he was a dark elf; his skin was a deep dark brown color, darker than Snotlout's own hair, and looking even darker in the fading light of the day, and his hair was stark black.  The impression wasn't helped by his height or apparent youthfulness, nor the sword, ax or armor of Norse make that he had. 

Realizing that he was staring, Snotlout averted his eyes and back to his plate, and then glanced back up to the three newcomers as they approached the campfire. 

Carefully looking, he mentally scolded himself for potentially showing ignorance in front of the others; the boy—because if he was older than Snotlout, he'd eat his helmet, horns first—was clearly human, not elf.  A bit taller than Snotlout, the sword, ax and armor he was wearing all showed signs of age and wear, and the armor, consisting of small iron plates sewn onto a leather jerkin, was too big for him and looked old and battered, and he rather doubted that a dark elf would be dressed or outfitted so shabbily—although the sword looked awesome, to be sure.  His father's, maybe?

The other two young men following in Vidkunn's wake were much less odd.  A pair of twins, who looked identical, but they wore their brown hair differently—one was in a braid, while the other had pulled it into a club—and one was looking grouchy while the other was looking around curiously. 

Snotlout scanned around the circle and realized that, thankfully, he wasn't the only one staring at the dark-skinned newcomer, although it wasn't everybody.  Maybe half.  So the not-elf was new to not just him.  That was good…

Vidkunn entered the circle around the fire with the three in tow.  "All right, you lot!  You've been lazing about," they all laughed, "drinking and eating and carrying on!  But you've all paid your passage fees, and the signs are auspicious for us to leave on the morrow!  These here are Ondott Brandrsson, Kormak Brandrsson and Gudmund Hallvarsson," he pointed to the two pale-skinned men, who Snotlout could now see as being clearly brothers, and then to the dark-skinned man.  "They're also going to join the Varangians with the rest of you sorry lot!"  He waved to the field.  "So get a good night's sleep!  Tomorrow, you lazy lordlings will have to work!"

There was a cheer, and the cook filled plates with food for the newcomers. 

As Gudmund took his plate and sat, Snotlout realized that he was staring again, and glanced away. 

"A dragon," someone breathed nearby.  "A real dragon… by Odin.  I can hardly believe it."

Snotlout looked up to see Kormak staring at Hookfang from what he probably imagined was a safe distance.  Then Kormak turned to Gunnar.  "How did you manage to tame such a beast?"

Without thinking, Snotlout said harshly, "Gunnar isn't the rider.  _I_ am."

Kormak literally looked down at him, sitting on the log.  "A pint-sized pipsqueak?  Right, sure."

Snotlout scowled at him.  "And you're so sure of that, how?"

Kormak scoffed.  "Look at you!  Run along, short stuff, and don't tell lies that you can't back up!"

Snotlout surged to his feet and slugged Kormak in the belly, right below the ribs.  The bigger man fell to the ground, staggered and breathless, his mouth flapping like a landed fish, clutching at his gut. 

A few of the others inhaled sharply, while Balli and Fridgeir applauded.  Hookfang snorted behind Snotlout and a brief lick of flame cast his dim shadow over Kormak. 

Reveling in being the one who got to stare down from up high, Snotlout said snidely, "Who's the short one now?  I just came in _second_ in the glima matches, and Gunnar here said that he hasn't had a bout like that in months, isn't that right, Gunnar?"

Gunnar snorted and nodded.  "Aye.  Well done, Sigurd.  And, oh, loud one, he _is_ the rider.  I would be honored that you assumed that I am, but such an observation coming from one so lacking in wisdom is no compliment that I wish to have."  He turned, gave a slight bow of his head to Snotlout, and walked back to his spot on the logs. 

Ondott came over and hauled his brother to his feet, shaking his head.  Kormak was still trying to get air into his belly again.

Vidkunn rolled his eyes and collected a plate of food from the cook.  "Get that all out now, lads, because there'll be no room for fighting among yourselves when we're on the Dnieper.  And it won't reflect too kindly on you lot when it comes time for taking Varangian service, either.  They have a strict code of conduct."

"Aye, my father told me," Gudmund said, from where he sat gnawing at the pork bone in his hands.  He looked up at Snotlout.  "Fighting among the ranks is punished by lashes."

Snotlout crossed his arms.  "I'll keep that in mind.  So… your father was a Varangian?"

"Aye.  I'm born off of one of his concubines that he brought back from Greece," he said, and motioned to his face and hair.  "Been twenty years, and Mother still complains about how cold it is this far north."

"Got any relatives down there?" Fridgeir asked. 

Gudmund tossed his cleaned pork bone into the fire.  "Not that I know of.  Mother and both of Father's other two concubines were slaves before he freed them and brought them with him when he got married up here."  He rolled his eyes.  "I have _lots_ of siblings."

Ondott, his arm around his brother's back, said, "Want one more?  I'll give him to yeh cheap!"  Kormak looked offended but didn't say anything as everyone laughed. 

Gudmund gave a short laugh.  "Not likely!  I'm glad I was able to get Father's old sword and ax away from my older brothers."  He cocked his head at Snotlout.  "So, what's your story?"

Snotlout smiled a bit sourly.  "My cousin is in line to inherit the chiefdom back home.  But he has no stomach to be a warrior.  So I'm going to show that I'm the better Norseman in the eyes of the gods."

"And… the dragon?" Kormak asked, wheezing slightly.

"What about him?" Snotlout asked disingenuously.

"Why is he here?  And where did he come from?" Kormak persisted.

"He's here because he's my friend, aren't you, Hookfang?"  He stepped back and gave his friend a nice scratch right around the base of his horns.  Hookfang purred.  "As for where he came from, well, we come from the Alban Isles.  Until last year, there was this great and terrible dragon ruling over a whole nest, and I helped free them.  Hookfang and I have been best friends ever since."

Kormak snorted.  "Cute story.  But it seems like having a dragon should trump a blood claim on the chiefdom."

Snotlout scowled.  "Yeah, but he's still my blood."  _And has an awesome dragon of his own._   "I'd rather show that I'm a better choice, rather than try to just take it."

Kormak looked thoughtful, and then Hookfang warbled, and everyone looked at him.

"What?  What did he say?" Thorred asked, eyes wide and excited. 

Snotlout shrugged.  "He's probably bored."  Turning to Gunnar, he asked, "For winning the glima tournament, want to go for a flight?"

Gunnar grinned widely and gave a deep bow.  "I am honored, Sigurd, for your offer, and happily accept."

As he showed the bigger man how to get into the safety harness, Snotlout tried not to think on what Hookfang had said.  He wasn't quite sure… but the tone had been chiding, and he was pretty sure that his friend was reminding him about Toothless. 

Yeah, well, he'd admit that part before these men when Ragnarok arrived, thank you very much. 

###

"And… there… we… _go!_ " Horsefeathers said, and finished scribing with a flourish.  "Two clean copies of the betrothal contract, ready for seals and signatures."

Smiling to himself, Hiccup, as the seniormost member of the Hooligan tribe present, made his signature on the parchment.  It was technically only a contingent betrothal; her parents and her clan could still veto it, but the odds of _that_ happening were so utterly, vanishingly small that he was spending more effort speculating with Astrid and Tuffnut on how Thicknut and Lena  would react to the proposed proposal—especially some of the more entertaining clauses that Hiccup had managed to suggest and get accepted for the bride price and dowry. 

As he stood up from the table, his signature on both pieces of parchment, Ruffnut squealed—honestly and sincerely _squealed—_ in sheer excitement, and hugged him for a brief moment, making his wounds flash hot with pain, before releasing him and tackling Magnus, who was taking his own seat. 

"Ahh!  Let me sign it first!" Magnus said, half-heartedly trying to fend her off.  "I'll sign it and then I'm all yours!"

Ruffnut paused and a wide evil grin crossed her face.  "Yes… yes you are."

Hiccup, taking up position next to Astrid, said, "Well, that's over with."

Astrid nodded and waggled her eyebrows.  "Good job," she whispered, as Magnus finished signing and was promptly seized by his fiancee. 

Fishwings, rolling her eyes, sat and signed in turn as a witness. 

A sudden looming presence behind him made him turn.  Einar was standing there.  "Young Hiccup.  Congratulations to us both, I suppose.  I feel as if I got this treaty for a song, and that worries me."

Hiccup rolled his eyes.  "And you didn't even have to write that song," he deadpanned.  "Magnus did.  Literally."

"…Aye, I suppose I didn't.  Now all I have to worry about is the risk of your father being upset at what you've sworn him to."

Astrid snorted and then said quietly and harshly, "Thambarskelfir, I know that you view 'trust' as this bizarre concept, but trust me, his dad will be happy about this." 

"Oh really?  Well, I suppose that we'll have to just see.  But don't be surprised if him-as-chief is different than him-as-father.  I won't be."

Hiccup and Astrid shared a glance, with Astrid cocking her head towards Einar, her expression reading _can you believe this guy?_

Turning back to Einar, Hiccup said, "First, that's my problem.  Second, if you didn't think that what I agreed to is acceptable or binding, then why did you agree to it?"

Einar shrugged.  "Why not?  Ah, lad, you're so young and untested.  You'll learn and grow more worldly."  He looked as if he was going to give a friendly pat on Hiccup's shoulder, but thought better of it. 

A thought occurred to Hiccup.  "Actually, I do have one thing to ask for."

Einar froze.  "…Yes?"

"Maps.  And the most well-traveled Norsemen you can find."  Hiccup gave a lopsided smile.  "Send them to Berk.  I have some ideas that they can help with."

"Maps.  And traders and explorers?"

Hiccup nodded.

"Hmm… I suppose that I can see why.  Well, consider it done.  I consider that to be a small price to pay."  He turned to leave, and then paused.  "Anything else?"

Hiccup shook his head.

Einar padded off, and Hiccup shared another look with Astrid, just as she was called over to sign as a witness. 

Well, that was done with.  Now, he and Astrid had to finish healing up enough to risk an ocean voyage and then head back to Berk. 

Magnus was coming with them, and Einar was not.  And if that didn't say who was really in control around here, with Einar staying in the capital, while Magnus could roam…  He remembered Yngvarr's comment back in the map-room, about how a chief could not roam so far, and wondered if it had been the herald attempting to subtly direct him to this realization.

But it still came down to the fact that Magnus's presence at the center where the decisions were made… wasn't necessary. 

Well.  He had plans to mess with that.  Some of which would be going off sooner rather than later.

###

Wulfhild fiddled with the embroidery needle and sighed before setting it into the linen kirtle she was working on, and put both aside.

A summer thunderstorm was paying her home a visit, and she wondered what the towering clouds would look like from above…

Until a few weeks ago, she never would have been able to visualize it, but now, having had the chance to fly multiple times with Hiccup or Astrid, or a few of the other Hooligans, she could imagine what it looked like from a height greater than the peaks of mountains. 

And that beat embroidery any day as a way to pass the time. 

Well, that was unfair.  Embroidery was useful, generally speaking.  And she had a dab hand at it—ironically, thanks to her archery callouses on her fingertips making it easier to hold the needles. 

But this…

She scowled at the linen kirtle where it was lying inoffensively on the side table in the dim afternoon light.  Bergljot, Einar's wife, had given her it, and a variety of dyed spools of embroidery thread, when she'd returned from southern Norway two days ago.  She'd been down near Wulfhild's childhood home of Borg… where, of course, Wulfhild couldn't go. 

And to top it off, the old woman had been _nice_ about it.  She'd been sold into a political marriage in her youth too… and was doing her best to mentor Wulfhild in an absent, kindhearted fashion that regularly sent Wulfhild's spirits plummeting when she looked out ahead at her life.

Which was why she was working on embroidering _yet another kirtle_ for her hope chest.  No, she couldn't work on something _useful_ for the household, or as a gift for her brother.  Instead she had to have a _fifth_ kirtle, embroidered with a pattern of blue, red and gold birds that Bergljot had picked for her! 

Anything to keep that marriage price up as high as possible!

But that had been Bergljot's advice, for exactly that reason.  She didn't love her husband, but, as she'd pointed out to Wulfhild multiple times, her sole power as a daughter of a major house was in having as many options as possible to say no to.  And hope that one of them was worth saying yes for.

She slumped in her chair, closed her eyes and groaned as the rain pounded at the roof.  If only the old woman weren't so dratted _nice_ about the whole thing so that she could hate her properly!  She took her duties as hostess seriously, and that was her perspective on the whole thing—Wulfhild was her guest.  Long term guest… but still a guest.  Only a guest… and that just emphasized how this wasn't Wulfhild's home. 

And now she was going to be doing the same for Ruffnut.  She'd even come and asked Wulfhild about her brother's betrothed so as to be able to give her the support that the Hooligan girl would need.

And Wulfhild, feeling half-obstinate, and completely upset with herself for the emotion, had told her. 

A knock at the door sounded, and she looked up.  "Come in!"  If it was Bergljot again, she could point to the poor daylight as her excuse for having stopped embroidering. 

Instead, Astrid poked her head in, spotted her, and grinned.  "You busy?"

Wulfhild shook her head mutely. 

"Then come on," the other woman said with a wide grin and a jerk of her head towards the hallway, motioning for Wulfhild to follow. 

Standing up, Wulfhild headed for the doorway.  "What's going on?"

"You'll see," Astrid said with a knowing grin. 

Wulfhild just gave her a level and unamused look.  "Astrid…"

"What?  It can't be a surprise?"

"Oh, fine," she said, rolling her eyes and giving the other woman a look.  Wulfhild only came up to her nose, and she imagined that it would get worse as the shieldmaiden got older; the princess was nearly five years older, and didn't exactly have much growth left to look forward to, if any.  It also made keeping up with her to be somewhat annoying, although Astrid was at least being polite enough to keep her pace moderated.

But, being honest with herself… if she was flirting with the cardinal sin of envy, it wasn't over the taller woman's height.  No, if she was vulnerable to envy of Astrid, it was from her friend's relationships. 

It was pretty much an open and winked-at secret in her brother's court that his two high-ranked heathen guests were sleeping together out of wedlock, and Wulfhild had been envious of their closeness and ease with each other since their arrival, even as they were engaged in carnal sin.  As Bergljot kept reminding her, love and mutual adoration like they possessed was probably not going to be in her future. 

And the envy was very hard to avoid, because she was seeing their closeness from up close.  Both of them, in the weeks that they'd been here, had been going out of their way to spend time with her and make friends.  In some surreal manner of convoluted thinking, she had found herself feeling irritated that she couldn't be indignant on the grounds that they were ignoring everyone else around them.  _That_ had made for an interesting confessional, and she'd thought on the unfairness of her thoughts as she'd sat and prayed the rosary as her penance. 

So now she had two good friends that she would never get to see again as soon as they finished healing up, and it _hurt,_ knowing that they would leave her soon, like every other friend she'd ever had in her life.  And yet… she kept letting herself get close to them, going on dragon-rides with them, playing board games as they healed up, taking them skating, having long chats and games of wordplay and riddles, and other such entertainments… and the occasional covert chat regarding the true state of her home.

And while she excused her socializing with them as her being a good hostess… she didn't kid herself.  She _liked_ them.  Hiccup had a wonderfully quick wit and was vastly knowledgeable, and Astrid was the dimmer light only by virtue of her boyfriend's brilliance—on her own, she _shone._  

Wulfhild herself… felt like a brace of candles at best some days.

Speaking up as they walked, she asked, "So… Astrid.  How's the arm doing now?"  It felt wrong to wish her friend more pain… but the longer the arm and Hiccup's rib took to heal, the more time she would get to spend with her new friends.   

Astrid gave her a nod. "Better.  I can move it without it hurting, but it's still not very strong compared to before.  I'll be working on it."

"And Hiccup?"

"Rib's getting better, and his back is healed up.  Infection's past as well for both of us, thank the gods." 

"Amen," Wulfhild said, addressing her own thanks to a specific God. 

Astrid shuddered.  "But, wow, it _hurt_ there for a while.  Worse than the wound in the first place, all burning and tender…"

Wulfhild grimaced.  "I'm glad you're all right then, because it sounded like it was pretty bad there for a while."  She'd been worried sick for that first week, actually, as memories of her mother's death had stalked her waking moments. 

"Well, we lived," Astrid said with a grimace.  "But we're both going to have scars to show for it."

"Proper Vikings, then, both of you," Wulfhild said lightly. 

"Ayep.  It's only fun if you get a scar out of it.  So, I've been meaning to ask you for a bit," Astrid said, as they reached the door to the courtyard, only to see torrential rain lashing the courtyard.  Pausing, she looked at Wulfhild, "Wait 'til the storm passes?"

Wulfhild nodded emphatically and they stood in the doorway looking out. 

"Well, as I was saying, so… your mother was from the Swedes?"

"Yeah.  My half-uncle is currently the king there.  He and his wife fostered me after my father got overthrown by Cnut, and I came back here after Magnus took back the throne."  She shared a significant glance with Astrid, who nodded.  They'd spoken already on the state of affairs here.

"Tell me about her?" Astrid asked.

Wulfhild sighed.  "…well, her name was Astrid, too, but you knew that already."  She looked back through her memories.  "She was a bastard too, from my grandfather's concubine, Edla, of the Obotritans, so I'm hardly 'pure' Swede by any measure."  A shrug.  "Her half-sister ended up marrying the Rus' prince, Yaroslav, which is why my brother was able to hide there…"

Astrid touched her shoulder.  "Tell me about _her,_ not the politics."

"Sorry," Wulfhild muttered.

"Nothing to apologize for.  I just… well, if you don't want to talk about it, it's okay.  But I was wondering.  I mean, my mom and I don't get along all of the time, and she can be a real hardass too, but… but I don't want to know what it would be like to grow up without her."

Wulfhild sighed.  "She passed six years ago.  I was your age, actually.  An infection took her in a week.  Before that…" she gave another sigh.  "Well, she was beautiful.  Tall," she said, glancing up at Astrid's height, which made her give a friendly smirk.  "She had a good way with words, and spoke and wrote in three languages, and was well spoken."  Her eyes grew distant as she remembered.  "I used to braid her hair and she'd braid mine after we bathed, and she'd teach me songs and poems and stories…"

Astrid sighed wistfully.  "Sounds nice."

"It was.  People liked her, and she was kind and generous.  She knew the servants' names and would help them when they had problems."  Wulfhild smiled at the memory.  "One day, she freed this one house thrall and gave her some of her amber jewelry, just like that.  It was so she could get married to this thane that she was fond of.  When the chamberlain came and threw a fit at her, she just _smiled_ at the man and said that, last time she checked, thralls _could_ be freed, and that our Lord had helped the downtrodden and less fortunate, so why should she do any less?"  She grinned at the memory.  "His face was _purple_ with rage, but he couldn't say anything, because she was the queen."

Astrid grinned.  "I think I would have liked her.  We don't keep thralls on Berk.  Hel, if any of them manage to get to the island, we free them on principle."

Wulfhild blinked.  "Then who does the work?"

"We all pitch in.  Even Hiccup and his dad, although Hiccup's more valuable to all of us building stuff."

"And that works?"

Astrid grinned.  "Yep.  You'll—" She cut herself off.  "Hey, it looks like the rain's slowing.  Come on."

Wulfhild looked at her in surprise and followed the other woman gamely across the courtyard and into the carpenter's shed.

The smell of fresh wood shavings hit her nose, and she looked around to find Hiccup's and her brother's distinctive backs hunched over a workbench.  A pair of thanes stood watch around the room, and acknowledged them as she and Astrid entered. 

"Boys… we're _heeeere,"_ Astrid called out with a gleeful grin. 

"What kept you?" Hiccup asked, still hunched over the workbench.

"The rain," Astrid said.

"Fair.  I guess it's a wash," Hiccup said, still working on something.

"Only a drop in the bucket, really," Astrid shot back.

"Well, I suppose there'll be hail to pay," Hiccup replied.  Magnus turned and gave Wulfhild a exasperated look. 

"There's snow way out from that, I agree," Astrid said.

Wulfhild rolled her eyes and waited for them to be done. 

"Either way, it's ice to be able to do this," Hiccup said in a deadpan tone.

Astrid paused in consideration, and Wulfhild seized the opportunity.  "Okay, that's enough you two."

Astrid gave her an innocent look before cracking up.  "Okay, okay!  So, I brought you here for a reason," she said, and patted Hiccup on the shoulder. 

Hiccup stood and turned, holding a…

Wulfhild's eyes widened. 

He held out the brand new instrument to her; it wasn't _exactly_ the same as the lyra that Ketil had, but it had a fairly close shape.

Taking it gently, she looked up at him, and her brother was grinning at her. 

"Turns out he _was_ able to make a copy of it," Magnus said, pointing his thumb at Hiccup.  "Or at least a close one."

"Yeah, and I ruined a bunch of wood blocks trying to do it," Hiccup groused.  "And it doesn't sound anywhere near as good—"

"Hiccup.  It's a first try," Astrid said.  "It's not going to be perfect on your first try, no matter how much you hope that it will be."  She turned to Wulfhild, who was still holding the instrument in her hands like it was made of glass.  "But we figured that you could have the first one."

Wulfhild looked up at her, a smile growing on her face.  "For… for me?"

All three of them nodded, and Magnus said in an innocent tone of voice, "Well, yes.  You'll need something to occupy your time when we're sailing to Berk."

For a moment, what he said failed to register. 

"Wait, why—"

"Because, dear sister, if you wish, you're coming with us, and you're getting a dragon," Magnus said, beaming at her.  

Her eyes widened.  "How—why—what—"  Why was _she_ getting a dragon, when there were so many men at court that wouldn't?

Hiccup shrugged, clearly enjoying her surprise.  "Magnus and I hammered it out in our agreement.  You get one, he gets one, as the royals.  Then five men from his court get one each."

"And I picked Yngvarr, Mark, Eindride, Roald, and Vlademar," Magnus said, grinning.

Wulfhild nodded, still numb.  Oh, God.  Astrid had promised her help in getting out from under Einar's power, and Wulfhild hadn't believed her.  The idea that she'd be given a _dragon…_   that was their solution? 

Oh, aye, she'd still be a bargaining chip under Einar's control of her house… but, with a dragon, that chip would have teeth.

Then the names Magnus had said penetrated. 

His herald, the steward, the marshal, and two of the thanes that had been with him the longest.  While Einar's son, as the marshal, was a given, Yngvarr wasn't under Einar's control, and while Mark was, his brother was Roald, who had guarded her brother since he was a child.

And…  _her._

Oh, God, her.

She was going to get a dragon of her own. 

She was going to get to fly!

To _fly!_

She looked at her two friends, who grinned at her.  Abandoning decorum for the moment—if Einar wanted to lecture her again, she'd take it, assuming that he even heard of this meeting—she cautiously put the lyra down and tackled both of them in a laughing embrace.  Letting go after a moment, she picked back up the instrument and set the lyra's bow to the strings, intending to bring forth glorious music.

A sound like a cat being tortured issued forth instead, and everyone cringed. 

Magnus said, deadpan, "I'll be on a different longboat."

They all laughed, and Wulfhild grinned at her brother.  "Talk like that, and I won't play for your wedding."

"A whole ship, all to yourself!" Magnus joked.

Wulfhild snorted and hefted the instrument. "I'll be taking this to Ketil, then.  I'll need some training while we wait."  She nodded towards Hiccup.  "Sir Hiccup… thank you again."

He grinned widely and spread his arms in a large gesticulation before putting them behind his back and stretching.

Looking him over, she marveled at the handsome young man in front of her.  A kind and friendly genius, who could look at an instrument and make a copy of it in a matter of weeks, and who desired peace and mutual accord.

Yeah… she was jealous of Astrid, while wishing both of her friends the best of luck with each other. 

In the meantime, however, she had an instrument to learn to play!  And if Einar protested it as being unladylike, then she could easily ask if she was supposed to insult their dragon rider allies by ignoring the gift.

And that was a gift in its own right.

###

A few weeks later, Hiccup took a deep breath of the sea air as the fleet below him cleared the fjord that led to Nidaros.  His rib twinged, but only lightly, more from remembered pain than anything else; it had healed to the point that Astrid could lay her head on it without causing him pain.  His back had healed with a ferocious scar, easily the length of both of his hands combined, and Astrid had a similar mark on her arm… as he knew from close inspection.  They'd taken advantage of their last bit of privacy last night with gusto, and he was still sore.

He heard the sailors cheer below, and the sound brought him back to the present.  The rope that went from Toothless's harness to the mast of the longboat was taut as his friend stuck his tongue out between his teeth in concentration as he pulled at the ship below; while the dragons couldn't help that much in helping them get clear of the fjord, the oarmen had appreciated the gesture tremendously.  With a call from below, the rope was loosed and the sails raised. 

They were heading south, to cross the North Sea and make way to Berk.  The height of summer had already passed, and the days were growing shorter.  Below him, ten ships rode the waves, carrying supplies and Magnus's court.  He and the other riders and dragons were airborne, helping the fleet claw free of the fjord and reducing the weight aboard ship.  Yngvarr estimated that it would take two weeks to return to Berk, maybe three if they hit inhospitable weather. 

But they were underway. 

Watching the wakes of the ships carve white arrowheads through the blue of the water, Hiccup smiled. 

Yeah.  He'd come to make friends and allies.  He could definitely say that he had succeeded.  And that wasn't all he had managed. 

With a strange feeling of mixed sullenness and excitement, he looked to the south, seeing the mountains and the sea extending for miles.  According to the charts he had copied from the Nidaros archives with Einar's permission, following that line south would lead him to the land of the Danes, and from there to the lands of the massive Holy Roman Empire.  He had duplicated the charts to the best of his ability, taking advantage of his convalescence and, now, he had a broader picture of the world, and he wanted to see it all, which was an exciting thought.  Names of distant, exotic places… and, most tantalizing of all, the blank spots at the edges of the maps.  Knowing what was out there, yes, by the gods, it was awesome, and almost without equal… but _not_ knowing what lay over the next horizon was a thought that sent his blood to dancing in his veins in a way that almost nothing else could… with the exception of Astrid.

But he was also a bit low because his cousin was out there.  It was… odd.  He had resented and at times outright hated his kinsman for what he did with himself.  And yet, he found himself missing Snotlout at times… and, being honest with himself, a bit jealous that Snotlout was getting to roam free in a way that he couldn't, not with his responsibilities.  And he was going to a place that was close to the edges of what Hiccup now knew…

Well, maybe they'd meet each other while they were out there.

A sudden splash of water hit him in the head, and he jerked up, surprised to say the least. 

Astrid and Stormfly blew past, with an empty waterskin in Astrid's hand and a mischievous grin on her face.  Stormfly chittered and waggled her wings at them as they dove down to the water's surface. 

Hiccup, shook his head, sending water droplets flying, and bent down behind the crest of Toothless's head.  "Our turn, bud?"

Toothless cackled, and they were off.

The future would attend to itself.  He had an alliance to cement, a friend to marry off to another friend, a scheming old man to deal with, and, most importantly, a love of his own to betroth. 

Once he had enough to make Magnus's own bride price for Ruffnut look trifling in comparison, at the very least.  Because his own love was worth it, and he wouldn't cheat her by doing anything less.

Dancing through the small forest of masts and sails, he and Toothless gave chase to his girlfriend, their shouts echoing across the water from sheer exuberance.  The spray of the sea water, the distant calls of the sea birds, the ruffle of the sails in the wind, the fluffy white clouds, the blues of the sky and sea, and that haunting line in the distance where they met…

It was truly a day blessed by the gods. 

The horizon, and the future, beckoned. 

* * *

**A/N:**  Here we go!  I should have a chapter up next week, but the week after that (the 20th) is hazy; my buffer isn’t where I want it to be, and I’ll be on my honeymoon in Dublin at the time.  In the meantime, our wedding is this Friday!

**EDIT 8.13.17:**  Back in Hamburg.  Tired.  Been a long day; it’s 10 PM local, and we got in about 20 minutes ago.  

Marriage ceremony went great, but amazingly a typo still managed to sneak in, for my  _name,_  no less _._   So we have to get that fixed.  But we’re still married, everything else went perfectly, my new in-laws didn’t drive my spouse insane, and the high-speed train ride back was wonderfully uneventful.  I did get some editing done, but the chapter is not yet finished.  Between that, and the fact that chapter 19 ended on a good stopping point, and the fact that I promised my wife that I wouldn’t do any writing on our honeymoon, I’m giving myself a two-week hiatus for this week and next.  

A Thing Of Vikings will resume posting on August 27. 

As a consolation, [have some pictures from Neudahn Castle in southern Germany](https://athingofvikings.tumblr.com/post/164146990160/neudahn-castle-southern-germany) (my in-laws thought that my request to my wife to walk around her childhood neighborhood was insufficient as a way to spend the time waiting to leave, and took us to a ruined castle fifteen kilometers away instead). 


	20. Homecomings

Autumn, 1041 CE

~~~~~~

**Chapter 20: Homecomings**

_King Magnus's first visit to Berk was a watershed moment in many ways.  While the king had come for his marriage and for the dragon that later became emblematic of his reign, by the time he had arrived, the Hooligans had spent a year integrating dragons into nearly every level of their society and economy.  Witnessing the effects and advantages that this afforded his allies firsthand gave him not only the determination to effect similar changes on his own kingdom, it also gave him a map to doing so, the trailblazing having already been started by the Haddocks' and Ingerman's efforts over the prior year.  Even discounting the other innovations and events that were introduced and occurred subsequent to his arrival, Magnus was still exposed to a society that_ could _function without thrall labor and still be more prosperous than his own, and this had an indelible effect on the young king._

_—The Second Flowering Of Yggdrasil: An Analysis Of The Norse Resurgence, 1710_

Leaning into the oven carved into the rock, Heather took a deep, satisfied sniff from the bread baking inside.  This batch was coming along nicely; another few minutes and she'd be able to take it out with a perfect crust.  And it was nice to be able to just cook and bake and use those skills.  It was nothing like living in Vedrarfjord, with her training and the dire punishments for when she messed up.  She'd come to realize that Magnhild was really more bark than bite; oh, sure, she wielded a mean ladle, and was quite capable of raising knots with it on the heads of those trying to filch from the kitchens without permission, and her skill with knives made it incredibly clear that the sword she wore at her belt was _not_ for show.  But despite that, the elderly woman seemed to have a soft spot for her and Rathnait that was practically motherly. 

Which made it worse, in so many ways.

She pulled back from the thought, like she had been doing so often lately.  Thinking like that hurt.  Thinking like that led to crying.  Or screaming.  Thinking like that was _dangerous,_ and not just for her _._   Better not to think beyond what she had to.  Better to be numb, and try not to feel. 

Even when all she felt was satisfaction at her own skill in baking bread. 

Eyeing a pair of loaves in particular, she marked them as hers and the young scholar's lunch.  There was fresh-churned butter available to have with them, and she'd been joining him for daily meals for weeks now.  Mostly their talks involved light conversation about the village and the preparations he was making for the upcoming dragon training—training that he was certain she would be allowed to participate in.

She wasn't so certain, no matter how accepting the Hooligans were.  But at the same time, the rest of her was dueling between hope and fear on the subject, despite her best efforts to keep from thinking on the topic.  It was much like trying to keep her tongue from probing a sore tooth and about as comfortable. 

Biting her lip critically, she took one last look and reached for the paddle to pull the loaves from the carved hollow in the stone.  As she laid the paddle onto the stone and started moving it towards the bread, the town horn blew. 

Once…

Twice…

Three times. 

Incoming ships. 

Well, that wasn't so unusual these days; it happened at least twice a week, if not more.  It might be past the height of the sailing season, with the peak of summer well past, but merchants, couriers from nobles and occasionally even the nobles themselves were keeping things hopping. 

Then the doors to the mead hall burst open with a bang. 

"It's Hiccup and the others!  They've returned!" the woman's voice at the door shouted into the hall, where it echoed. 

Heather froze and then forced herself to relax before someone saw her standing there like a startled hare.

Someone else called back, "Are you sure!?"

"Aye!  I saw the Night Fury!"

People cheered.  "Get down to the docks!" someone called.  "We'll greet them as they come in!"

The pre-lunch crowd in the mead hall and the members of the kitchen staff who were not actively working on some dish or other started for the hall doors. 

Heather observed with a slight, numb smile that, despite Magnhild's claims that the lot of them were lazy good-for-nothings, only a small minority of the kitchen staff were able to leave immediately. 

The accusation of being relentless gossips, on the other hand, was dead on. 

As she bent with the paddle to remove the loaves from the oven, Karolina clan Hofferson whispered not at _all_ subtly to her, "Heather, hurry up!"

Heather looked up at the excitable blond woman, exasperated, and then back down to the loaves.  "Karolina," she said conversationally, "first, I don't want these to burn.  Second, if the patrols just spotted them, then they're still over an hour out."

"Yes, but we might not get good spots!" she insisted.  Then she paused, considering, her eyes turned upwards in thought, and pressed her fingertip to the side of her chin.  "Well, _you_ might, if you go with Fishlegs."  She smirked at Heather.

Heather forced herself to blush at Karolina's comment—which came oddly easily—and declined to mention to Karolina the purple stain that she'd just put on her face from the red cabbage that she was chopping.  Instead she said lightly, pulling another loaf and setting it to cool, "My point still stands.  We have no reason to hurry."

Then someone stuck their head into the mead hall and shouted, "They're flying in!  We're assembling in the commons to greet them!"

Smirking even more widely, Karolina made one last flurry of chops and dumped the pile of diced vegetables into a bowl, and then made for the door.

Heather shook her head and got the last loaf out of the oven.  Patting her hands down to shake loose any remaining bits of flour, she followed her coworker. 

Despite the smile on her face at Karolina's comments—the woman seemed to take it as a personal challenge to make Heather blush—she felt numb, almost ill, on the topic of Fishlegs.  For the last month and a half, she had almost become comfortable here on Berk, and a great deal of that was due to his efforts.  He was a delight of a young man, or at least would be a delight to just about any other young woman with a brain.  He was not at all what she had expected when she had been told that she was going to be given to him.  She had _expected_ a brutish, arrogant Viking warrior who walked around like he was expecting Bragi to appear any moment to compose his personal saga, and would treat her like a toy.

Instead, he was a scholar like none she'd met before.  One that was well-read, sweet, and retiring, and kind, and treated her like she was made of spun glass, and didn't presume on her at all.  He had _composed poetry_ for her, but not to woo her into his bed.  No, not at all; he had written it as a way of welcoming her and the others to Berk.

That night, after she'd left him at his door, she had cried herself to sleep in the barracks—out of frustration, fear or some half-sick joy at having found unattainable safety for herself, she didn't know.  She had half-expected to be invited or cajoled inside after her barely subtle attempts at seduction.  Instead, she found that the man that she had been _given to_ had a bad case of honor and integrity. 

Adalwin hadn't expected that.  No, not at all.  How could he?  The irony was sickening.

The gods were cruel.

And weak.

How else to explain how they allowed the Christian gods, Christ and Lucifer, to dominate and destroy them?  To have the Christians outlaw the taking of slaves of their own people, but allow for the enthrallment of pagans?

What else could there be?

She wasn't even originally from Eire in the first place; her home had been in Alba, among the highlands.  In some ways, she was closer to home now than she had been as a thrall.

In others, she was even further away.

And now…  She hadn't been expecting this… this kindness, or this acceptance that she was being shown.  She'd been expecting to be the personal servant of… well, he hadn't turned out that way.  Instead, she'd been _hired—_ as a laborer, not as a thrall!—for gainful employment at the kitchens, and had been accepted by the cooks and bakers as one of them. 

It had taken her a little while to figure out why she was being paid for spending most of her time chopping and peeling vegetables.  Berk didn't have enough available labor to spare, and there was tremendous demand for anyone with a hand to work.  So she got paid in copper and dragon scales, and at rates that would be enough for her to own a manse and a few thralls of her own back in Eire in fairly short order.

And there were two thralls that she would have loved to purchase away from her old master, but they weren't available to her for that sort of price. 

Now the great dragon tamer was returning from his mission to a foreign king. 

Which meant that Adalwin's intent to get her into the Hero's inner circle through one of his boon companions might be about to come to fruition.  He had thought that someone who had been worth mustering such a substantial force for, just to avenge the attack, would be someone that… someone that a pleasure thrall with her eyes and ears open and her wits about her would be able to use.

"Heather, come _on_!" Karolina called out to her, exasperated, as she walked through the tunnel-door between the kitchens and the hall proper.

Rolling her eyes, Heather picked up the pace.  "Coming, coming," she said, following the older woman outside.  "You know, I haven't even met the man yet."

Karolina laughed.  "Well, you spend half your time with Fishlegs anyway.  And Hiccup's taken."

"I didn't mean it like that!" Heather harrumphed, her heart sinking slightly, despite her numbness.  She didn't like that.  She liked being numb.  Numb meant that she didn't have to feel terrible. 

Someone nearby pointed, and all eyes turned, including her own.  A flock of nine dragons were flying in from the north.

Nine?

Hadn't ten left?

The crowd quieted as others noticed the same thing.  People were squinting, trying to make out details under the afternoon sun.

"One of the Nightmares is missing!" someone whispered loudly near her.

The marshal, Spitelout, was standing not far from her; he paled, and began to pray to Tyr and Thor.

Stupid man.  The gods wouldn't hear his prayers.  Not when they hadn't heard hers.

In a matter of a few more moments, the dragons approached and banked in to land and a space cleared near the chieftain, Stoick.  As soon as there was enough space, the black dragon that she had been told about landed in front of him, two young men on its back, one blond, one auburn. 

The blond young man stared at Stoick with an awed, wide-eyed expression obvious even from her vantage point.  Meanwhile, the auburn-haired young man dismounted, bowed before Stoick, and called out loudly, "Father, let me introduce you to King Magnus the Good, of Norway.  He is our friend and _ally,_ " people gave whispered gasps and cheered, "and he is here to undergo our new dragon training."

Stoick grinned and embraced his son.  Then, he turned to the other young man, who was still seated on the black dragon's saddle—still staring at the sheer _size_ of the chief, a reaction that Heather could completely understand.  Stoick boomed out, "I welcome you, King Magnus the Good!  I offer you hospitality, as you have offered it to my son!  As you have good intentions to my home, you are welcome in it!"

Magnus, shaking his head as if to clear it, hopped lightly off of Toothless's saddle and said as loudly as he could manage, "I accept your offer of hospitality for myself and my household!  They follow in the ships, but, following your son's example, we decided to make an entrance!"

Stoick beamed and patted the king on the shoulder.  Gently, Heather could tell—Magnus was still standing afterwards.  The man's strength was stupendous. 

"Hiccup!"

The moment suddenly broke and everyone turned to look as Spitelout, his face pale and haggard, called out the heir's name. 

"Hiccup…  _where is my son!?"_

He sounded agonized.

She could have told him it was pointless to pray.

Hiccup turned to Spitelout and produced a piece of parchment from a pouch.  Spitelout ran over and snatched it from him and then just… _looked_ at the sealed scroll as if he was afraid to open it.  And then Hiccup said something quietly to him, and then said louder, "He is fine!  He's with Hookfang!  He, of his _own accord,_ went off to seek gold and glory in the land of the Romans!" 

 _That_ set the crowd's tongues to wagging, and Spitelout seemed to find the courage to break the seal and read the scroll, which he unrolled in a nearly convulsive, jerky manner. 

The king, meanwhile, was looking around at all of the dragons with delight, his eyes gleaming. 

Heather hated him for the accident of birth that gave him his crown. 

A Nadder landed next to the chieftain's hut, followed by a Zippleback.  A pair of blonds, one a boy, one a girl, dismounted from the latter, while another pair of blond girls dismounted from the former.

The girl from the Zippleback walked, no, _ran_ up to the king and tackled him, which caused a surprised roar of approval from the crowd, and Heather quickly gathered that _she_ was Ruffnut clan Thorston.  Her father and stepmother, whom Heather recalled as being stern but reasonably decent people, looked as if a good sneeze would knock them over. 

The other blond girls approached the gathering in the middle, and one went and slid an arm around Hiccup like it belonged there.

That, then, would be Astrid Hofferson.  Heather studied her features, but was interrupted by Karolina leaning over and laughing.  "See?  Taken."

Heather rolled her eyes and put a smile on her face.  "I see!"

Before she could ask further, though, Hiccup was motioning the crowd for silence.  It took a moment, but people settled down to let him talk and make the rest of the introductions. 

The other blond girl was the king's sister, Wulfhild, who was looking around with utter delight, which was mirrored on many people's faces as she looked at them.

Heather hated her more.

That done, Stoick waved at all of the assembled tribe and, with a smile fit to split his face, told them fondly to get back to work, they all looked so lazy standing around!

With a laugh, the crowd began to disperse as the chief, his son, the Hofferson girl, the king and his sister, the still-pale marshal, the fat steward, and the four Thorstons went over to the chieftain's hut.

Fishlegs slid in next to her and smiled at her.  "I have to join them in a bit, but I wanted to say hi to you first," he said. 

"So that's the famed dragon tamer," she said dully.

He nodded and then looked at her curiously.  "Are you okay?"

_No, Fishlegs, I'm not okay._

"I'm okay.  Just… there's a king back there.  A real king, not the little ones in Eire.  It's just a little surprising, that's all," she lied. 

He grinned at her with an understanding nod.  "Tell me about it!  A year ago, I was getting ready to learn to _fight_ dragons.  Now…" he waved around the village, which was sprouting multiple-story houses with balconies for the dragons.  "And, yeah, there's a _king_ over there!  Wow."  His grin somehow grew wider.  "Amazing, isn't it?"

The little voice of her optimism in the back of her head spoke up quietly.

_Tell him.  Say, 'Fishlegs, King Adalwin is holding my parents as his personal thralls.  If I don't help him steal dragons from you, he'll kill them.'  They beat Adalwin once already.  You saw the ship in his fort.  Tell him.  They'll help.  If they did it for Fishlegs, they'll do it for you._

She ruthlessly shut it down, as she had each time the thought had occurred to her.  It was too _risky._   She knew that Adalwin was beefing up his defenses; it wouldn't be so easy this time, especially to _find_ her parents as opposed to raiding a fort without ever going inside. 

On top of that, there was the matter of Adalwin's insurance against her betraying him.  He had told her, the night before she had been sent here—the last time she had seen her parents—that while he had high expectations of her from all of his efforts in training her, that she wasn't being allowed off alone.  No, one of the other thralls on the ship with her had been instructed to watch her.  Just in case.

And the most damning thing was, with that simple statement, he had paralyzed her.

On the one hand, Adalwin had spent _two years_ training her, and she knew that he had other people trained in the art of spycraft, like the thrall-woman who had helped train her.  It would make perfect sense for him to send along a minder, as both backup and insurance.

On the other hand, two spies doubled the risk of exposure.  So maybe he had only sent one—her _—_ and only _told_ her that he was sending more than one, knowing that she could look and look and look, and never find the other spy, because they didn't exist.

She was beginning to suspect that was the case.

But then there was the risk that she was wrong in that assumption.  And if she was wrong… _her parents would die._   Not just die, but…

The memory of Adalwin's torture chamber, which he'd given her a personal tour of, rose unbidden. 

Blinking hard, she forced it back down before it broke her, or her thin shield of false calmness. 

Thinking hurt.

Better not to think beyond what she needed to.  Better to be numb.

All she could be sure of was that she couldn't be sure that she was being watched.  And she couldn't prove the minder's absence one way or another.

So she didn't dare betray him.

And, finally, Fishlegs was one of these people.

She wasn't.

As much as she had come to _like_ it here, she wasn't under any illusions that these people would act to protect her.  Stoick was a good chief, to be sure… but if she confessed everything to him… well, she doubted that she'd be banished.  But for what reason would he _possibly_ have to engage in a major military expedition for her benefit?  And on her say-so, no less?  For all he knew, she would be leading his tribe into a trap.  He had no reason to do anything other than to try to use her against Adalwin as a double agent—something that would almost certainly get her parents killed in the long run. 

No.  It was best to continue as she had.  She had the two years of that hellish training to draw on, and she could succeed… and hope that her parents would be allowed to live.

Even if the thought of leaving Fishlegs made her heart break a little bit, despite the numbness that her training let her cultivate.

So she watched the dragon tamer, a boy maybe a year older than her, and plotted how to steal from him.

###

"Three, two, Thorred, Ondott, Thorred wins," Gunnar called as Ondott hit the dirt of the riverbank with a moan.  Thorred stood over him, cheeks flushed with victory as the bout ended.  Snotlout and the others applauded.  

Weeks of travel had taken them across the Östersjön, up a long river called either the Neman or the Neris—he wasn't sure—then a portage for miles carrying the ships on their shoulders through forests and hills following a muddy path, and then down the Dnieper River.  They had stopped at villages along the way, and Vidkunn had been greeted as an old friend by many.  He was pretty sure that the wily old trader was having fun with casually explaining Hookfang's presence to the river villagers.  They also hadn't been attacked by bandits yet, either, which Vidkunn attributed to the intimidation value of having a dragon watching over their camp. 

Now they were in the capital of the Rus', a city called Kyiv.  He had spotted it from a distance when he and Hookfang had gone out flying, and had just… hovered there and stared.  According to Vidkunn, over fifty thousand people lived behind the stone walls and deep moats that sheltered the city, which stretched for miles.  The stones looked new, even from this distance, and according to Vidkunn they _were—_ they'd been completed the year before he was born. 

And the great Golden Gate at the center of the walls was impressive, but Vidkunn had laughed and told him to wait until they reached Miklagård; according to him, _this_ Golden Gate was but a pale imitation of the _true_ Golden Gate of the walls of Constantinople for Jarisleif had built these from being inspired by the Romans' great works. 

According to the trader, Kyiv, while grand… was barely a sixth the size of that other great capital, a thought that made Snotlout's mind boggle.   

For the moment, Vidkunn and Balli were running errands in the city, getting supplies and trade goods from merchants that Vidkunn knew, being escorted by about half of the potential Varangians.

That left him, Hrafn, Gunnar, Gudmund, Ketilbjorn, Ondott and Thorred sitting on the docks as a group, with Hookfang curled up nearby on a large flat rock, basking in the afternoon sun, his eyes closed.  To keep themselves occupied while they waited, they were doing some light sparring.  They'd agreed that their presence should deter thieves from the boats… and then there was Hookfang's effect on the locals; they kept sneaking glances from a distance, and at least one child had run off, practically gasping in terror. 

Hrafn asked cheerfully after one young boy peeked over a fence to take a look and then darted back down, "Do you think if Hookfang sneezed, they'd wet themselves?"

Gudmund snorted.  "Aye, and then they'd run and get the guards.  Let's not make trouble.  In the meantime, does anyone want to spar again?"

Ketilbjorn and Ondott shared a look and shook their heads.  Gudmund had the nasty habit of throwing people into the water when they sparred with him.  Ondott was still damp from his last plunge.

"I'll go for a round," Snotlout said enthusiastically.  He, Gunnar and Gudmund were the top three fighters of the group, and they had new tricks to show him.  He hopped to his feet and walked over to the dark-skinned thane.  "What rules?  Bout or skirmish?"  By which he meant did they obey the tournament rules regarding unfair blows and the like, or assume that it was the battlefield and anything went that wouldn't maim or kill.  "Weapons or hands?"

Gudmund cocked his head and said, "Bout.  Weapons."

Thorred, sitting nearby, rummaged around and pulled out a pair of quarterstaves.  He then tossed them to Snotlout and Gudmund.

Snotlout held his staff in the ready position.  Gudmund was fast and was taller than him.  That gave him reach, but they were—

Gudmund swung, aiming a blow at Snotlout's gut.  The rules that they had settled on for bouts were simple—three injury hits to the chest or one hit to the head was a win.  He jumped back, arching his body, and managed to avoid the staff by an inch or so.  Then he counter-attacked, aiming a blow to Gudmund's ribs, but the bigger man managed to parry the blow, and smoothly shifted into an attack that hit Snotlout in the ribs. 

"One-nothing, Gudmund," Gunnar said formally. 

They pulled back.  Snotlout grasped his staff with both hands, as if it were a sword, and swung at Gudmund.  Gudmund tried to parry, but was only partially successful; Snotlout felt his staff scrape along Gudmund's knuckles as it slid down the length of Gudmund's own staff.  Gudmund tried to shift his staff to catch Snotlout's with one of the knots of wood or other rough spots, but failed, and the last handspan of his staff made a solid impact on Gudmund's chest, making him give a soft grunt of pain.

"One-one," Gunnar said.  Unless he was sparring, he always seemed to be the referee for these matches. 

They pulled back again, and with a yell, Gudmund swung almost instantly, aiming for his gut.  Snotlout tried to block the attack, but it turned into a feint, and he was out of position.  Instead, the staff swept into his legs as Gudmund slid into a crouch.

He swung, scoring a solid blow on Gudmund's back.  But before Gunnar could say anything, Gudmund locked his staff behind one of Snotlout's knees and heaved.

His leg swept out from under him, Snotlout staggered and hopped on one foot, trying to regain his balance.  Before he did, Gudmund hit him with the staff again.  It was a light blow, but it was enough to make Snotlout lose his footing—and he went sailing into the water.

And the mud below the dock.

Sputtering, he surfaced and gave Gudmund a sour look.  "That wasn't a legal blow!"  He turned to Gunnar.  "Tell me that that wasn't legal!"

Gunnar started to say something, and then there was a call by the city gate.  "You there!  With the dragon!"

There was a flurry of footsteps as he hauled himself out of the water and back up to the dock, with Gudmund helping him.  A dozen guardsmen were standing there, hands on weapons, which were still holstered or sheathed. 

One man at the lead, though, wasn't ready to pull a weapon; he had a fine tunic and a sword at his belt.  "Who here is the dragon rider?" he asked.

His comrades turned and looked at him.  Standing there.  Dripping.

The man looked at him, skeptical.  "I see."

Snotlout puffed his chest out and said, "We were sparring, and my associate here—" he jerked his head towards Gudmund, "—made a dubious move and tossed me into the river.  But I'm the rider.  Sigurd Trondsson is the name."

"Well, Sir Sigurd, I am Vladimir Yaroslavich, Prince of the Rus', and son of Grand Prince of Kyiv, Yaroslav the Wise," he said.  "And my father wishes to meet with you, and your tamed beast.  You are invited to dinner at the palace, tonight."  He eyed the puddle that was forming at Snotlout's feet.  "Perhaps you would like to prepare first?"

Snotlout sneered back at him.  "I'll be there.  Can I bring anyone with me?"  He wasn't walking into a trap without backup.  And this smelled like a trap.  And if it wasn't… hey, free dinner for his group.

Vladimir cocked his head in thought for a moment and said, "Yes.  Even though they are not riders themselves.  Say… five?"  He gave a slight nod of the head.  "We'll be expecting you two hours before sunset." 

With that, he gave a very slight bow and left with his guards.

Snotlout watched them go. 

As the gate closed behind them, he turned to the other Norse.  "So… who wants dinner?"

###

Ruffnut walked into the chief's hut arm in arm with Magnus, her parents following them closely behind.  Her father was looking at her with an expression of shock that she and her brother had never managed to achieve, even with their most ambitious pranks.  In fact, she'd be surprised if he _wasn't_ thinking that this was all one big prank at his expense. 

The other people who had walked ahead of them into the hut had spread out already, giving them a bit of privacy… or, in Hiccup's case, settling back in his chair to watch, a grin fighting to show itself on his face.  He looked like he wanted some apple slices or something to munch on for when they got to the good part.

Meanwhile, Stoick and Gobber were talking off to one side, and Toothless had dragged Wulfhild upstairs; from the padding of dragon-feet, it sounded like he'd settled down onto his stone slab and was trying his best to get Wulfhild to give him a rubdown.

Astrid had vanished at some point, while Spitelout was off in a corner, reading Snotlout's letter, his hands clenching and unclenching. 

Turning to her parents, she grinned.  "So, um, Mom, Dad, this is Magnus," she began, as if he were just, oh, any old Viking that she had run into, as opposed to, say, the King of Norway.  Who was practically vibrating under her hands in his nervousness; she wondered if anyone else had noticed it when he'd been talking to Stoick, or just her?

Her father and stepmother both nodded like puppets with a particularly unskilled puppeteer managing them, eyes wide.

"Pleased to meet you, Magnus," her father said; his voice hadn't sounded that stunned even when Tuffnut had managed to take every piece of furniture in the house and tie it to the ceiling that time. 

Magnus bowed and said politely, "I recognize that this comes as a bit of a shock, but…"

Both of her parents nodded, still stunned, and Ruffnut sighed.  "Mom, Dad?  You okay?"

"We… I… we…" her mother stammered a bit.  "You… _how?_ "

Ruffnut grinned, and Magnus said, gravely, " _Beowulf_ and dragons."

They both blinked at them, and she leaned over and whispered, "I'd just give it to them at this point.  We're not going to get anything more coherent out of them until the shock's past."

Magnus smirked back and nodded, just as Astrid walked in, a bowl full of berries and apple slices in her hand.  Ruffnut started to giggle uncontrollably when she watched the other girl sit on the arm of Hiccup's chair and hand him the bowl, taking a handful of fruit for herself. 

The pair of them innocently munching, Ruffnut fought down her giggles as Magnus bowed to her parents and produced a scroll of vellum, a wax seal and red ribbon protruding from one end.

Her dad hesitantly took it and unrolled it.

Stoick, Gobber and Spitelout all looked up at the sound of a body crumpling to the floor. 

Ruffnut's giggles had come back with a vengeance, while her brother was lying on the floor himself, but he was red-faced with laughter.  Magnus looked sheepish, while Hiccup and Astrid were at least doing their level best to keep it to snickers. 

Of course, it wasn't every day that a simple tribal village man—even in a village as _weird_ as Berk—got a betrothal contract that contained terms like "a weight of silver equal to your daughter's" and "one stone of gold coin". 

They hadn't offered any land, for the simple reason that both Hiccup and Magnus didn't want to have the Thorstons pack up and leave or become absent nobles of one of Magnus's own titles. 

So Hiccup and her betrothed had gotten creative when discussing that little piece of writing back in Nidaros.

She just hoped that the reaction had been everything that Hiccup had hoped for.  It certainly was for her. 

Of course, this also made her clan that much more prominent in the village, but that was inevitable, and out of the five major clans in the tribe, the only one more loyal to the chief was the Hoffersons.  Even considering how much chaos as she and her brother had raised, Stoick had no reason to doubt her family's support. 

Hesitantly, her stepmother reached down and picked up the scroll.  Kneeling there, she checked Ruffnut's dad to make sure that he was all right, and he stirred.  Apparently satisfied, she opened the scroll to read herself.

Ruffnut could tell when she got to the good part, when her breathing sped up and her eyes widened to perfect circles.  At about that moment, her father blinked and sat up. 

Ruffnut spoke first, knowing what her stepmother was thinking.  "Yes, Mom… this is no joke.  If you and Dad accept, I'm going to marry him."

And she'd become a Queen.  How _weird_ was that?

Of course, her father still had to come up with a dowry, but Hiccup was prepared there as well, this being a marriage of alliance between Magnus's House and the Hooligan tribe.

Her father started to stammer at her about a dowry.  Before he could work himself into unconsciousness again, Hiccup, a giant smirk on his face, leaned over and handed him another piece of paper.

Her dad read it, blinking; after a looooong moment, he nodded, his expression reminding her of such excellent moments of pranking in the past—such as when she and Tuffnut had arranged for him to plummet off of a cliff and into a soft snowbank as a way of protesting a curfew. 

The terms were simple.  Her father and stepmother would give up to Magnus the two dragons, a young Timberjack and a fussy Gronckle, that they had reluctantly adopted after the evacuation from the Nest, as they were still uncomfortable with them.  In addition, she, her brother, and their father and step-mother were going to reenter dragon training this year, and the dragons that they trained would be given to Magnus at the end of the training.  And Magnus would be right there with them, as he was also getting his own dragon, as per his negotiations with Hiccup. 

All in all, Hiccup was essentially paying for most of it, but, hey, while Ruffnut wasn't his _favorite_ person—that title was well and truly taken by Astrid—it wasn't a lie for them to call each other friends. 

And, besides, ten dragons were a drop in the bucket.  She didn't know exactly how many dragons Berk had, but Hiccup had let slip that, according to Fishlegs' accounting, Berk had over _ten thousand in the wild flock._   Admittedly, that was including the newly hatched fledglings and adolescents and the Terrible Terrors, but still…

That was a _lot_ of dragon.

Hiccup's comment had been pretty blunt: Let Magnus have to deal with feeding some of them.

She'd snorted when he'd told her that. 

So, her dad just stammered out his 'proposed' dowry offer to Magnus, who accepted it graciously, having already known what was coming. 

She was going to get married _._

Dear gods, she was going to get _married._

Oh, it was good to be home.

###

The guardsmen crossed their spears in front of Snotlout, Gunnar, Gudmund, Thorred, Hrafn, and Balli—with Hookfang bringing up the rear. 

Snotlout admired their self-control—their only reaction to being face to face with six formally armed Norsemen and a dragon was a slight widening of their eyes. 

"We're expected for dinner," he said nonchalantly, loving their reactions, slight as they were. 

"Ah, yes, right this way," the guard said, and led them into the palace of Jarisleif the Lame.  It was a grand palace for a grand prince—lots of carved stone and polished wood.  Hookfang's claws made clacking noises as he followed along; the corridors were a bit narrow for him, judging by his grumbling, but they were wide enough for him to get through without getting stuck again, so long as he kept his wings furled. 

They paused at a set of large double doors made of thick wood and set with bands of metal; nice metal, with the studs and bands all stamped with fancy patterns, but still metal, meant to blunt axes chopping in.  The guard bowed and said, "The Grand Prince is waiting for you.  He offers bread and salt.  Do you accept and agree to abide?"

It was a good thing that Balli had warned them about this; 'With Bread and Salt' meant a formal offering of hospitality here. 

Snotlout nodded.  "I agree and accept, and so do my companions."

There were sounds of assent behind him.

"Then be welcome to the Grand Prince's home," the guard said, and opened the doors.

Inside, a long table had been set for twenty, and was heavily laden with delicious-smelling food.  Surprisingly, there were children present, who looked at Hookfang with awe. 

Yaroslav himself was easily identifiable, as the most well-dressed and the oldest in the room, at least sixty.  The years had obviously not been kind; he had an ornate but battered cane leaning at the side of his chair, and scars on his face and head that were visible from where Snotlout stood.

His son Vladimir was seated at his right hand, and a woman who must be Yaroslav's wife at his left; she was about his mother's age and looked familiar somehow.  Six empty seats went down the table from Vladimir, apparently intended for Snotlout and his companions.  Next to the Grand Princess sat three men dressed in finery, and next to them, wrapping around the end of the table to meet the six empty seats, were three girls and four boys, ranging from about Snotlout's age to a pair of twin boys who couldn't have been more than five years old.  After a moment, Snotlout realized the honor which he and Hookfang were being given—this was the Grand Prince's own family, and it made for a powerful show of trust.

That being said, at least the Grand Prince wasn't being too trusting of a _dragon._   Sure, his family was present.  But so were at least a dozen guards around the room, all armed.  Hopefully, they wouldn't be ordered to do anything; painting the walls here with fire and blood wouldn't make his saga any greater—and he didn't even want to dare dream of the kids being hurt. 

Snotlout stepped forward, thrust his chest out, and said, "I am Sigurd Trondsson, and these are my companions, Gunnar Bræsisson, Gudmund Hallvarsson, Thorred Folkmarsson, Hrafn Hrafnsson, and Balli Vidkunnsson, and my good and loyal friend Hookfang the Monstrous Nightmare.  We were called and offered your hospitality.  May we join you?"

Despite his attempts to project calmness and confidence, inside, he was practically vibrating with excitement.  Oddmund had been right!  In the space of a _day_ since they'd arrived, already the _Grand Prince_ wanted to see him!  Oh, he was going to have to remember this for the saga!

Yaroslav stood and motioned to the table.  "We welcome you, Sir Sigurd Trondsson and companions.  Please, come, sit.  These are my councilors and family.  Have bread and salt with us."

A little shuffling, and Snotlout was seated next to Vladimir, followed by the others in the order that he had introduced them. 

A line of seven well-dressed young women emerged from one of the other doors, carrying elaborate round loaves of braided bread on embroidered cloths.  The loaves were embellished with fruits, flowers and nuts, making each of them practically a work of art; there was also a small well in the center of each loaf, which was filled with salt. 

Judging by the way that Balli's eyes were bulging at the loaves, their fanciness was important.  

Yaroslav clapped his hands and said in Rus', "Khleb da sol!"

As Balli had instructed them, Snotlout and the others echoed the phrase.  _Bread and salt._   The loaves were cut and dipped in salt, and a piece was served to each person at the table—and a whole loaf was given to Hookfang, a subtlety that Snotlout didn't miss.  His friend was under hospitality as well. 

Hookfang was disappointed, however, when a carcass of roast mutton was brought out whole by the cooks.  He nosed at it mournfully and took a cautious nip as the table watched. 

"Does… does he not like it?" Vladimir asked. 

Snotlout shook his head.  "He prefers fish."  He turned to Hookfang.  "It's all right, buddy.  Eat up.  See if you like it."

Hookfang shrugged and took another nibble.

More roast ox and roast mutton were served to the rest of the guests, and the conversation began.  More introductions were made, and Snotlout was trying to keep it all straight for later.  Three girls, five boys, and three councilors—his steward, marshal and herald.  He was desperately trying to keep all of the names straight.  It didn't help that, with the exception of Yaroslav, his wife, and Vladimir, they all spoke Norse with a very thick accent. 

Which was why it took Snotlout a moment to realize that the herald—Droofey or something—had asked him if his home had been destroyed.

"What!?" he blurted out, shocked.

"Is true, yes?  That is what rumor said—that giant dragon came, battled tiny island of stubborn Norsemen; few of them managed ride away on dragon back.  That you, yes?"

Snotlout's mouth flapped wordlessly for a moment, and then he slammed the table.  "No, it's not!"

"Then what is true, then?" Droofey asked coolly.

"I… I…" Snotlout stammered.

"Dorofei," Yaroslav said chidingly.  "You're upsetting our guest." 

"I'm sorry, sir Sigurd," Dorofei said and nodded to Snotlout. 

Snotlout kept stammering at the image, and only managed a nod.

Gunnar said, "I may be slightly presumptuous in speaking for my associate, but I believe that he accepts your apology.  Also I believe that he is wondering what news you have heard."

Snotlout nodded in agreement, still opening and closing his mouth wordlessly at the image from Dorofei. 

Gudmund spoke up.  "So, what have you heard?  Because Sigurd here likes to drop hints, but doesn't say anything.  And I hadn't heard anything beyond crazy rumor myself before I met him on the way here."

"Ah, many things," Dorofei said.  "Is all tangle of rumor and story.  Is why we invited today.  Goes from Norsemen destroyed by dragon to Norsemen destroyed dragon and took whole nest of dragons to ride." 

The steward, whose name had completely vacated Snotlout's head in his shock, said dismissively, "I personally find that last one dubious.  Unless you'd care to enlighten us, Sir Sigurd?"

Sigurd caught a breath and said, a little dazed, "I… yeah, I fought the big dragon, me and the others.  After we beat it, all of the dragons in the nest came and took us home and moved in with us."

Yaroslav and the three councilors shared significant looks.  Then Yaroslav said, "I see.  Thank you, Sir Sigurd.  I apologize for the shock of the question."

Dorofei spoke up, "Is still your home, yes?  You not banished?"

Snotlout shook his head.  "No.  I just… needed a better place to be."

"So you left?"

Thorred spoke up.  "According to what Karl said—his traveling companion from Norway—his cousin was visiting King Magnus to make allies, and decided to join Karl in going to the Varangians."

"Ah, Magnus!  How is boy doing!?" the marshal exclaimed boisterously.  "Such good lad!  Have not seen him in years!"

"Wait, you know him?" Snotlout asked.

"Of course we know Magnus!  Boy was here, nearly ten years!  Came with father, fostered him!  He kinsman of Princess Irene-Anna!"  He jerked his head towards the Grand Princess, who was smiling slightly and daintily taking bites of her roast. 

"Oh," Snotlout said. 

"His uncle went Romans, like you going.  Good man.  Harald.  If you see him, tell him I say hello."  The marshal grinned widely.  "Also, tell him that Elisiv is not married yet, but he better hurry!"

The girl—about Snotlout's age—sighed and sagged a bit before taking another bite of the meat on her plate, keeping her eyes downcast.  She was pretty enough, but he didn't want to give some excuse for them to claim insult.  He still remembered Hiccup's warning about being careful of the _holmgang_ , and here he didn't know the traditions at all…

"So, your homeland is allied with Magnus now?" Dorofei asked intently.

"Um… probably?"

Yaroslav spoke up.  "Gentlemen.  Apologize for your rudeness.  I know that Sir Sigurd has much of interest, but he is our guest.  Let him eat, please."

More murmured apologies, and people turned back to their meals.  As they ate, Snotlout shook his head slightly to rid himself of the images that his imagination had conjured at their words—of Berk destroyed, and his family gone or dispersed…  His family was fine.  His home was fine… They'd said that it was just rumor—not news. 

After a bit, the marshal spoke up again.  "You say that you are planning on joining Varangian Guard?"

Snotlout nodded, his mouth full of roast ox.

"Maybe you consider joining us here?  Instead?" the marshal said jovially.

Snotlout blinked at the blunt offer.  "Here?"

"Da, why not?  You are man of skill, and we have much to offer."

After a moment, Snotlout shook his head.  "No, thank you."  He cast about for a reason to avoid giving offense.  "You don't have enough fish around here to feed Hookfang."

"Fish could be found," the marshal pressed.  "What say you?"

"I… no thank you.  I appreciate it," Snotlout said, feeling uncomfortable. 

"We could make you," the marshal said pointedly, and glanced at some of the guardsmen.  His demeanor was suddenly much less friendly and boisterous; instead, he had become deadly serious and intent in the space of a moment, like a mask had been taken off. 

Snotlout was about to jump to his feet and run to Hookfang when Yaroslav said angrily, "Dimitri!  He is our guest!  How dare you suggest such a thing!  You are dismissed!"

With a sour look and a half-hearted apology, the marshal—Dimitri—stood, gathered up his plate, and left the room.

Snotlout and the other young Norsemen shared glances.

Yaroslav waited until the door shut, and turned to Snotlout.  "Sir Sigurd.  My apologies for Dimitri's behavior.  He is a blunt man, straightforward and honest in his own way, but that was still unacceptable.  I understand you declining my service, although, should you reconsider before you leave, I will of course accept."

Snotlout nodded numbly.

Gunnar spoke up.  "I believe that a boon in compensation for the insult might be in order, my lord."

"That does sound appropriate, yes," Yaroslav said.  "Do you have a request, Sir Sigurd?"

Snotlout blinked and shook his head to clear it.

"No?  Well, your graciousness is noted," Yaroslav said indulgently.  "In the meantime, please, eat!"

Snotlout opened his mouth and then closed it slowly. 

Now he was just looking forward to getting out of here and continuing on south. 

###

The mead hall was packed that night, between the Hooligans and Magnus's people.  A feast had been laid on, for homecoming _and_ the alliance _and_ Ruffnut's impending wedding. 

People were digging in with enthusiasm; despite the short notice, the kitchens had delivered an excellent spread, although Magnhild had complained all afternoon at Hiccup about dumping a king in her lap with no warning. 

Magnus, at least, wasn't slouching in helping the feast be a success; some of the mysterious cargo from the longboats had turned out to be a case of exotic wine from the south for his new in-laws, imported during the summer, and a set of casks of honey-mead for the tribe at large.  People were toasting them, and Magnus and Ruffnut were floating somewhere around Freyja's court in mutual lust.

Their wedding had been set for Frigg's Day on the following week, to allow for preparations, at Magnhild's insistence.  Berk would be hosting its first royal wedding, which made Hiccup laugh, although apparently Magnus also had to get permission from that evil priest down south before he could marry.  So he might end up getting two weddings—one with the old gods, one with the singular new one.  Which was apparently three gods in one, which made Hiccup confused.  The priest had tried to explain it to Hiccup as they had sailed back to Berk, but it was weird; it wasn't anything like Odin's habit of wearing disguises and calling himself by different names, but three gods in one, apparently? 

For the moment, though, Hiccup was on his _third_ plate of roasted fish; Astrid was off getting more food for both of them, and he was wondering when his appetite would go back to normal, when Fishlegs walked up with a black-haired girl that he didn't recognize. 

"Hiccup?  This is Heather.  Heather, Hiccup."

She blinked, as if the normality of the introduction was somehow falling short of her expectations.  Hiccup just sighed internally and wondered what _she'd_ heard.

"Pleased to meet you," he said, extending a hand and smiling.

Wordlessly, she shook hands, looking at him with some mix of emotions that he couldn't decipher. 

"So… what brings you to Berk?" he asked, casting about for _something_ to defuse the oddly tense situation.

She grimaced and Fishlegs scowled, which made Hiccup blink in surprise at their reaction. 

"She was a thrall.  King Adalwin gave her and a few others to us as an apology for what he did back at Thawfest, along with a literal boatload of treasure."

Hiccup blinked again, this time in surprise at the scale of the apology.

"But we already took their ship…"

"Well, apparently, he really wanted to apologize," Fishlegs said flatly. 

Hiccup nodded.  "Apparently.  Wow."  He looked at the girl, Heather.  "Pleased to meet you.  Everything going well?"

She nodded and managed a weak grin.  "I think that I've settled in all right.  I work in the kitchens, with Magnhild."  Another hesitant smile, and she said, "I actually have to get back to work in a bit; this is my break to grab something to eat, but Fishlegs wanted me to meet you."

Hiccup nodded, smiling, in acknowledgment, and she made a polite bow and scurried off.

Watching her go until she vanished in the crowd, Hiccup turned to Fishlegs and gave his friend a broad smile.  "So are you and she…?" he asked, giving the bigger boy a significant look. 

Fishlegs sagged.  "No.  We're not," he said flatly, with an edge of anger.

Hiccup's head rocked back a bit, surprised; the pair of them had been obviously friendly, and Heather had been leaning into Fishlegs' personal space.  "What's wrong?"

"I don't want to be like that!"

"Like what?"

"Hiccup, Adalwin gave her to _me,_ personally, for the attack on me! I mean, imagine it from her perspective!  She's told that she'd be a freewoman, right, not a thrall?"

Hiccup nodded slowly.

"So then imagine how she'd feel if the guy she was given to as, 'a virgin-girl thrall of _surpassing loveliness,'_ " Fishlegs' voice dripped with sarcasm, "started chasing after her."  He then pursed his lips to the side in a grimace and then sighed, deflating.  "I like her a lot… but… but… well…" 

"Well?" Hiccup asked encouragingly. 

He slumped a little and looked down.  "I found a girl that likes my writings… and knows how to cook… and we like to talk…"  He trailed off.

Hiccup nodded with a smile and made a coaxing gesture.

"…but I can't tell if she likes me, like Astrid likes you, or if she wants to be just friends, and I… I want to be a good guy, you know?"  He sighed.  "And then there are other issues…"

"What other issues?" Hiccup asked.

"Tell you later?" Fishlegs said.

"Why not—"

"Hiccup, lad!  Congratulations on a successful mission!"

He looked up to see Rikard clanhead Hofferson standing there, and swallowed a bit.  Astrid's great-grandfather was still spry at his age of more than seventy, and his cane featured a solid ball of brass as the grip… which made the oak stave into a _wicked_ club that the elder could handle with panache.  Four years ago, he'd once managed to knock out a Gronckle with a single solid swing before the dragon had made off with some of his sheep, which Hiccup remembered clearly, as it had happened right in front of him.

Thankfully, he was smiling. 

"Uh, thank you, sir," Hiccup said carefully.  "It wouldn't have been a success without Astrid, though.  She brought much honor to your clan during the trip."

"I heard.  I also heard that you and my great-granddaughter worked well together as a team."

"We make a good one, sir," Hiccup said, starting to sweat a bit.  Hopefully the elder wouldn't start making any issues of him and Astrid being unbetrothed.  

Then she returned, with a plate of mutton.  "Hi, grandpapa," she said with a smile as she sat down next to Hiccup and then put some of the steaming meat onto his plate.

Rikard glanced at the two of them, Astrid looking comfortable, and Hiccup feeling rigid with a bit of worry at the elder making a scene.  Then Rikard smiled broadly and said, "Lad, granddaughter, you've brought much honor and glory to the tribe with what you've done.  Congratulations."

And without another word, he wandered off. 

Hiccup shared a confused look with Fishlegs, but before he could continue his conversation with his friend, Clodgall clanhead Jorgenson walked up with Spitelout; they wanted to know all Hiccup could tell them about the Varangian Guard.

And so on. 

Fishlegs got called away by his grand-aunt, and the feast continued.  As the evening wore on, even more people came up to him to wish him congratulations for the successful diplomatic mission.  Still others were congratulating him for unspecified, vague or blatantly absurd reasons, all the while giving him and Astrid a significant look, making him wonder how they could _tell._

Well, nobody had jumped up and accused either of them of breaking the law against premarital relations, so that was good at least. 

Not even her parents, which had made him give a sigh of relief as they had walked off after talking with them about Norway. 

Also, time for talking was limited, as Magnus had Sigvatr, as Court Skald, tell the most epic sagas the man knew for the assembled tribe, and he'd told a story of a far off land, where another tribe wandered a place where the land was hot and the desert stretched to the horizon.  That tribe had been enslaved, and their god had come after generations of enslavement to free them with signs and miracles, and had inflicted great and terrible plagues upon their oppressors, and freed them, and defended them against an army that had pursued them.

People had chanted and cheered as the skald's voice echoed off of the walls of the mead hall, and the feasting and drinking had gone on long into the night.  The dragons just looked at the humans oddly, and ate their fish.

Eventually, Hiccup staggered off to bed; he tried to pace himself on the ale and mead and wine, but Magnus had kept the toasts coming.  His metal leg seeming to be either too long or too short, and he was leaning up against Toothless and _distinctly_ grateful that the chief's house was right next to the mead hall… although the distance seemed like it had tripled since this afternoon…

Falling into his own bed for the first time in two months was a final homecoming. 

Even if it was missing Astrid's weight and warmth next to him.

* * *

 

Author’s Note: And I’m back!  Ireland was amazing, my 32nd birthday was yesterday and it was wonderful, not in the least because of my wife’s (my wife!) efforts, and we’re settling into satisfied domesticity together.  

I’ll be posting pictures from Ireland shortly over on my tumblr (I'll add links here when I've made the posts), and this fic will now resume its once-per-week update schedule as of now.  

In the meantime, I hope that everyone enjoyed this chapter.  ^_^ 


	21. Preparations

**Chapter 21: Preparations**

_The dragon hydrocarbon organ system is the defining feature of the draconic clade; even in flightless, obligate aquatic, or the occasional limbless breed, if they possess the hydrocarbon organ system, they are defined as dragons._

_The organ system is estimated to have originally evolved during the Neogene Period between 18 and 24 MYA, based on genetic evidence from the draconic genome, although some estimates put its origin much earlier, during the Paleogene's Eocene Epoch, between 48 and 34 MYA.  Originally an offshoot of an additional liver lobe among tunnel-dwelling reptiles, its original purpose appears to have been in protecting the proto-dragons from heavy-metal poisoning accumulated from the stones of their native environment.  Later evolutionary adaptations shifted the liver lobe into a distinct organ of its own, capable of chemical synthesis of basic hydrocarbons in conjunction with symbiotic bacteria, hypothesized as a form of energy storage.  Later mutations created the secondary organs in the hydrocarbon system that distill oxygen, and transport, store, mix and ignite the hydrocarbons for firebreathing.  True flight in the draconic species only appeared after the evolution of the pressurized oxygen bladders adjacent to the respiratory and hydrocarbon systems; at rest, the dragon uptakes oxygen from the atmosphere and stores it under pressure in the bladder.  This oxygen is then either used for fueling flight muscles or for igniting hydrocarbons for firebreathing._

_—An Introduction To Dragon Biology, 17th Edition, Oxford University Press, 1793_

The next day, after the hangovers had worn off, Hiccup and Fishlegs went to supervise the construction of housing for their royal guest. 

Stoick picked an open spot on the hillside below the chieftain's hut for construction, and shortly afterwards, freshly cut logs from the Timberjacks were carried in by Gronckles and Hotburples working in teams.  Prepared carved sections, left over from the days when they had had to replace a house every few weeks or months, were slotted into place with even greater speed than they had in the old days. Floorboards were efficiently hammered down, and some furniture from the village stores were carried in.  All told, they went from empty lot to a fully furnished and completed house, comparable to the chieftain's home in size and furnishings, in less than eight hours.  Admittedly, there had been some advance work done, and Berk was _practiced_ at this sort of construction, but, still…

Magnus watched the speed and efficacy of dragon-aided building in awe.

Taking Hiccup aside as they watched the roof being assembled and carried over in a single whole piece, he said, "I'm not sure what I want more now—war dragons or construction dragons.  Yngvarr _mentioned_ it from when he was here, but I had _no_ idea…"  He watched as the corner beams were lowered into place by a team of Gronckles hovering above, one of Berk's senior carpenters guiding it down into the holes in the sod that a Whispering Death had chewed out an hour or so before. 

Hiccup just grinned and said, deadpan, "Berk is not responsible, my friend, if you take a Timberjack with you to sea and they accidentally slice your ship's mast in half."

"Very funny, Hiccup," Magnus said, still staring, and then watching as another group of Gronckles came flying in, carrying the floorboards in a stack.  He was either praying or swearing, Hiccup wasn't sure which. 

He turned to Hiccup, eyes wide.  "Before, I was just focused on the martial applications of them. I will admit it.  Flying above the battlefield? Raining down hot death on enemy armies?  It would give me an advantage over any other out there.  But this…"  he looked around in awe.  "This is _true_ power.  Not just the ability to destroy God's work… but to aid Him in building it."

"Well, that's how things go," Hiccup said philosophically.  "It's always easier to destroy than to create.  I'm just glad that I figured out ways to make creation easier too."

"As am I, my friend.  As am I."  Magnus watched as another group of Gronckles flew by carrying a bedframe fit for a king and placed it gently inside the roofless house.

Hiccup smiled at his friend, who flushed slightly, and then said, "You gave us two beds.  I figure that I can give you at least one."

"That is going to be one of those jokes between old friends that they use to confuse their children, isn't it?" Magnus asked in a bemused tone.

"Yep."

"Excellent.  I look forward to it."

They paused as Hiccup had to go manage a few details, although really, he was completely superfluous here.  The foreman knew what he was doing, having been rebuilding Berk's housing since before Hiccup was born.  Hiccup was technically here to manage the dragons, as they had needed in the early days this past winter, but now, after a year of practice, he was about as useful as hens' teeth.  And not Fishlegs' dad, either, as he was the foreman, and was the one who _made_ that joke.

Returning, he indicated to Magnus, "We'll be building housing for the rest of your court over there," he pointed to an area off the side of the crowded village.  "They're assembling the pieces now and will be ready in the morning.  Figure by tomorrow night we'll have something decent up for them.  Just bedding, though.  Not really much else."

"Well, your father offered me hospitality already.  I think we'll manage to find something to eat," Magnus said dryly.  He paused.  "By the way, what was this I heard about dragon-powered dish cleaning?"

Hiccup laughed.  "Do you want me to give you the tour, because that'll have to wait until tomorrow, or should I have Fishlegs do it?"

"Oh, I can wait.  I was just wondering."

Hiccup explained some of what they had been doing in the village with using dragons for various specialized labor, and Magnus's eyes practically glowed as he thought about how much labor he could save his own subjects—and let them redirect it elsewhere.

"Hiccup, my friend," he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet slightly.  "I don't know what dragon I will pick.  I honestly don't.  As you describe it, it will practically choose _me_ instead.  But please, promise me one thing."

"Yes?"

"That you will not hoard these blessings for yourself, but share them!  Invest them in other people!  Take these talents and invest them, not bury them."

Hiccup grinned, and clapped Magnus on the shoulder, which made the other man grin.  "My friend, _nothing_ would please me more than that.  It's keeping them away from people that will misuse them that's my biggest concern."

"Like Snotlout."

"Like Snotlout," Hiccup said with a grimace and a nod.  "Tell you a secret?"

"Yes?"

"I'm more worried about poor Hookfang.  Snotlout… he's my blood.  Father's sister's son.  But, right now… when I think about them, heading down into that rats' nest of politics that Yngvarr described… I'm more worried about someone hurting Hookfang."

Magnus grimaced and nodded.  "Aye.  Not the best of thoughts, but, knowing the man, I understand it."

"I mean, I wouldn't _wish_ him harm, and he's still my kin, and I hope he comes home all right.  Hopefully in rags on the back of an irritated dragon, after what he said to Astrid.  But I hope he comes home, alive and breathing, and maybe a little wiser."

"The prodigal son returns," Magnus said, with an air of a quotation. 

"If you say so," Hiccup said.  "Meanwhile, let's build something for him to come home to, shall we?"

###

While the boys built, Astrid was giving Wulfhild the tour of the island.  On dragonback, of course. 

As Stormfly flew through the air with an attitude of homecoming, giving warm trills at familiar sights and favorite spots, Astrid pointed out all of the features of their home to Wulfhild. 

"What kind of dragon would you recommend for me, Astrid?" she asked, grinning, from her seat behind the other girl. The two of them had to speak loudly to hear each other over the rushing wind.  Given the enthusiasm of the moment, it wasn't hard.

"I'd say Deadly Nadder!" Astrid offered energetically. 

"And then I'd say you're a bit biased!" Wulfhild said, leaning forward and watching the waves below crash against the rocks, entranced. 

"Loyal!  The word you're looking for is _loyal!_ "

They darted through the sea-stack maze at high speed, whooping and cheering, and then went back for another pass before flying for altitude. 

"Seriously, though, what do you think?"

"Terrible Terrors?" Astrid suggested with a smirk. 

"I prefer my lap-pets to not come with a risk of singed dresses!" Wulfhild said primly, and they laughed. 

"Night Fury?" Wulfhild suggested innocently a moment later.

"You'd have to arm-wrestle me first before you got to Hiccup," Astrid said sweetly.

"Pass, thank you.  Pity though.  Toothless is just so… adorable."

"You've never seen him in a nasty mood, though," Astrid said as they went in slow circles around Berk's central peak to take in the view.

"I wish we knew what happened to the other Night Furies," Wulfhild said reflectively after another moment; the loudest noise was the slow flapping of Stormfly's wings at their current slow pace.  "Because Toothless isn't that _old._   They've been around for hundreds of years.  How can he be the last one?"

Astrid sighed.  "I don't know."  They _dove_ for speed, whooping again, and did a high-speed run through the sea stack maze, coming out through the other side cheering.

"So, what else?" Wulfhild asked as they flew over the crashing surf below.  They both had to shout again to be heard over the sound of the waves hitting the sea stacks.

"Gronckle?" Astrid asked as they dipped low over the water, and she bent down and passed her hand through the crest of a breaking wave.

"They're cute, but in a way that's so ugly that they came around and crept in through the back door!"

"Zippleback?"

"I'll just thump Tuffnut on the back of the head when I want to ride with my sister-in-law!"

"Use something heavy!  There's a _lot_ of skull there and not much brain!"

Wulfhild snorted and then laughed with Astrid as they pulled up and flew back over the main part of the island.

"Timberjack?" Astrid asked as they darted through some trees—some of which bore the signs of attentions from the Sharp-class dragons.

"They look all sleek, and they're apparently amazingly useful.  Put on the maybe list."

"All right!" Astrid said and then mused,  "How about a nice Monstrous Nightmare?  There's one that has that nice blue coloration that would match your eyes."

Wulfhild snorted and called back primly, "See previous statement regarding burned dresses!"

They both laughed again, and Stormfly flew back out over the waves, dipping so low that they felt the chill of the salty spray on their faces.

"Thunderdrum?"

"Lots of teeth, but, you have to admit, Stoick looks pretty impressive on the back of his!  Maybe list!"

"Razorwhip?"

Wulfhild ran through her memories of the last day and then shook her head.  "Haven't seen that one yet!"

"We've only got two, unless more came in while we were in Norway.  They're not very sociable, either.  I think that they mostly hang around for the food."

"What do they look like?"

"Like someone put a Nadder in old Roman armor," Astrid said enthusiastically.

Wulfhild tried to visualize that.  "That sounds _amazing._ "

They were skimming low over the water, and a group of Scauldrons burbled to the surface to say hello, breaking through the waves to fly alongside.  The two girls waved, and the Tidal dragons flew in formation with Stormfly for a few hundred feet before they dropped below the surface again. 

"Scauldron?"

"They're pretty amazing, and amazingly pretty!  But I don't think we have room for a fish pond that big!"

"What about the fjord?"

"Well, yeah, but I'd say that half the fun of having a pet dragon is having it live with you!" Wulfhild said. 

"Can't disagree there.  Stormfly has her own little nook in my room.  Well, maybe not so little."  Stormfly huffed.  She'd gone into her rock-lined spot and proceeded to rub herself against the walls like an oversized cat for at least an hour when they'd gotten home, and it had taken Astrid an hour to coax her out again the next morning.  "What about the Skrill?"

"What's that one?"

"We've only got the one—and even then, not most days!  He—at least we _think_ it's a he—is even more sneaky than _Toothless._ "

"That's pretty sneaky!"

"Yep, and he likes to play with lightning, so he usually shows up around thunderstorms.  Snags some food from the urns and— _pfft—_ vanishes!"

"What does it look like?"

"Person-sized, I'd say. Purple, with spines in a frill around the neck."

"So a smaller version of a Nadder?"

"More or less," Astrid said, and they banked back to the island, coming in towards one of the more open stretches of shoreline.

"Huh.  Maybe," Wulfhild said after a long moment of musing.

"Whispering Death?"

"Nope!  All the ugly of Gronckles, no cute sneaking in through the back door," Wulfhild said with a shudder.  "I don't care how useful they are, pass!"

"Changewing?"

"What do they look like?"

"No one knows!" Astrid said with an audible smirk.

Wulfhild poked her.

"Sorry, that was a joke."  She shrugged.  "They can change the look of their scales so they can hide or make pretty displays.  Person-sized, and playful.   Also smart!"  She gave a wry grin, remembering how clever the small dragons were—and their questionable sense of humor.  " _Very_ smart."

"Oooh.  Maybe list!"

"Hobblegrunt?"

"That's the one that changes color based on its moods, right?"

"Yep!  We only have a few that have shown up, but they're pretty sociable; they've been very helpful in keeping the Rookery peaceful."

"That sounds pretty handy.  How do they do that?"

"Hiccup's theory is that they're very good at sensing the moods of the other dragons and intervene when things start getting heated up, so it never boils over," Astrid said, and then she shrugged.  "Well, unless more showed up while we were visiting you, that's all I can think of that we have on hand." 

"Sounds good to me," Wulfhild said with a smile.  "I'll think it over."

"Well, you've got time," Astrid said.  "We're marrying your brother off first."

Wulfhild snorted.  "I still can't believe it.  Oh, I can, but at the same time… she's not what I expected.  You… _Hiccup_ really upset the whole applecart.  I mean, no offense, but she's not a royal or noble… but she _is_ a dragon-rider, and that's enough, apparently."

Astrid snorted in agreement and they flew on in silence for another minute.  She pondered Wulfhild's comment about Ruffnut not being a noble.  And, yeah, she was right.  Of course, by that same logic, neither was she.  But the visitors didn't seem to care; Stoick was being addressed as Jarl, Hiccup as 'Sir' or 'Lord', and herself as Lady. 

Stormfly turned her head back and chittered as the silence extended.

"What did she say?" Wulfhild asked.

"I think she wanted to ask if we're doing all right," Astrid said.

Stormfly nodded and then turned back to watch where she was flying; they were over the treetops, but there were still high pine boles to watch out for. 

"Well, I am," Wulfhild said.  "Thank you, Stormfly!"

Stormfly gave a little laugh and banked down to follow the course of one of the island's small streams.  If Astrid recalled correctly, the water below would eventually be used to power her parents' grain mill. 

"Slow down a bit!" Wulfhild called.  "I want to see!"

Stormfly obliged, and Wulfhild gave a happy sigh.

A minute or so later, as they cleared the waterfall above the mill and hovered, Astrid asked, "Glad to be here, Wulf?"

Wulfhild took in a deep breath and let it out as a long sigh of contentment.  "Oh yes.  I'm here, on this beautiful island, with friends…"  She nodded her head vigorously, the ends of her braids that emerged below her kransen circlet hitting Astrid in the back.  "Friends that care, friends that want to spend time with me, friends that like me…"

With a grimace, Astrid asked, "Isn't that what friends are?"

"Only if you're not a noble," Wulfhild said bluntly.  "Or very very lucky.  There were people that I thought were my friends in my uncle's court when I was there.  Just a few, though, and when Magnus was seated on the throne and it was decided that I would join him…"  She waved an arm in an airy fashion.  "Poof.  They vanished.  I wasn't useful to them anymore."  Her face soured.  "Well, maybe I'm being unfair.  Some people were friendly to me.  But for others…"  She bit her lip.  "You and Hiccup are the first people in a long time who want to spend time with me for _my_ sake, and not because I'm a channel to my brother's ear."

Putting on a smile, Astrid turned back and waggled her eyebrows.  "Well, my friend, when it comes to spending time with you, would you like to join me for weapon practice?"

Wulfhild laughed.  "Astrid, if you haven't noticed, I'm _short._   I'll stick with my bow, thank you!"

"All right!  Archery practice tomorrow!  Loser offers up a forfeit to the winner!"

Wulfhild snorted.  "And what would you have me do, after I give up a forfeit?"

"Who said anything about _you_ being the one to offer it?" Astrid smirked.  "I'm going to get Hiccup, the twins, and your brother to join in!  Would you like me to have Hiccup to make you another lyra?"

Wulfhild threw her head back and laughed.  "Now that's just cruel!"

Astrid shrugged.  "He needs to practice with the bow.  Or at least _something._   I worry."

Wulfhild sobered.  "You do love him, don't you?"

Astrid fell silent and then nodded.  "More than I can say.  I…"  she paused and then scoffed.  "I don't have your brother's tongue for poetry… but…" she shrugged a bit helplessly.  "It's become a fact of my life.  Rain falls from clouds.  The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.  The grass is green.  Fire burns.  And we love each other."

Wulfhild quieted for a moment and then said softly, "I think that that was poetic enough." 

Astrid scoffed and cast about for something to change the subject.  "Here, want to see why I worry?  We had this race through the sea stacks last spring thaw, and he pulled the most _stupid_ stunts…"  She directed Stormfly out to Heimdall's Spire and the double archway, pointing out the sights along the way.  Wulfhild was suitably impressed and appalled, and from there the tour continued. 

As they flew along, Astrid asked, "So… how are you feeling about Eindride being here?"

Wulfhild shrugged and said morosely, "I'm sure that he's going to tell his father every little lapse of mine when we get home, and try to control me in the meantime, once he finishes gawking.  But I can excuse anything by claiming it as being a good guest to our hosts, so I don't care too much."

Astrid grimaced.  "Do you think that'll work?"

"If there's one thing that Einar holds sacred, it's hospitality—or at least the appearance of it.  With the way that he plays the Great Game, it's too risky to him to be known as a hospitality breaker—which is what would happen if he treats me poorly and I tell, say… _you_ about it."

"What do you mean?"

"I…um… hmm… Okay.  So would Roald be any good at hustling _hnefatafl_ if everyone didn't agree on the rules for it?"

Astrid thought on that for a moment.  "You mean if he just started making up rules or saying that it doesn't count?  No, I guess not."

"Exactly.  For Einar, hospitality and guest rights and all of those traditions are important, not just because they're _tradition,_ but because they're the _rules_ of the game."

"Oohhh," Astrid said, comprehension dawning.  "I understand.  Take away hospitality and it would be like throwing the game board across the room."

 " _Exactly._   Sure, he didn't like Magnus's oath because it was too one-sided, or any of the other actions that Magnus took, but notice that he didn't try to weasel out of it.  That would be the sort of thing that would damage his reputation.  And here, I'm your guest.  There, I was his.  Yeah, I think that'll work."

"I'll be sure to give you lots and lots of excuses, then."

Wulfhild gave a happy sigh.  "Thanks."  She slumped a little.  "I really don't want to think about it, though.  I'm sure Einar is going to try to take away or at least get control over my dragon when I get home."

"If he does that," Astrid said tartly, "Hiccup will have something to say about it."

"I… thanks."

She fell silent for a long moment, seeming to drink in the view, while Astrid chewed on what her friend had said.  They hovered there until Stormfly grumbled about the effort and they flew on. 

"So… Wulfhild.  I… uh… I noticed that you've been pretty open about all of this."

"All of what?"

"Einar, for example.  I half-expected to have to pry it out of you like I did with Hiccup."

Wulfhild sighed and then gave a very small smile.  "Astrid.  What, you would prefer me to remain silent and leave you in doubt?"

"No… but I am surprised that you spoke up so quickly," Astrid said back.

With the smile ticking up a bit at the edges, Wulfhild said, "Well, they didn't manage to hammer all of the stubborn Norsewoman out of their princess-chattel.  I kept my mouth shut because nobody seemed to _care._   I was frustrated, not cowed."  She patted Astrid on the shoulder. 

"If you say so…" Astrid said uncertainly.  She didn't quite buy Wulfhild's comment about being frustrated instead of cowed—she had looked extremely beaten down those nights after the attack—but if that was what her friend told herself, then she'd accept it.  But she could believe the Norsewoman part; strong-spoken, having her own attitudes, and a sense of honor and humor… yeah, that sounded about right.

"I do say so.  And I'm a princess, so you'd better believe me," she said with a haughty sniff that became a wide smile. 

Astrid snorted.  "That doesn't fit you, sorry."

"No?  Oh well.  I will say this, though—since our talks back in Nidaros, I've been thinking on this, all of it." 

"All of what?"

"You, Hiccup, this place…  I had plenty of time to think on the voyage here."

"In between lyra practice sessions," Astrid deadpanned.

"I think we found a workable balance!" Wulfhild humorously protested.  Both to protect the instrument from damage from seawater and to save everyone's hearing, she'd only practiced playing when they'd gone ashore.  She sobered and said, "But as for that thinking… I realized something."  Eyebrows knitted together, she said intently, "Hiccup has completely upset the game board for Einar and the others, and they're still playing by the old rules."

"Uhhh… explain that?"

Wulfhild nodded.  "Dynasties… vassals… armies… patrons… courts… titles…  lands… these are the pieces in the game of who rules and who is _ruled_.  Myself, I'm a playing piece.  I exist solely for my value in tying together an alliance with another dynasty."

Astrid made a noise of protest and Wulfhild gave her a sad half-smile.  "Don't tell me that you haven't had similar moments.  Sure, you're a shieldmaid, but you're also from a powerful clan here.  I know that Hiccup's aunt is Snotlout's mother, which gives him a claim on the chiefdom."

"Yes, but—"

"That's different?  How?  It's only the size of the title—kingdom or chiefdom—that makes a difference there," Wulfhild said intently.  "But now…"  She spread her arms out to encompass Berk.  "Now things have _changed._   Now, a tiny chiefdom has _power,_ of the sort that make armies and titles and lands _irrelevant._   And, most importantly…" she said slowly, a glorious smirk crossing her face, "the young man who _truly_ rules that power is kind, and honest, and decent." 

Astrid smiled warmly as Wulfhild continued.  "And the corrupt or cruel old men—like Einar, or my uncle—who know the old rules, who only _knew_ the old rules, are now going to have to deal with your beloved."  She raised her eyebrows, still smirking.  "There's a new seat at the table, and Hiccup is sitting in it—but rather than him having to learn the rules and play catch-up with everyone else, it's the other way around."

Astrid sucked in a breath.  "I… I hadn't thought of it that way."

"I have." Wulfhild crossed her arms.  "Einar is acting so cautiously because he's realized that he might have made a poor move in his play.  He assumed that Hiccup would be just another warlord or petty chief, with the same appetites, and that dragons would be like another army, and so all he had to do was deal with another player like himself."  She crossed her arms and leaned back in the saddle, looking deeply self-satisfied.  "And he was wrong.  Unless I've _completely_ misunderstood you and Hiccup, I'm now essentially your vassal and not because you want me for power… but because I'm your friend."

"Um… what?  But you haven't sworn any oaths to us?" Astrid asked weakly.  Unless she had missed something at some point, which she didn't _think_ was likely…

Wulfhild looked at her with a questioning expression, her head tilted slightly and her eyebrows drawn together, and then they sprang apart in understanding.  "Oh.  Um…  one moment…"

They flew on in silence as Wulfhild's comment bounced around Astrid's brain.  Their vassal?  Huh? 

"All right," Wulfhild said after a few moments of flight.  "So… umm… How do I put this?  So…  Stoick rules here, right?  And he gave you the job of Master of the Dragon, right?"

Astrid nodded slowly.  "Yes…"

"Which makes him your master, and you the vassal, right?"  Astrid nodded.  "He gave you your job, and he's the center of things on Berk.  Oh, sure, if he abused his power, I'm sure your people would bring it up at a Thing, but this is how courts _work._   You have the high lord at the center, and then his inner circle.  Then those people have their own vassals, and on down."

"Okay…"

"So now… just by making me your friend… what you've done with me—and my brother, now that I think about it—is that you and Hiccup have taken the two of us into _your_ circles.  We might not be formal vassals, but we're _friends,_ and that means that _we_ have access to _your_ power, just in the form of favors for your friends.  And that's a source of power that wasn't doled out by Einar and that he doesn't have control over."

Astrid blinked slowly, thinking it over.  Wulfhild was right.  Not only was she right, that had essentially been hers and Hiccup's plan when they'd suggested bringing her and giving her a dragon.  Sure, they hadn't _thought_ of it in those terms, but… that was essentially it. 

"So now what?" Astrid asked.

"Now?  Now I pray to God that you and Hiccup and Stoick don't get seduced and corrupted into playing _their_ game.  Keep forcing them to play Hiccup's."  She took a deep steeling breath and hissed it out through her teeth.  "In the meantime, I'm grateful for this friendship, because you _are_ my friends."

Astrid scoffed and smiled.  "Well, yeah.  We like you, Wulf."

"And I like you and Hiccup.  But to give you an idea of what it's like to live like this… I'm also grateful for how you have given me access, even through your friendship and support, to that power that you now have."

With a grimace, Astrid said, "Well, that's blunt."

"Before you were commenting that you were surprised that I wasn't holding back, and now you're complaining that I'm saying too much?  Make up your mind, Astrid," Wulfhild said with a chuckle.  She then exhaled sharply.  "I understand if you don't want to hear it… but I'm just trying to be helpful."

"No, no, it's good to hear.  I'm… I'm just surprised, that's all."

Wulfhild shrugged.  "For me, being in your circle is nice, but at the end of the day, I doubt that my fate has changed."

"But… but…  all of that on how things have just changed…!" Astrid looked at her, appalled. 

Wulfhild looked at her, resigned.  "Astrid.  The rules of the game may have changed.  But the fact is that the _game itself_ hasn't—at least not yet.  The mere fact that my brother is marrying Ruffnut for a dynastic alliance says as much."  She forced a more lighthearted tone to her voice that was false enough that Astrid could easily tell.  "The only way that the game has changed _there_ is that now we know that having a dragon makes you effectively a noble in rank.  But since there aren't any dragon-riders outside of Berk, my potential pool of future husbands hasn't exactly enlarged."  She shrugged.  "On the other hand, as Bergljot kept telling me, as a princess, having as many marriage options available to say no to was my sole power."  Astrid continued to stare at her, appalled; she thought that the discussion on treating diplomacy and war as a _game_ was horrifying, but this was just… _wrong._

Wulfhild shrugged, a long-suffering look in her eyes.  "I'd say that having a dragon for myself and you as a friend will mean that I'll have my pick, when all is said and done.  And that will have to be good enough."

Astrid grimaced.  "That's a terrible way to look at it."

"It's what I've got," Wulfhild said.  "Who knows?  Maybe I'll find someone who will make me as happy as Hiccup makes you.  I can hope."  She gave an eloquent shrug of supreme indifference, which didn't seem to be completely honest to Astrid, but she didn't want to say anything.  "In the meantime, though, I don't want to think on that.  I'm here, this place lifts my spirits, and I plan on enjoying every day of my reprieve!"  Wulfhild suddenly grinned.  "Could we get out to the old Nest and back before dinner?"

"Oh, I think that we could manage that," Astrid said, grateful for the distraction.  This chat had been much more intense than she'd expected, and she wanted to think it over—with Hiccup, if possible.  "Stormfly, let's go!"

###

Snotlout stared at the cup Vidkunn was holding out with bleary eyes.  They had strong drink here, and while the worst of the hangover had passed, he felt like a pair of dwarves had mistakenly tunneled into his head and were taking a different way out, with pickaxes. 

Taking the cup from the amused trader, he downed half of it in a single pull and coughed.  Then he blinked as the taste asserted itself, a cool and slightly bitter flavor that washed away the foulness in his mouth.

"So, lads, did you all have a good night at the Grand Prince's?" the trader asked.  "A high honor, to be sure."

There were groans, and the others held their clay cups of whatever-this-drink-was close to their chests or to the sides of their heads.  They had staggered back to the docks and the small barn that Vidkunn had rented for them late into the night, and collapsed into individual heaps as soon as they'd cleared the threshold. 

Balli moaned piteously, and fixed his father with a beady-eyed stare.  "Not so loud, pa."

"Any loud noise and surely our heads will explode in a manner like that of a melon under a warhammer," Gunnar said tersely, and then moaned, clutching at his head. 

Vidkunn grinned and looked around at the other young Norsemen who hadn't gone along to dinner the previous night.  Cupping his hands, he said in a loud whisper that made Snotlout flinch, "Did you hear that?!  Stay quiet!"

Kormak grinned evilly and said back loudly, "Say again!?  I didn't hear you!"

Gudmund groaned and threw something at the other young man, but missed widely, hitting his brother instead. 

Ondott yelped and called out, "Hey!  Watch it!"

"Tell your brother to hush unless he wants to be covered in bits of our brains," Gudmund said irritably. 

Fridgeir shook his head, smiling widely, and said, "No, no brains.  Just bits of bone."

By all rights, the glares he got should have reduced him to a greasy smear on the rush-covered floor.  Instead, Fridgeir laughed lightly.

Before the ribbing could continue, there was a polite pounding on the door, which made Snotlout clutch at his head as the dwarves redoubled their efforts to escape via his eye sockets. 

Karl, who was standing near the rear of the group, answered the door.  "Aye?" he asked, opening it a crack.

"I'm here on the Grand Prince's business.  Open up, please."

Snotlout froze.  He vaguely recalled most of last night, and while he was fairly sure that he hadn't embarrassed himself, he did distinctly recall the marshal's threat to try to keep him here.

Karl opened the door the rest of the way, and a smaller man, dressed in a fancy shirt and trousers, with a pair of leather gloves on his hands and a small fur hat on his head, entered the room.  Looking around the barn, as the sunlight streaming in behind him gave the dwarves something to tunnel towards, he then said to Vidkunn, "You are Vidkunn Guthhersson, yes?"

Vidkunn nodded.  "Aye.  I am traveling down to Constantinople with trade goods—amber, furs, pitch, honey, wax, axes and the like—with these men as escort.  I plan on selling what I have there while they take up service with the Varangian Guard, and hiring Varangians who have mustered out for the trip back."

"Splendid.  Now, the Grand Prince Yaroslav was deeply impressed with the quality of the young men that were his visitors last night.  As such, he wishes to extend an offer of employment in his personal guard to any here."

Snotlout blinked and heaved himself to a sitting position.  Did he want to take them up on it?

Vidkunn said mildly, "I hired you all for the trip to Constantinople.  We're not there yet.  If you take this offer, you'll be in breach of contract."

"I'm sure you could recruit additional members for your guardsmen locally, my good trader," the messenger said.  "And we'd be willing to pay a portion towards their contracts."

Vidkunn crossed his arms and harrumphed, but didn't say anything more. 

As Snotlout thought, the others murmured excitedly among themselves.  Some were obviously going to take the offer, while others were more hesitant. 

The messenger said after a moment, "He intends for you to be specifically for the guard for his wife and children.  Princess-Consort Irene-Anna is a Norsewoman, and has said that she misses hearing her native tongue, and the Grand Prince wishes to indulge her, as well as make certain that his children will be able to understand the language of their cousins."

Without hesitation, Karl turned to the man and went to one knee.  "I'll take service with the Grand Prince, sir."

A few of the others in the crowd followed suit as Snotlout watched.

Then the messenger turned towards Snotlout and said, "In particular, his Highness is interested in you, young dragon rider.  Would you be interested in taking service with us?"

All eyes turned to him, and Snotlout blinked in a vain effort to try to get the dwarves to calm down. 

With a grunt, he shook his head.  "Sorry, but I'm going to stay with Vidkunn and get to the Romans."

"Ah well.  Had to check.  As for the rest of you, I'll take down your names and we'll see about bringing you aboard, and deal with those pesky contracts."  He turned to Vidkunn.  "I don't think there will be a problem.  Will there be, trader?"

Vidkunn shook his head, seemingly resigned.  "No."

"Splendid.  Until later, then."  And he took out a flat piece of wax and a stylus and started to get the names of those who planned on staying in Kyiv.

###

With Magnus and Wulfhild settled into the new hut, the next day Hiccup and Fishlegs gave them and Magnus's court a walking tour of the village, which also worked to let Hiccup see everything that Fishlegs had finished over the last two months. 

Magnus was wide-eyed at the Timberjack mill on the main island, where Hiccup and Gobber had made what they called plane-gloves for the Sharp-class dragons to cut planks with speed and precision. 

The dragons loved it; there were large benches there for them to cuddle into, and they just had to wear the metal-reinforced wing-guards that would let their riders help them shape the wood.  The building was appropriately vast for the large, nearly legless dragons, and smelled of pitch, sawdust, and resin.  Trees were carried in by dragon relays and then de-branched by other Sharp-class dragons, including one adorable adolescent Timberjack named Hatchet, who apparently took great pride in slicing the branches off as close to the trunk as it could, and was preening for attention and praise as it showed off for Hiccup and the King, who was charmed. Yngvarr, who had already met the dragon and made friends on his previous trip, took a moment to give the young Hatchet a backscratch while the rest of the party continued on.

The Scauldron cove, with its lacquered wood racks for holding dishes, was viewed with amusement by most of Magnus's people.  Eindride, in particular, was derisive, but when Fishlegs recited the figures on how many man-hours of labor were being saved here by the simple expedience of giving the dragons a game, that raised an eyebrow or six among Magnus's court.  Steward Mark, in particular, had an absent look of focus on his face as they walked back up the pathway. 

The Broodery was less enjoyable to the visitors; it was dark, dank, and stuffy, the rocks themselves still warm from the heat that they'd absorbed.  The hatchlings had been moved out only two weeks before to the Rookery, and now they were vigorously cleaning the place at Fishlegs' direction.   At least a few of the workers were commenting that they enjoyed it down here, with winter coming.  Yngvarr dryly commented that he imagined that the place felt like a  sauna when it was in use, which made Hiccup snort in agreement. 

The Rookery was the second-to-last stop, or stops, technically, as the tunnels now extended back into the island and through the neighboring peaks.  In a few weeks, the new dragon riders were going to be picking their dragons from here when the training began, so they were introducing the dragons to the king and his court.  Today was not for picking, though; it was just a tour. 

As they walked in through the human-accessible tunnel, near the old training arena, Hiccup deeply enjoyed the amazement on his friends' faces as they saw dozens upon dozens of dragons lounging around, playing with one of Astrid's giant dragon toys, grooming, racing, or just being… well, dragons. 

Hiccup noted idly that the ceiling-mounted batting toy stuffed with dragon-nip was due for replacement again, which, according to Fishlegs, was roughly a weekly occurrence since Astrid had designed the thing and Hiccup had built the first one back at the beginning of the summer.  A trio of Gronckles were bouncing it off of their horns in mid-air, clearly amused with themselves as it rattled on its chain. 

Elsewhere in the complex, a few of the hatchlings were visible; they'd grown, but were still pretty small compared to the adults.  They were still curious as anything though, and swarmed around the visitors, making inquisitive meeps and nosing at them.

Wulfhild giggled as one rambunctious little Nadder leaned up against her and purred, while a baby Gronckle managed to take a brief flight, landed on Yngvarr's shoulders and began licking at his ear. 

Leaving the hatchlings behind—which took some doing—they moved on to the newly redone former arena, now the dragon-rider training pit, coming in through the new connection to the Rookery.  Hiccup looked around, beaming, and said to Fishlegs, "You finished!"

"Well, yeah.  It wasn't _that_ hard." Fishlegs grinned. 

The rock walls had been covered with cured dragonskin from what had been shed six months previously, or leather with dragon-scales stitched onto it, over a layer of packed straw.  The former dragon cages had been tunneled back into the mountainside to connect the training pit with the Rookery, and featured benches for humans and the sorts of smooth rock surfaces that the dragons liked to curl up on.  The old chain net on top was still there, although it had been padded as well, and sand and soft dirt had been brought in to cover the floor. 

Magnus looked around curiously.  "Why…  Oh.  Right.  Flying practice."

Hiccup nodded.  "Yep.  We're going to be using this space for the initial 'get to know you' part of the training."  He shrugged and shifted it into a wide expansive gesture, arms spread, with a smile as Toothless sniffed at the wall paddings and started rubbing up against them.  "I wouldn't have been able to bond with Toothless if he hadn't been essentially confined to the cove, and having to have people chase down their intended mount…"  he trailed off and made a wide-armed chasing motion, with one hand spread wide and the other hand with two fingers extending, waggling back and forth as if chasing after the other hand from a trailing distance as he turned his shoulders. 

Wulfhild and Magnus laughed at the image. 

As Hiccup went to examine the padding with Fishlegs, Wulfhild walked over to Toothless and started to give him a rubdown.  Toothless promptly flopped on his back and made happy noises as she worked him over.  Magnus joined her, as Eindride walked into the cages-turned-tunnels, running his hands over the surfaces with an expression of awe. 

The padding looked fairly well done, and in-line with the specifications that he'd given Fishlegs.  Hiccup was starting to toss himself at the wall to gauge how well the padding worked as Yngvarr approached, a sleepy Gronckle hatchling nestled on his shoulders. 

"So, Hiccup, Fishlegs, I don't mean to be forward…"

"Yes, Yngvarr?" Hiccup asked, just as he lightly rammed his shoulder against the padding, and then grimaced.  It worked as padding, but it was hardly a feather-stuffed pillow. 

"It seems to me that you'd lost some hatchlings since I was last here," he said.  "Unless we simply didn't see them all…?" he trailed off hopefully.

Fishlegs shook his head.  "We've lost about ten percent since they hatched.  Accidents, mostly, but one exploded when—"

"Exploded!?" Yngvarr said, shocked.

Hiccup and Fishlegs shared a look, and then Fishlegs sighed, nodded, and said, "Yep.  Exploded.  From what I can figure, the poor Gronckle ate something sharp and it punctured one of the bladders inside it where they store their fire-making materials."

Hiccup crossed his arms and said quietly, "That was one of the reasons we used nets and bolas back during the war, actually—to keep them from exploding when… when we fought them."

Yngvarr grimaced.

Fishlegs said soberly, "Plus Johann and the other merchants would pay a lot for the intact bladders and the other organs."

"But having a dragon explode because you stabbed it in the wrong place didn't really help anyone," Hiccup said.  "And despite some people arguing for the tactic, it really never became popular—or easy.  It was mostly incredibly lucky hits—those bladders tend to be under bone or other protections." 

Fishlegs nodded in agreement.  "And that meant that against heavily armored or fast dragons, nets and bolas were the best option for taking them down for capture and…" he swallowed hard, "later butchering."

Yngvarr looked appalled.  "I see…" he said in a strangled tone, and then, coughing, he continued, "But that only happened to one hatchling?"

Fishlegs nodded.  "Yeah.  The other dozen or so that we've lost were because they went exploring or wandered off and got into trouble.  It could be that some of them are just missing, not dead…" and his tone was pretty clear that he was hoping for the former, "but you were right—we're down about eighteen hatchlings from the hundred and sixty-two that hatched."

"Oh."  Yngvarr looked saddened, and quietly patted the sleeping Gronckle on his shoulder.  "I thank you for, for telling me that."  He gave a nod, and walked off to join the group that was spoiling Toothless.  Hiccup and Fishlegs kept examining the training pit, their mood somber. 

Then it was time for lunch; Magnhild, aware of the fact that she had a visiting monarch to feed, was whipping herself (and her staff) into a frenzy of culinary excess.  So instead of a simple luncheon, a miniature feast was laid out.  Roast chicken stuffed with bread.  Creamy vegetable soup with a layer of melted cheese on top.  Baked apples drizzled with honey.  Bread loaves in the shapes of fantastical creatures.  Pan-fried mushrooms, stuffed with fried onions.  Salads of cabbage, lettuce, peas and radishes, with a sauce of soured cream. 

Looking at the array laid out on the table, Magnhild and her staff standing at attention proudly behind it, Hiccup felt slightly intimidated; they had over a week for her to build up to Magnus and Ruffnut's wedding feast.  What would _that_ look like? 

Well, he'd find out.  Next week. 

Shrugging at the thought, he turned to Magnus.  "So… I hope you're hungry."

Magnus snorted and looked to Magnhild.  "Thank you.  It all looks delicious.  And I appreciate the efforts, but you don't have to be so… so…"

"Elaborate?" Ruffnut suggested from her spot under his arm.

"Thank you!" Magnus twisted and beamed at Ruffnut, a sappy smile on his face.  "It was on the tip of my tongue."  He turned back to Magnhild.  "You don't have to be so elaborate on my account.  I'll be fine with something simple—soup, meat, bread…"

Magnhild gave him a dubious look, but nodded.

Magnus, shaking his head slightly, loaded up a plate and a bowl and then handed them to Ruffnut with a smile and a kiss to her forehead, making a few people around the room give romantic sighs.

The happy betrothed walked off together, and then it was Hiccup's turn; he took a bit of everything he could fit on his plate, and followed his friends. 

As they sat and ate, Magnus, his eyes bright with fervor, started talking about all of the improvements he was imagining could be made for Nidaros and the other cities of his realm.  Or at least he did, until Ruffnut, her arm slung possessively over his shoulder, had to remind him to eat, and that his food was getting cold. 

As Hiccup smirked, Astrid leaned in and whispered a reminder of when _he_ had done exactly the same thing, and they laughed together. 

Wulfhild leaned across the table to the two of them.  "That was amazing.  It's a tiny village, but… dear God, you've done so much with it." 

Hiccup beamed at her, and Astrid gave her a conspiratorial grin.  "You should see his notebooks.  His brain is like a spring of ideas."

He leaned against his girlfriend and said, "And you've been the one helping me channel those ideas into something _useful,_ instead of going off in random splashings."

Astrid gave a knowing smirk and ran her hand through his hair.  "Yep.  I'm your whetstone, your hammer and anvil, sharpening you into shape."

"Please, no tossing me into trees."

Wulfhild cocked her head, confused, and he shrugged.  "Private joke; Astrid once described getting my ideas into shape as like sharpening an ax—right after throwing her's into a tree to make a point."

She grinned at the two of them, and then they watched Ruffnut and Magnus feeding each other the choice morsels off of their respective plates to general laughter.  Hiccup tried to do the same, but Astrid smartly turned the spoon around and shoved it into his mouth.  "You're too skinny as it is."

Wulfhild laughed as he chewed, a mock scowl on his face. 

###

The smithing hammer rang out a steady beat as Gobber worked.  Fishlegs sat on the safe bench near Gobber, with Spitelout leaning up against one of the support posts. 

Eyeing the metal critically, Gobber paused hammering and stuck the metal back into the forge.

As Fishlegs walked over and started to work the bellows, Spitelout mildly said, "We only have a little while while your new aide is off somewhere.  Can you take a break?"

Gobber snorted.  "Got to strike while the iron is hot, 'lout.  I'm sorry that my work keeps me busy."

Fishlegs rolled his eyes.  "Can we get on with this?"  The last few days since Hiccup had gotten back—with a king in tow!—had been nine kinds of chaotic, with the preparations for Ruffnut's wedding the following week, the construction of housing for the king's court, and, of course, managing the king himself.  And on top of that, the preparations for the upcoming winter and dragon-riding training hadn't evaporated either.  This talk was the first time he and the others on Stoick's council had had a chance to talk about the spy situation in several days. 

"Aye, sorry lad," Gobber said, and took the handle of the bellows from him.  "What do you have?"

"Well, I'm growing more and more convinced that Brogan is the spy," Fishlegs said with a huff.

"And what makes you say that?" Spitelout said.  "Oh, and who is going to tell Stoick?"

"I'll tell 'im," Gobber said.  "And maybe he'll get here once that envoy is done talking with 'im."

Spitelout snorted.  "Fat chance of that."  He rolled his eyes and shifted a bit against the pillar.  "Man's mouth makes Hiccup's watermills look lazy."

"What's he here for?" Fishlegs asked curiously before he could help himself. 

"Another betrothal proposal for Stoick or Hiccup, I think.  He's from Flanders, from Count Baldwin," Gobber said with a grunt, working the bellows.

Spitelout whistled.  "How many does that make now?"

"Hey!  Let's focus!" Fishlegs said irritably, annoyed at himself for the distraction.  "So, Brogan.  I keep running into him in suspicious places, like the Broodery doors, and he and Maghnus are the only two that have said that they'll be sitting out dragon-riding training."  He huffed.  "And then there's his attitude."

Gobber nodded.  "Aye, he's a right soggy raincloud on a sunny day, that's for sure."

"And when I bumped into him talking with some of the traders the other day, and asked him why he didn't buy passage off of Berk to someplace that he'd be happier, he sneered and brushed me off," Fishlegs said.  "Said something like, 'I'll go where I want and when I want it,' but he obviously doesn't want to be here so…" he trailed off significantly. 

Gobber and Spitelout shared a look.  "Makes sense to me," Gobber said.  "The gods know that he doesn't ring true to me either."

"Thing is, his attitude is so sour that just about nobody likes him, outside of Mildew and his cronies.  So if he's a spy listening in on people, about the only group that's going to spend time with him are a bunch of dragon-hating elders," Spitelout pointed out. 

"But most of that group… oh, nevermind," Gobber said sourly.  "They know _lots_ about how to hunt and hurt dragons.  I'm sure that they're filling Brogan's ears with old stories and advice on the best ways to maim a dragon."

Spitelout scowled.  "Aye, that sounds about right."  He turned and looked to Fishlegs.  "Good catch, lad.  I'll keep an eye on him."

A sudden knock sounded at the door to the smithy, and Heather's muffled voice came through.  "Fishlegs, are you in there?"

Both Gobber and Spitelout turned and looked at Fishlegs.  There was a slow and wide smile sprouting on Spitelout's face, and Fishlegs felt his face flush in response. 

Desperate to escape before Spitelout said anything, he called out, "I'll be right there!" and darted for the door.

Opening the door just wide enough to get through, he closed it after him and leaned against it.  Through the wood, he heard the older men chortling. 

Heather was standing there, her arms crossed and a sanguine expression on her face.  "Gobber teasing you?"

He mutely nodded. 

She extended a friendly hand.  "Come on.  You can tell me about your steward training over lunch.  Magnhild let me try making a new dish for Hiccup and the King, and I set some aside for you."

Taking her hand, Fishlegs walked with her over to the mead hall, still blushing.  As they walked, he spotted Stoick heading up the hill and waved.  Stoick caught the gesture and waved back, and motioned that he was heading for the smithy. 

Fishlegs nodded and continued up to the mead hall, feeling happier.  Yeah.  He was pretty sure that they'd figured out who the spy was, and it wasn't the girl that… that he was falling for. 

Yeah, it was time to admit it to himself.

He was falling in love with Heather. 

He glanced off to the side at the shorter woman walking with him.  She liked his poetry… his learning… and didn't just see him as a pile of muscles, or as weird for being interested in learning all he could. 

Now he just had to pursue… no, _cultivate_ this in a way that wouldn't result in him offending her.  He wanted… he wanted what Hiccup and Astrid had.  And… with everything that she'd been through, even with only the dire hints that she'd given to go by, Fishlegs didn't want to hurt her any more than she'd already been hurt.  He wanted her… but he also wanted her to be happy.

As he and Heather entered the mead hall, he pondered on ways to court her, to make her happy. 

He swallowed a little at the task he'd just set for himself; Heather always seemed morose, although his poetry and writing seemed to cheer her up.  So did cooking, but asking her to cook something for _him_ didn't seem like the best way to go about it.  If her melancholy was from dealing with the shades of her time as a thrall, that would be _guaranteed_ to be a way to make her _un_ happy. 

Maybe…

###

Having performed her inspection as quickly as she could, while breathing as shallowly as humanly possible, Astrid stepped back out through the door and gratefully sucked in a lungful of air.  Then she coughed and gagged as the smells of the tannery behind her flooded in, having failed to put enough distance between her and the vats of soaking hide.  Turning green, she darted up the hill, seeking something less noxious to breathe. 

Panting, she sat under a tree and forced the bile back down her throat.  She completely understood _why_ the tannery was elsewhere on the island, oh gods yes.  But as Master of the Dragon, the dragon-leather stock was her responsibility.  Along with organizing the patrols around the island, and dealing with arguments between the riders, and all of those issues that Hiccup had listed back when Yngvarr had come.  At least now she had the authority to go with it. 

But it still meant that she had to personally visit the tannery as they worked at curing more leather for saddles.

Remembering what Wulfhild had said about circles of authority, she pondered if she could pick someone to do that job for her…

Probably, but picking someone would be tricky; everyone was busy already.  Well, she'd find someone.

At least her workload was much less than Hiccup's, with the preparations for the wedding and the dragon-training.  Of course, that was good and bad.  Good, because she could tease him about how frazzled he looked.  Bad, because the sum total extent of their private time together since they'd gotten back had amounted to a single five- or ten-minute period that they'd managed to carve out yesterday on Washday, which had resulted in a frantic session of kissing and half-dressed lovemaking before they'd both had to leave to deal with their responsibilities. 

Maybe… maybe it was for the best that they were both too busy.  They had chaperons again, and while it was hard for her to walk out in front of her clanmates wearing her circlet falsely, she wasn't going to give her aunt, to name one example, the satisfaction of being able to confront Hiccup.  And once this wedding for Ruffnut was over, they'd have time for themselves again. 

And maybe a wedding for her, too. 

Yeah…

That would be nice…

Stormfly came up to her and nuzzled at her.  She laughed and said, "I'm all right, promise.  Whew!  It stinks in there!"

Stormfly snorted and made a noise of agreement.  She hadn't been willing to come within a hundred paces of the tannery, three hundred on the downwind side. 

In the distance, Astrid heard the village horn blow three times. 

With a sigh, she heaved herself into the saddle.  Time to go see who the visitors were. 

###

Heather sighed to herself as she chopped vegetables in the kitchens, going over her plans and knowledge, such as they were. 

As a new member of Berk, she was eligible to participate in the dragon training, a fact that she still disbelieved on an emotional level, despite Fishlegs' repeated reassurances. 

That meant that, if she passed—something _else_ that she wasn't certain of—she'd have _a_ dragon.  But Adalwin wanted as many dragons as she could steal for him.  Meanwhile, the Broodery and Rookery were actually some of the few restricted areas on the island, as Stoick was no fool and knew where his homeland's future fortune was.  She could _probably_ manipulate Fishlegs into letting her in there, even if the thought made her a bit sick. 

She paused, and started chopping at the onions with more vigor.  It was time to be honest with herself. She was falling for him. 

Hard.

She _liked_ the big guy.  More than liked.  He was smart, and cute, and made her laugh when she was feeling depressed—a daily occurrence these days.  If not for the hold Adalwin was holding over her, she'd stay here in a heartbeat and drag Fishlegs off to bed like Karolina kept joking that she should. 

But betraying him instead… that seemed to be her best option to rescue her parents, or at least keep them alive. 

And when it came down to it… as much as Fishlegs was becoming the sole solitary light in her existence at the moment… she wouldn't— _couldn't_ —sacrifice her parents.

Her liking for him wasn't as strong as her love for her parents.  It was as simple as that. 

So now, her plan seemed equally simple.  Get a dragon, twist Fishlegs into giving her access to the Rookery, and fly off with a cargo net filled with as many dragon eggs or hatchlings as she could manage, and…

…and never come back.

Yeah. 

Her tears were from the onions. Of course.  It was the onions' fault that she was crying.

Stupid onions. 

Fishlegs came in just then, looking for her, and beamed as he saw her.

Swallowing hard, she forced herself to have some more composure and smiled back at him.  The rest of the kitchen staff was smiling at the two of them, or at the very least giving them a degree of notional acceptance, although Magnhild was probably going to throw him out if he didn't leave shortly; given that they were cooking for a real live king these days, she had become somewhat more short-tempered.

He was practically hopping up and down with excitement as he walked up, but paused and took a closer, concerned look at her. 

"Heather, is everything all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine.  Why?"

"You're crying."

She held up the cutting board.  "Onions."

"Um, all right.  If you're really okay…"

She nodded, taking the opportunity to wipe away the tears, both vegetable-induced and real, from her eyes with her sleeve. 

Magnhild spoke up crossly.  "Fishlegs, either take her out of here or let her work, but you're _in the way._ "

"Oh, sorry, sorry!"  He looked at Heather.  "I have something to show you.  Can you come with me?"

Karolina gave a low laugh behind her and Heather reddened slightly.  Of course, it being Fishlegs, that request was almost completely certainly both innocent and dragon-related. 

And she wasn't sure if she _wanted_ it to be. 

So, instead, she just grinned at him and said, "Sure!  Give me a minute to finish and I'll be right out."

Nodding, he ducked back out of the kitchens and into the main hall.  She followed a few minutes later, after depositing her pile of diced onions and carrots into the appropriate bowls by the main cauldrons.

Wiping her hands down on her trousers, she walked out into the main hall to see Fishlegs sitting at one of the trestle tables, a _big_ book in front of him.

Of course.

As she walked over with a smile, he grinned and patted the bench next to him. 

"Heather, Heather, look, look!  It's done!"

"Is this what you've been working on?" she asked, sitting down next to him, and her smile faded as she saw the dragon embossed on the cover, with the title of _The Book of Dragons.  Second Edition._

Oh no.

Forcing the smile back onto her face, she looked at him.  "What is it?"

"We've been working on it all year," Fishlegs said enthusiastically.  "The _old_ book was about how to fight dragons, kill them, weaknesses, strengths, and stuff like that.  This," he patted the cover and opened it, "this is our _new_ book.  I did the scribing, Hiccup did the illustrations.  It's everything we've learned about every dragon we've found.  How to raise them, how to tame them, what foods they like, jaw strength, armor rating, venom rating…"  He pointed to an odd bit by the spine that looked like a latch or keyhole.  "Hiccup even designed a new system for binding the pages together that'll let us add new pages and remove old ones as we need!"

"Wow," Heather said honestly. 

Fishlegs _beamed_ at her as he flipped open the book to show her the page on Gronckles.  _That_ was hardly a surprise.  The playful Gronckle image was cute, though.  It went along with the schematic drawings, identifying the various spots on the dragon from the top, bottom and sides, showing saddle placement, weak spots, blind spots, and various organs, done in Hiccup's signature lifelike style with bold lines and high realism.  Taken as a whole, the artistry with which it had been done was impressive, to say the least. 

Turning to the next pages revealed discussion of Gronckle feeding habits, training habits, flight abilities, strengths and weaknesses for specific jobs and duties, trivial notes and oddities, other such details, all done in Fishlegs' signature tidy script.

He had clearly spent _hundreds_ of hours on it.

And the mounting realization that she would have to steal it from him made the bottom of her stomach drop to somewhere below her shoes.

_Tell him!  Tell him!  He'll believe you!  They'll help you!  And you can't give someone like_ Adalwin _that kind of power!_

Smiling at him, she chatted with him as they perused the book, him proudly pointing out sections that he'd worked on and her reading them over.  His penmanship was beautiful, and she found to her surprise that she was jealous of his skill there.  Then there was the learning; more and more on dragons, facts that she hadn't known, such as the growing rate of Nadder spikes, odd observations, such as Toothless's screech sounding different depending on where one stood, and other such details.  She found that all dragons had a pressure point under the jaw, just behind their eyes, that would make them slump to the ground, purring and happy.

She reflected that she was disgustingly fortunate; Fishlegs didn't seem to have realized that her literacy was unusual, even as she read along with him.  She'd been taught the basics by her parents, and then Adalwin had seized that foundation and built upon it; she could read, write and speak the better part of a dozen languages and dialects now, all in the name of making her a better spy for him.  She'd made at least a dozen mistakes with her literacy so far—she'd had nightmares about being found out for two weeks after Fishlegs had found her in the storage tunnels that time—but her luck had held, and he hadn't understood that a literate woman was a rare being out there in the wider world. 

But Fishlegs failing to realize that she was trained wasn't that surprising, as being able to read and write here wasn't unusual.  It had taken her over two weeks to realize that the entirety of the village was literate, taught from the time that they could walk. 

So they read his book together, and she learned about the different breeds of dragons that lived here, information that he had painstakingly written down, and talked quietly and exclaimed with interest at the various tidbits until she had to get back to work.

At least the onions gave her reason to sniffle and weep without anyone questioning her, and she chopped at them viciously, imagining her owner's smarmy face on each one.

###

Vidkunn spoke animatedly with one of the villagers in a language that Snotlout didn't understand.  After a moment, the trader turned back to Snotlout and said, "He says that the cloth and thread was made by his mother, and that he'd be happy to sell them to you for several coppers, or a silver."

Snotlout grimaced.  His purse was running low on coin, and while he needed the cloth for some patching and maybe a new tunic, part of him rebelled against failing to haggle.  But what did he have to haggle with?

Hookfang snorted behind him, and Snotlout reached back and gave his friend a scratch under the chin. 

The villager, a young man maybe three or four years older than him, glanced at Hookfang and quivered a little before settling himself and crossing his arms. 

Snotlout said to Vidkunn, "Offer him three coppers, please."

Vidkunn sighed and said something in the other language.  They went back and forth a few times as Snotlout continued to scratch at Hookfang's chin.  There were a couple of scales that were loose and bothering his buddy; typically, Snotlout removed them and added them to his patch bag when he could work them free.  It was like wiggling a tooth, really.

One came loose, and then another, as the trader and the villager spoke back and forth.  Snotlout pulled his hand free, ready to put the scales into his purse, when he suddenly looked down at his hand… and the fresh scales sitting there like coins. 

A smile spread across his face, and he turned and rummaged through his saddlebags. 

A minute later, as Vidkunn continued to speak with the villager, Snotlout cleared his throat.

Vidkunn turned and looked at him, a scowl on his face.  "He was insulted by… oh my."

Snotlout held up the double-handful of dragon-scales—worn, small, cracked or otherwise unusable for him to patch his armor with, but still _dragon-scales_ —and said cheerily, "See if he'll accept this."

The villager stared at the handful, eyes glittering with greed, and when Vidkunn translated the offer, he nodded and snatched the dragon-scales as if he were afraid that Snotlout would take back his offer once his common sense returned.

Snotlout smugly strode over to the bolts of cloth and spindles of thread sitting on the stump and gathered them up with a smile.  Nice.  Very nice.  Fine linen and wool, at least enough for him to make a tunic out of, maybe even two if he was careful with the cloth. 

With a smile and a polite bow, he sauntered off, back to the encampment, with Vidkunn walking next to him.

"So, Sigurd, why didn't you _lead_ with that offer?"

"Didn't think of it," he said brightly.  "But I will in the future, trust me!"

"You grossly overpaid him," Vidkunn said observationally.

"Did I?  Because I had no use for those scales," Snotlout said.  "And look what I got for it!"  He rubbed his cheek against the soft linen.  "Mmmh.  This'll feel nice to wear."

Vidkunn snorted.  "I have to say, lad, when you came to me with a dragon in tow, I expected nothing but trouble.  But aside from Yaroslav's poaching and having to pick up replacements, for which I blame you—" 

"Hey!"

"—you've been a good hand to have on this trip."

"Why do I get the blame?"

"Because they were looking to recruit you, lad, and got a fifth of my guards as by-catch.  Still, I was expecting to lose a few."  He shrugged.  "That being said, you and your dragon have been very helpful."

Snotlout gave an amused scoff.  "Does that mean I can get a refund on my passage costs?"

Vidkunn gave a scoff of his own.  "No… but I will forgo a translator fee and a middleman charge for this little errand, especially if you're willing to let us dip into that pouch of useless scales for supplies for the rest of the trip."

Snotlout gave him a sidelong look.  "Only if you're willing to reimburse me for the scales."

"You just said yourself that they were worthless to you, lad.  But I'll tell the others how generous you're being with your funds—and neglect to mention how little those scales are worth to you."  He leaned over.  "I've noticed your attempts to get their goodwill.  Generosity is the mark of a good leader."  He waggled his big dark eyebrows.  "What do you say?"

Snotlout nodded slowly.  "When you put it that way…"

###

The horse thundered along the dirt of the forest path at a near-gallop, and Mac Bethad gave an exuberant cheer as the dogs flushed the hart out into the open.  It was a magnificent animal, with at least twenty points on its antlers. 

The chase ensued, with the dogs barking and loping after the hart, and Mac Bethad's hunting party in pursuit through the underbrush of the forest.  Finally, the exhausted hart turned and tried to defend itself with its antlers.  The huntmaster blew his horn and the dogs were pulled back from ripping the hart to pieces.

The hart was breathing hard, and braced itself as Mac Bethad, atop his horse, closed in.  A swipe of his sword finished the hart.

Mac Bethad wheeled his horse around, to see the assembled hunting party applauding. 

"A solid blow, milord!"

"No yeoman hacking needed!"

"A noble creature for a noble lord!"

"Our lord wields the sword as a poet wields his quill!"

The dog handlers gave a polite salute, as their well trained charges sat on their haunches, their tails wagging, awaiting the curèe with anticipation.

More of the hunting party assembled in the forest clearing, as the huntmaster saw to the unmaking and curèe.   His courtiers and vassals who had come with him on this autumn hunt gathered round the carcass to discuss the hart and its flight through the forest with enthusiasm. 

"I spotted boar sign as we chased the hart," his vassal Conall Keith said, hefting his spear.  "I say that we hunt boar on the morrow!"

Mac Bethad's step-son, Lulach, chimed in.  "Oh, yes!  Boar!  The hart is a noble creature, like Christ in his suffering, yes, but boar!  Boar is a manly hunt!"

The huntmaster smiled at Lulach's ardor, but before he could say anything, more hoofbeats sounded.

The assembled hunting party glanced around in confusion.  Everyone was here—they were in the middle of a hunting expedition into the forest that had so far lasted several days, and would continue until at least the end of the week. 

Then, emerging from the undergrowth, Taskill came riding in on a lathered horse, looking wild-eyed himself.  "Milord!  Urgent news!"

Mac Bethad glared at his spymaster, his happy glow from the hunt fading.  "Can it wait?"

"No, sire!" Taskill said fervently.

Mac Bethad sighed.  He trusted the man and his judgment.  And this was vastly out of character for the normally reflexively cautious man.  After a moment's further consideration, he said, "Dismount and give your horse over to the huntmaster and the grooms.  You've abused him terribly.  We shall go for a walk."

"Thank you, sire!"

 Mac Bethad and Taskill walked a short ways away from the gathered hunters. 

"What is it, Taskill?  And why couldn't it wait until I returned from my hunting?"

"Milord… Alan, Gregor and Iain returned from Berk this morning.  King Magnus is there.  Right now."

The statement was so unexpected that it took a moment for Mac Bethad to fully understand what he'd been told.  Then it hit. 

"WHAT?"'

"Milord… Mac Bethad," Taskill said familiarly.  He only grew so informal during the worst moments, when he himself needed the reassurance—such as when he had come with the news that Mac Bethad's own cousin was invading him.  "It seems that Hiccup Haddock's skills at peacemongering extend beyond ending a three-hundred-year conflict with dragons.  He went to Magnus to open relations… and instead returned home with the boy-king betrothed to one of his own boon companions—the girl, Ruffnut, the one that rides the two-headed dragon with her twin.  And Magnus and members of his court will be gaining dragons of their own."  He kicked at a stone in the soft forest loam, sending it rolling down the hillside.  "This Di-haoine, he'll wed the lass."

Mac Bethad paled.  This was nearly the worst case that they had imagined, and one of the only ways that they _could_ make it worse would be to drag Harthacnut into their alliance.  That would surround and engulf his kingdom.

As it was…

This could spell the end of his independence as a high lord. 

Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm himself.  Hasty thought would result in poor actions.  "What other news did they bring?"  At Taskill's incredulous look, he said, "You've made the right decision that I would want to know about this now, instead of at the end of my hunt.  But we had other ongoing stratagems on Berk."  He chewed on his lip in thought.  "Actually, Alan and the others were not supposed to be back until next week.  I take it that they left early?"

Taskill nodded.  "Aye.  And given the urgency of the news that they brought, I can't fault them for it.  Also, they sold out all of their goods with the coming of Magnus's court and the sudden demand."

"That's good, at least.  Their cover is not threatened.  So… what of the old man, Mildew?  Where do we stand with him?  Or did he not make contact with them in the time that they were there?"

Taskill calmed himself, taking a deep breath and a preparatory nod.  The news had rattled him terribly, but now that Mac Bethad was taking charge, his spymaster was regaining control of himself.  

"Aye, milord, he made contact with them.  According to Alan, he says that he will be able to smuggle out at least eight eggs or hatchlings for us in the next two months or so, one at a time through trader runs.  He did say that obtaining them was his concern, and that our job was to ensure that they could be smuggled clear without risk of discovery.  Once he's done, he will be coming along, and expects his payment of titles as soon as he arrives, but he also said that he is willing to raise and train the dragons for us."  He took another deep breath.  "He also explicitly warned Alan and Gregor that any attempt to dispose of him will result in messages being dispatched to Stoick giving our efforts in detail."

Mac Bethad scowled.  "And what if a sudden fit or an apoplexy carries him off?"

"I imagine that he believes that to be both our problem and an incentive for us to keep him in mind in our prayers, milord," Taskill said dryly. 

Mac Bethad grimaced.  While he hadn't _planned_ on betraying the old man as a traitor deserves, the fact that he was canny enough to include at least basic precautions was, perhaps, both a good and bad sign. 

"That is acceptable," he said.  "It may not be enough to stave off disaster, but, perhaps, we can prepare for the future."

"Aye, milord."

"Does Harthacnut know about Magnus's presence?"

"I can't say, milord."

"Well, then," he sat and steepled his fingers.  "As good neighbors, I feel that it is our duty to let Harthacnut know that the tribe that burned one of his greatest forts to the ground is allying with his greatest rival.  Given his issues with the tax men at Worcester and his betrayal of Earl Eadwulf, I imagine that he's none too rational right now." He smiled.  "It shouldn't be _that_ difficult to point him at Magnus and the dragons and let them batter each other to pieces.  Aim one oathbreaker at one that he will _see_ as oathbreaking, and let nature take its course."

Taskill grinned.  "Aye, milord.  I'll see to it."

"It's probably our only chance now.  The Hooligans have completely destroyed the balance of power here.  Now that they're taking sides with Magnus, they can only be our enemies."  He scowled.  "So let us point our other enemies at them."

* * *

 

**Author's Note:** Dun dun dunnn!

On less silly notes, whoo!  Chapter 20 was my first chapter to break 250 hits in a week!  Also, as of this morning, I've started cross-posting to Fanfic.net, as I've noticed that it seems to be the archive of choice for the HTTYD fandom.  However, I'm still going to continue posting here, and I still consider this archive primary; I'll be posting once a week for the foreseeable future.  Over on FF.net, I'll be posting twice a week until caught up (with the caveat that reviewers begging for updates there will make my slow my update speed for that site).  

Meanwhile, I hope that people enjoyed the chapter; this one was beefy, clocking in at just over 13,000 words (at this rate, my average chapter word count is just under 10k per chapter).  We had some worldbuilding, some characterization, some fluff, some angst, and some plot... :D

Until next week!  


	22. A Ruff But Magnus Wedding

**Chapter 22: A Ruff But Magnus Wedding**

_According to nearly all primary sources, the marriage between Ruffnut Thicknutsdoittor clan Thorston and King Magnus Olafsson of House Fairhair was a love-match, despite the political considerations that instigated both their betrothal and their atypically quick marriage.  Both were staunch patrons of the arts, which apparently was the basis of their initial bond.  For the duration of their marriage, there is no record of either of them straying into affairs, or of Magnus taking official concubines.  This was an uncommon occurrence in medieval Scandinavia to say the least, where approximately a quarter of all monarchs between 700 and 1100 were of illegitimate issue by acknowledged concubines, including Magnus, and Magnus had himself sired an illegitimate daughter several years before his wedding.  However, the number of children and love poems that the pair produced speaks volumes for their mutual devotion on its own…_

_In addition to their personal compatibility, Ruffnut and Magnus were known to have fought alongside each other on multiple occasions.  One point that is dryly noted by both their biography-sagas and other primary sources is that the number of enemies slain by her hands was significantly higher than his, due to a combination of her own martial prowess and enemies underestimating her on the basis of her build or gender or both.  The most significant portion of these kills apparently came from the Siege of Roskilde, where Ruffnut guarded the stairway that led to their children's nursery, and the skalds and other eyewitness accounts reported that the bodies formed a battlement…_

_—House Fairhair And The Grand Thing, Oslo, Norway, 1667_

Ruffnut stared at the intimidating spread of food and found that her appetite had run off to hide in a corner.  According to Fishlegs' she's-not-my-girlfriend ("yet" Ruffnut mentally added) Heather, Magnhild had raided the Ingerman clan library for books with instructions on preparing exotic dishes—some of which came from the Romans!  And while she wasn't trying to prepare _everything_ all at once—that was apparently being saved for the wedding itself, in two days—there were always at least two or three new dishes present at every meal for her and Magnus to try.

The traders, at least, were making out like bandits.  Magnhild had apparently managed to convince or bribe some of the patrol members to check the incoming merchants for exotic ingredients and spices, and immediately make an offer.  Ruffnut had already heard of at least two fistfights between the kitchen staff and the rest of the village over Magnhild's poaching.  One of them had been with Ruffnut's own grand-aunt, who had been irked over losing her order of something called coriandrum, which had featured in the lentil dish that Ruffnut had sampled last night.  It had been tasty, but she was finding herself pining for a mug of ale, a loaf of bread, and a nice _simple_ bowl of soup. 

Today, the new dishes were soft-boiled eggs in a sauce made from something called _garum_ , some of that pepper that Magnus had brought with him, honey, and chopped pine nuts, followed by a rack of roasted wild boar in a sweet sauce made from beer and some spices that she didn't recognize the names of, and finally roasted steaks cut from a whole tuna somehow wrestled away from the dragons and basted with vinegar, onions, lovage and mint.  Other dishes—more typical dishes—made up the rest of the buffet line for the rest of the tribe, but Magnhild was watching her and Magnus to see what they liked best from the new dishes, and Ruffnut did _not_ want the imposing head cook angry with her for failing to try them.  The consequences of that could be… dire.

She shared a bracing smile with Magnus, who was looking at the spread of food with a sort of intimidated awe.  Then they loaded up their plates with a little bit of everything and took their seats. 

The boar was dry but tasty.  The tuna steaks were delicious once Ruffnut managed to scrape off the mint and lovage.  But the eggs…

"I don't know what this _garum_ stuff is," she said quietly to Magnus, "but if the Romans eat it with everything, then my revenge on Snotlout is complete."

She had timed it perfectly, as Magnus was in mid-chew on his mouthful of tuna steak.  He tried to laugh and keep from laughing and keep his mouth shut all at the same time, and failed miserably at all three.  Only a little of the food escaped, but he shot her a dirty look as he tried to keep from inhaling any of his mouthful. 

She grinned.

Once he managed to compose himself and finish swallowing safely, he said with humorous indignation, "My uncle is living down there at the moment, thank you.  I wrote him a letter of introduction for Snotlout and everything!"

She hoisted her tankard.  "To your uncle's tongue, bravely sacrificing itself for the sake—"

Magnus, rolling his eyes, bent over and gave her a kiss on the lips.  It was a light kiss, but it cut off her joke nicely. 

She responded by wrapping her arms around his shoulders and head and making it a bit deeper.

As they broke apart, she said, "—of palates everywhere!"

Magnus sagged, groaned, and started to laugh quietly, his shoulders heaving silently.

She gave him a beaming grin.

They finished eating, although she left the eggs on her plate half-eaten, and she sagged back into her seat.  Two more days.  Just two.  It was actually… fairly calm today, at least for them.  Nobody had come up to them with last minute choices that they had to make, the food stocks were laid in, and tomorrow was going to be busy with immediate preparations…  but today, it was everyone else running around ragged, not her and Magnus.

It was the calm before the storm, that's what it was.

She looked Magnus over as they left the mead hall.  Tall—almost as tall as Hiccup had shot up to be—blond, with his hair back in a queue, and well-built in that way of a skilled warrior.  And he was a skilled warrior; she'd seen him, Yngvarr, Eindride and Astrid spar already, and it had been poetry in motion.  Admittedly, yes, some of that motion had been Astrid throwing him around during their first bout because he hadn't taken her quite seriously, but he'd smartened up after that and given as good as he got.  But the fact was, he knew what he was doing, and it was fun to watch. 

Yeah, she was smitten, and she knew it and was quite happy about it, thank you. 

She wondered what those sword callouses on his hands would feel like on her…

As they walked past his new house, she suddenly realized that they didn't have any minders or chaperons.  And, on top of that, they were betrothed already…

On impulse, she took him by the hand and pulled him through the door to his house. 

"Ruffnut?" he asked in surprise.

Before he said anything else, she kissed him, deep and hard and thoroughly. 

Ten minutes later, she found out how those sword callouses felt. 

And they were _wonderful._

###

With a rush of wings, Hookfang and Snotlout flew through the air.  The roar of the wind, though, had competition today.

Snotlout looked down over the course of the Dnieper below them and grimaced.  Since leaving Kyiv, Vidkunn's convoy had passed four rapids that spanned the width of the river.  Vidkunn had spoken about them at length—downstream of Kyiv, there were nine in total that couldn't be avoided without leaving the river; they had to hoist the ships on their shoulders and portage around until they cleared the rapids.  And that was the reason he hired guards—to protect his convoy from bandits during the portage.

The rapids that they'd passed so far—Kodatsky, Sursky, Lohansk, and Dzvonesky—had been annoying to deal with.  Vidkunn's wares weren't light, and while the trader had his servants and assistants to help with the actual portage, leaving Snotlout and the others as guards, they were still called upon to help at times.  And it took hours to get around.

But now, he understood why Vidkunn had laughed at their reactions to the Sursky rapids, further upstream.  He had said that they were easily impressed… and he had a point, apparently. 

Because now they were up to the Nenasytec rapids.  And even a thousand feet in the air, the roaring of the water below was louder than the rushing of the wind. 

The white water streaming through the rocks and boulders stretched for over half a mile in width, and for a mile and a half of the river's length downstream.  From his vantage point in the air, he could see some of the portage paths along the banks; they had been beaten through the tall grass, small trees and brush by the traders and others who traveled the river.  At the sight of the narrow, winding, and brush-choked trails, he sagged.  The portage around the Lohansk had taken hours.  This would take all afternoon, possibly the rest of the day and some of tomorrow, if his admittedly limited experience was anything to go by. 

A flight down the length of the portage paths revealed nothing of interest.  Satisfied, he and Hookfang turned around and flew back upstream towards the rest of Vidkunn's trade convoy, who were hauling the ships onto the east bank of the Dnieper. 

Landing near the lead ship, he then hopped off of Hookfang's saddle, walked over to where Vidkunn was supervising and said tiredly, "You were right.  I hadn't seen the worst rapids yet.  These make the Sursky look almost cute!"

Vidkunn gave an expansive and satisfied shrug.  "I told you.  But take heart—this is the worst of them.  So, did you see anybody?"

Snotlout shook his head.  "We looked; while there were enough bushes to hide behind, I didn't see anybody waiting for us."

Vidkunn grimaced, and then rolled his eyes.  "I've gotten spoiled.  First I was irritated that you hadn't spotted anything, and then I remembered how I would have gladly given a few fingers from my off-hand when I was last here for such a scout.  Thank you for your scouting, Sigurd.  Come, let us get this portage going.  I would like to be back on the river by tomorrow morning."

With a shrug, Snotlout turned and lent a hand to the crew hauling a boat from the water.  Due to his height, he got the low end of the boat, digging his heels into the sand of the riverbank.  Thankfully, Vidkunn's porters and sailors had emptied it already of his trade goods, otherwise it would have been absurdly heavy, as he'd found out on the first portage, back when they'd crossed from the Neris to the Dniepir.  The porters had played a little joke on him and the other guards, by telling them that they needed help hauling the fully laden boats from the water.  Looking back, it was funny, but at the time, he'd been quite pissed off as he'd cleaned the mud off of his boots.

For now, though, the bags, baskets, and carrying-poles had already been loaded up on people's shoulders and backs.  Once the boats were clear of the water, they were turned over and the men assigned to carrying them heaved them onto their shoulders, and they were off to make their slow way down the length of the portage path around the rapids. 

Hours passed in slow tedium; while the porters were experienced at this, they were still carrying all of Vidkunn's trade goods, plus all of their personal and camping gear.  It was slow going, and the path wasn't wide or terribly clear.  Snotlout and Hookfang walked alongside the group, taking occasional flights to scout ahead.  At least no one was suggesting that the dragon carry stuff anymore, as Vidkunn had nipped that idea in the bud with two points—first, Hookfang was more useful as a scout than as a beast of burden, and second, he had the tendency to burst into flame when startled, which would be bad for the supplies and trade goods. 

Around mid-afternoon on one such flight, he saw motion to the east, and went to take a look.

And was promptly greeted by a roar of battle cries and a cloud of arrows hissing towards him and Hookfang.  Screaming, they swerved.  Then Hookfang bucked and roared in pain.

Snotlout looked down to see a few dozen men on horseback, armed with swords and bows.  They were galloping through the tall grass straight towards the portage path. 

Oh, shit.

Another volley of arrows hissed through the air at him and Hookfang, who was fighting for altitude.

Shit shit shit shit!

Hookfang buffeted the air with a powerful stroke of his wings, and the arrows, already visibly slowing from their climb into the air, were knocked away from his friend.  Instead, they sailed past to either side, with one coming close enough that Snotlout could have reached out and grabbed it if he'd seen it coming—and been willing to loosen his white-knuckle grip on Hookfang's horns. 

Hookfang wheeled around and they flew back to the portage path, hearing the whoops and cries of the horsemen below.

They flew hard.  Hookfang was whining in pain.  Snotlout itched to get him to the ground and find where the arrow had hit.  Dragons were tough, but an arrow in the right spot…

He cringed at the thought.

They landed hard and heavily in front of Vidkunn at the head of the line.  "Horsemen!  Bows, swords!  Maybe half a mile that way!"

Vidkunn nodded and shouted, "To arms!"

The portage line fell apart like a kicked-over anthill; everyone rushed together to the center of the line.  The porters holding the boats stacked them into a makeshift wall; the other porters hid behind the boat-wall; the guardsmen readied their weapons and took positions.

Vidkunn pulled his own sword out as his trading group prepared to meet the incoming horsemen.  "Pechenegs.  How many did you see?" he asked Snotlout over his shoulder.

"Twenty?  Thirty?  At least?  They were shooting arrows at us, I didn't have a chance to get a good count!"  As he spoke, he looked over Hookfang and grimaced.  The arrow-wound was on his friend's leg; it looked like the arrowhead had opened a wide gash without embedding itself, but his friend was bleeding.  Big fat red droplets were splashing on the dirt of the portage path, and Hookfang was visibly reluctant to put weight on the injured leg.

Snotlout turned, ran, and quickly found the porter carrying his stuff.  Grabbing his saddlebags from the man, he rummaged through them, found the length of linen left from his purchase the previous week, and darted back to Hookfang.

He had just finished wrapping Hookfang's leg in what was probably one of the largest bandages in the history of the world when he heard the pounding of horses at full gallop heading right towards him.

He looked up just in time to see a dozen horse archers pointing bows at him and Hookfang, charging in close so as to be assured of penetrating Hookfang's scaly hide.

If one of them tore his wing, or punctured his fire-bladder…

Snotlout paled and threw himself in the saddle.  "Up!  We've got to go!" he shouted. 

Hookfang turned, looked, saw the horse archers, and yelped.

They shot into the sky like an arrow from a bow—just before actual arrows flew through the air where they'd been a moment before. 

Below them, Snotlout heard the shouts of the other guardsmen, the clatter of steel and wood, the whinnying and galloping of the horses, and horrible squelching noises as weapons hit flesh, but he couldn't see a thing—the attack was obscured by Hookfang's wing for that brief moment of impact.

He looked down as Hookfang steadied out and the horsemen thundered past.  Below him were screaming bodies, leaking blood and transfixed with arrows.  Some were disturbingly still.  A pair of horses lay screaming in front of the boat-wall, their riders sprawled out nearby. 

Then he saw the group of horsemen, galloping away; they had split into smaller groups and were wheeling about for another pass against his friends.  One of the groups consisted of nothing but swordsmen, who shouted and pointed their weapons at him and Hookfang.

He bared his teeth, and he and his friend dove at the group, even as some of the archers broke from their own groups and moved towards the threatened swordsmen.

Hookfang breathed out a stream of liquid fire towards the swordsmen and their mounts, who burst into flame and screamed.  They pulled up just as the archers loosed their arrows. 

Hookfang spat more liquid fire and flapped wind at the arrows, knocking them astray.  Meanwhile, the fire splattered several of the archers below, making them scream as their clothes started to burn, the gooey flaming liquid sticking to their skin and clothes. 

One of the horsemen—the fanciest-dressed, with a fancy sword to go with it—shouted something in a language that Snotlout didn't recognize, and the various horsemen pulled together in a tight mass as he and Hookfang wheeled about for another pass.  Their new formation had the archers on the outside, the swordsmen in the center, riding at a gallop, back away from the encampment. 

They were retreating. 

Well, best send them on their way…

Snotlout tried to angle Hookfang into a closer attack, only to be met with a terrifying cloud of arrows streaming towards them that they barely dodged, screaming all the while.  There were too many archers too close together, and they were doing their best to stay between him and the more vulnerable swordsmen; if he took Hookfang in, they'd turn the two of them into pincushions. 

So instead he harried them for miles, driving them away from the caravan.  Any time they looked like they were considering turning around for another attack, he and Hookfang discouraged them with little blasts of fire.  Occasionally, the archers would try to volley and shoot them down, but he was careful not to get too close…

But he was close enough to see that they were running low on arrows.

Twice, he and Hookfang ventured closer, trying to push them into wasting their arrows; the first time, they fell for it, the second time, they waited for them to get closer, and they veered off rather than give the archers that perfect shot that they were waiting for. 

But their horses were tiring and slowing… and then they slowed down to a walk.

With a nasty grin, Snotlout had Hookfang circle them, again and again, just outside of bowshot, taunting them.  The horsemen slowed and watched the two of them flying around and around.  One of them called out to them in a language that Snotlout didn't understand, but the man sounded confused and a bit angry, he thought. 

Hookfang whined on their sixth or seventh circle, his wound obviously paining him, but he gamely went with it.  Snotlout grimaced and said, "We do this and we go back and look at that wound, okay?"

Hookfang huffed in acknowledgment and nodded.

And then, as the horsemen continued to stare at the circling, he had Hookfang breathe fire onto the dry grass below.  While he ran dry before he could complete the circle, the sudden grass-fire still enveloped the Pecheneg horsemen faster than their tired horses could run.  They began to scream as he and Hookfang banked away and flew west, back to the river.

Every so often, Snotlout looked back at the growing fire that he and Hookfang had set; it was spreading, but the undergrowth here was reasonably damp, so it wasn't growing as fast as it would in summer.

Fortunately, the wind was coming out of the west, so the fire was spreading in that direction, instead of towards the river.

Snotlout fully planned on going back later—he had a half-formed plan of taking the leader's sword as a trophy—as he watched the column of smoke behind him.

And then he heard the wailing as they approached Vidkunn's trade convoy. 

He and Hookfang landed in the middle of the hoof-churned dirt path and into a flurry of calls and shouts.

"Are they coming back!?"

"Did you kill them all!?"

"Why did you run off!?"

"Are there more coming!?"

"Did you start that fire?  Is it coming this way?"

Then there was a scream of anguish, and he looked up just in time to see Kormak drop Ondott's body, an arrow sticking out of Ondott's face, and charge at Snotlout, his fingers extended like claws.  He wasn't the only one who looked; everyone turned. 

"You bastard!" he screamed as he ran towards Snotlout.

"What—I—what!?" Snotlout shouted back, confused.  He jumped back as Gunnar, Gudmund, Balli, and Fridgeir grabbed onto Kormak and held him back. 

Kormak spat at him.  "You… you…  He didn't have a chance to get his shield up!  You and your, your, your _dragon_ were right in the way, and then you flew up and the arrows hit before we could even see them!"

_Oh shit._

"Why are you blaming me!?  Blame them!  I killed them!"

Kormak struggled in the holds of the four straining young men grappling him and spat again.

Vidkunn took a deep bracing sigh and turned to Snotlout.  "Sigurd.  Report."

"Uh, right."  He managed to break his attention away from the furiously struggling and just plain _furious_ Kormak and back to Vidkunn.  "Hookfang and I chased after them, keeping them away from the group.  Once their horses couldn't run anymore, we set the area around them on fire, and we came back to treat Hookfang's wound."  Hookfang moaned mournfully and nosed at the bandage, which was soaked through with his blood. 

Vidkunn's eyes narrowed and he nodded.  "You didn't see them die, but on exhausted horses… yes."  He stroked his beard in thought for a moment and said, "When you've treated Hookfang's wound, I want to ride with you and see what happened."

Snotlout nodded. 

"In the meantime… congratulations, lad."  Vidkunn glanced at Kormak, who was still struggling in the grips of the others, if a bit more weakly, and then the trader said, "The Pechenegs like to ambush traders using the portage paths.  Looking at the size of their raiding party, if we hadn't had your warning and if you hadn't chased them off, we'd all be dead or enslaved.  Well done."

Snotlout glowed, as Hrafn and Thorred came up carrying a man with a broken arm, moaning between them.  Snotlout's eyes widened when he realized that the man was obviously one of the raiders, by his armor and clothing.

"What should we do with him, sir?" Hrafn asked.

"What about the other one?" Vidkunn asked.  "I saw two dismounted."

"He's dead; snapped his neck when he got thrown from the horse," Thorred said. 

"I see.  Well, toss him in some thrall collars.  I'm sure that the markets in Constantinople will find some bidders for him."  He turned to Kormak, who was fighting with renewed vigor to get at the Pecheneg.  "Kormak Brandrsson!"

Kormak didn't seem to acknowledge Vidkunn, instead fighting almost ferally to get at either Snotlout or the raider.  He'd gone berserk, and if not for the holds that Gunnar and Gudmund had him in, he probably would have _bitten_ them. 

Vidkunn sighed and slapped Kormak across the face.  "Kormak!"

It took a moment for Kormak to calm down and be able to listen to the trader.  While that happened, Snotlout started to examine Hookfang's wound, hissing in dismay at the ragged cut through his friend's scales; it was still leaking blood, but a scab was forming, thank the gods. 

Behind him, he heard Vidkunn speaking with Kormak.

"Lad.  Your brother died to protect others.  His place in Valhalla is assured.  For weregild, I'll sell this man into thralldom and give you the proceeds, or take the booty from his companions when Sigurd and I go and check on them, your choice.  But you cannot blame Sigurd for your brother's death."

Kormak growled.

"Kormak!  Don't make me have to put you in manacles until you calm down!  If I have to do that, my offer is void!  Do you understand?"

Kormak hissed.

"Do you _understand!?"_

"I… I understand," Kormak said hoarsely, with audible effort. 

"Good," Vidkunn said.  He turned around.  "Sigurd!  How does it look?"

"I want to let him rest it for at least a little while, until it's stopped bleeding!" he said back. 

"All right."  Vidkunn turned to his caravan.  "We continue on!  There should be a clearing about a half mile further down the path.  We will make camp and treat our wounded there, and hold our funerals."

The trade group sprang back to action.  Gunnar looked down at Kormak and asked him, "If we release you, will you behave yourself?"

Kormak nodded, and the four of them let him go.  As he rubbed at his arms and wrists, they walked off and started to help with the breakdown of the boat wall.

Snotlout looked at Kormak, and saw the bigger man give him a look of utmost loathing before turning and going back to his brother's body.

Snotlout shuddered and returned to caring for Hookfang's wound. 

###

The day of Ruffnut and Magnus's wedding dawned clear and bright, with just enough clouds in the deep blue sky to give it character. 

Magnus was a pile of nerves, and Hiccup imagined that Ruffnut wasn't doing much better where the women's party was preparing her.

As the groom's best man—which Hiccup found hilarious, as he had barely any skill with the sword—he was responsible for hiding Magnus's father's sword.  Normally, they would use the family barrow, but that was impractical, as the old king was buried underneath the Christian chapel back in Nidaros.  So he had to get creative.

He had amused himself, knowing full well that he was setting himself up for a similar such action at his own wedding… but he had plans for getting around that. 

But that was for later; for the moment, he and the rest of the men's party were escorting Magnus, who was vibrating like a plucked lyra string, to the dragon-tunnel entrance.

Magnus looked at the hole in the ground, looked at Hiccup, and said, "You're joking."

"Nope," Hiccup said with a grin, and clapped his friend on the shoulder.  "Have fun looking!"

Magnus gave him a flinty look, steeled himself with a deep breath, and climbed down into the hole in the ground, grumbling about getting even later as he vanished into the darkness.

Hiccup cheered himself with the thoughts of the working prototype sitting in the smithy, and wished Magnus good luck.  The tunnel complex down below had been the home of a few Whispering Deaths over the winter, before he, Astrid and Fishlegs had coaxed them out and into the Rookery.  It wasn't large, and didn't have any steep drops or things like that, and he'd put the sword down in the main sleeping chamber on the bare rock, along with a tiny little flame in a puddle of wax on the rocky floor—Magnus wouldn't have a candle to take with him for finding his way back out. 

Once Magnus vanished from sight, Sigvatr immediately unslung a satchel from his shoulder and motioned energetically to Hiccup and Tuffnut. 

Hiccup grinned and he and Tuff helped the skald don his accoutrements for the next part of the marriage rite.  As Magnus's godfather (the significance of which Hiccup wasn't sure about, but apparently it meant that Sigvatr had agreed when Magnus was born to represent him before the gods, which was cool), he was the logical stand-in for old King Olaf in the next part of the rite.  Hiccup and Tuffnut had made some suggestions to properly enhance the moment. 

As they prepared for Magnus's reemergence—Hiccup expected his friend to take at least a quarter-hour, and maybe as much as a full hour, depending on how many blind turns he made down in the tunnels—Hiccup saw the priest, Michael Henriksson, look disapprovingly in his direction, but only for a moment.  And it was so brief that Hiccup found himself doubting that he had seen it. 

If he had, then it was probably some lingering dissatisfaction on the honestly sloppy joins that he and the priest had made in preparing for this rite, or the talks that they'd had in making those joins.  Hiccup had discovered that trying to combine the ways of the Aesir with the ways of this Christ in a way that made everyone equally happy—or equally unhappy, as it were—was a difficult job.  And that job had fallen to Hiccup because his great-grand-aunt couldn't talk above a whisper, or for very long, and Henriksson had flatly refused to have anything to do with a woman priest, saying that it was unnatural. 

So they'd talked and talked and _talked_ , and Hiccup had occasionally wanted to scream in frustration, but they'd finally made it work, especially once Magnus had put his foot down.  And with the degree of satisfaction that the priest had shown when they'd finally come to an agreement, Hiccup had come away with the vague feeling that somehow, in a manner he didn't understand, he'd lost.

They finished preparing Sigvatr in perhaps a fifth of an hour, and the men's party settled in to wait, chatting quietly amongst themselves. 

Hiccup was talking with Eindride about the finer points of figuring out what you were looking at when it was a thousand or more feet below you when they all heard a ragged cheer issuing from the tunnel's mouth, followed by a shout of, "HICCUP!  I'M GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS, YOU ASS!"

Hiccup chortled to himself and checked the shadows.  It had been nearly the full hour.

The men's party scattered and settled in to watch with anticipation. 

A minute or so later, Magnus's head, covered in dirt and rock dust, emerged from the hole, using the roots sticking out from the side as points to climb on; while the entrance wasn't _perfectly_ vertical, Hiccup had checked with a plumb bob when he'd picked this spot, and it was only about ten or fifteen degrees off.  The muddy puddle of thigh-deep chilly rainwater at the bottom had made it that much more perfect as a choice.

"Hiccup!"  Magnus looked around, seeing nobody, and then he said much more hesitantly, "Guys…?"

Behind him, Sigvatr detached himself from his hiding place and strode over to the hole, the shadows of the trees and dappled sunlight adding an ethereal quality to his image.

"MAGNUS!" he boomed, and Magnus nearly fell back into the hole in surprise.  "It is I, King Olaf Haraldsson, your father!"

Magnus stammered in shock and tried to haul himself clear of the hole. 

Hiccup watched the moment in satisfaction.  They had dressed up Sigvatr to look like Magnus's father as a ghost, padding out his figure with rags to achieve the man's stout look and dusting him with chalk powder.  Now the skald, who had been the personal companion of the old king for nearly twenty years, was playing the part with gusto.

"Today, my son, you become a man!  As I did, as your grandfather, Harald Grenske, and your great-grandfather, Gudrød Bjørnsson, and your great-great-grandfather, Bjøorn Farmann, unto your great-great-great-grandfather, Harald Fairhair, the first king of the unified Norse!  It is your duty as lord and king and leader of our House to continue this line!  And today, you will take the first step on that path!"  He bent down and helped haul Magnus free of the hole.

Magnus immediately genuflected before Sigvatr, laying his father's sword across his knee. 

"Father, I thank you for this, and for this gift of life."

"As well you should!  Do you swear to uphold your duties to the family, to your House, and to your noble blood!?"

"I do!"

"Then rise, my son, and take your place, not only as king, but as a wedded man!"

He lifted his arms and the men's party emerged from their hiding places and proceeded to seize the king, lifting him onto their shoulders and handing the sword off to Hiccup.  Magnus yelped and struggled a bit as they carried him off, singing, for the next step in the rite.  Hiccup hefted the old king's sword onto his shoulder and followed, singing along as they walked off to the bath-house.

A large steaming tub was already waiting, and the men's party heaved and tossed Magnus in with a splash.  Sputtering, he surfaced, only to be grabbed again by the married men in the men's party, who proceeded to pull off his bachelor's garb and give him a scrubbing to within an inch of his life.

Hiccup stood off to the side; despite being Magnus's best man, he had been told in no uncertain terms that he had no place in this part of the rite, as he wasn't a married man already.  He was being permitted to watch only on Magnus's insistence as his best man.  So instead of participating, he just watched, held his friend's sword, and occasionally winced as the scrubbing got too vigorous.  Meanwhile, the married men of the men's party ceremonially scrubbed away his friend's bachelorhood, giving him advice (both lewd and practical), making ribald jokes and laughing, as Magnus kept bouncing back and forth between full-body blushes and going completely pale. 

After the scrub-down, they dressed the king, who was either blushing or had lost a little too much skin to the soap bar, and lead him off to the grove, where the priest and Gothi were waiting.

As they approached the sacred grove, Hiccup saw Henriksson had added a cross to the altar, and had apparently consecrated it to his god… which wasn't what they had agreed upon, wasn't it?  Hiccup thought back over their negotiations, and realized that it had been the topic of one of their earlier rounds of talks.  But it hadn't been explicitly discussed in their final talks, and he realized that he'd assumed that Henriksson would fold it all together.  So now the cross was on the altar, instead of among the symbols of the gods around the perimeter of the grove. 

He grimaced and considered saying something… and then decided against it.  He didn't want to be the one that stained his friends' special day with an argument or some other scene. 

He would just have to have a talk with Gothi later on about that, if the gods would be offended; they'd been talking—well, him talking and her making markings with her staff—a lot these past two weeks on the subject.  But at the moment, she was just looking puzzled and perhaps a touch irked.

At least they wouldn't need a second animal for the Christian side of the rites; as it was, one of the points of discussion with the priest had been that there would be no sacrifice, and the animal, a massive ox, was instead going to be given as a sacred beast, to be maintained by Clan Haddock, as the head clan, as a living gift to the gods.

The ceremony went without significant incident, amazingly enough.  It seemed as if the people who had been considering starting trouble had been given a stern talking-to by his father, thank Frigga.  Beyond that risk, Hiccup and Fishlegs had planned extensively for anything that might go wrong, up to and including the risk of a mass dragon uprising for whatever unknown reason.  At least the dragon mating season was over, having occurred the week before they'd returned. 

Gothi stepped forward, poured the honey-mead into the bowl, placed the bowl atop the altar of heaped stones, and chanted the prayers in a strained but audible voice—an effort that Hiccup knew cost her significantly—as she dipped the bundle of fir-twigs into it.  Then she made the sign of Thor's Hammer with the bundled twigs—a short, sharp flick downwards, and then left to right, spraying out the honey-mead over the assembled witnesses.  Hiccup sighed as he got an extra-large dose of the drops all over his formal clothes, being front and center.  Although, he supposed, it was better than getting sprayed with the more usual mead-and-blood mix. 

The vows were next; they had agreed to use the Christian vows in exchange for doing the ceremony in the sacred grove, so Gothi stepped back and Henriksson stepped forward to administer the oaths.  They sounded odd to Hiccup's ear, but the sentiment was nice enough.

Then Magnus and Ruffnut exchanged their swords, Ruffnut getting the one that Hiccup had hidden in the tunnels and Magnus receiving one that belonged to Hardnut, as the clan head, followed by the exchange of rings.  Hiccup had personally forged both over the previous couple of months, having planned the designs out in Nidaros and on the trip home, speaking with each of them in turn, sworn to secrecy by both.  Magnus's ring for Ruffnut was a band of gold, made of seven strands of gold wire that he had braided using two pairs of iron tweezers and a great deal of swearing; he'd managed to hide where the ends of the strands had been fused together, making it look like a continuous, neverending braid.  Ruffnut's ring for Magnus was that of a gold dragon, modeled on a Zippleback with one head, biting its own tail, with a pair of tiny chips of garnet as the eyes. 

People oohed and ahhed at the rings, and then his two friends kissed as husband and wife for the first time, and there were cheers, whistles and shouts of celebration.  And they took their time at it, too, which brought on more calls of approval.

Then the men's party and women's party lined up at the edge of the grove; it was time for the race to the mead-hall for the next part of the wedding—the feast.  The losing party in the race had to serve the winners the mead and ale at the feast.  Apparently, in some areas of the mainland, they did this with the men mounted and the women on foot, which Hiccup thought was unfair, although it gave him some ideas for his own nuptials. 

Then they were off, running for the bridge back to the village and the mead hall.  Hiccup immediately lagged; even with everyone encumbered by their formal clothing, he had his peg to deal with, and as a result, he was _slow._   So he waved to the rest of the men's party to run on ahead, and he gamely did his best to get to the mead hall without having his stump slip free of his peg.  At least he was developing some calluses down there, finally; he hadn't had a bleeder along the scar since mid-summer.  Blisters aplenty, though. 

Catching up at the mead hall, he was informed by Tuffnut that Astrid would be serving him the ale tonight, as the women's party had lost, and that he should be grateful. 

Glancing at his lover, who was looking torn between amused, indignant and ecstatic at the moment, he said, "Uh huh.  Sure."  Once Tuffnut had turned away, he leaned over and said to her, "You don't have to, you know."

She snorted.  "Hiccup, it's fine.  I'm just annoyed that we lost."  She smirked.  "Besides, I know that you won't abuse it."  She waggled her eyebrows in a mock-threatening manner.  "Would you?"

He shook his head in enthusiastic agreement. 

She smiled and kissed his cheek, and then whispered, "And if you behave yourself, we'll see about doing this sort of thing in private."

He flushed, but before he could say anything in response, the crowd hushed.  Ruffnut mounted the stairs, with Magnus waiting by the doors; he barred the way with his sword, then laid it across the door's threshold.  Usually, the groom just helped the bride over the threshold, but Magnus instead scooped Ruffnut up and carried her over, an addition that Hiccup thought charming… if impractical for him to include himself.  Of course, Magnus then had to go back for his sword, laid across the threshold, and stab it into the support-beam, scarred from much such abuse over the years, where it bit deep, to general approval from the assembled.

Nearly eight hundred people sat down to dine, to the point where they could not all fit in the hall and tables had been set up outside.

The feast opened with Ruffnut giving her new husband the legally required cup of mead, grinning fit to have her face split open.  Then the food began to emerge from the kitchens in the same way that rain emerged from a spring thunderstorm—in overflowing plenitude sufficient to cause floods. 

Hiccup watched a cauldron of soup big enough for someone to take a bath in get carried out on poles; mutton and leek soup steamed within.  Then Cináed clan Hofferson, Astrid's uncle, did a double-take and said, "Hey!  That's our cauldron!"

"Take it up with Magnhild," Lopsides clan Jorgenson said flatly from between the poles holding the cauldron, trying to keep it from sloshing. 

Hiccup bit his lip to keep from laughing, and then his eyes grew wide as a pair of loaves of bread as long as he was tall, and as tall as he was wide, were carried out on a plank the size of a door by a pair of hulking Jorgensons.  Following them was Snitwit clan Jorgenson carrying a bucket of churned butter that was the size of one of the baskets he gave Toothless his fish in. 

Nearby, further down the high table, Ruffnut was covering her eyes with a hand, occasionally splaying her fingers out to watch, until Magnus whispered in her ear and she made visible efforts to be polite to Magnhild's staff for their efforts.  Still, when the whole roast ox—stuffed with a whole roast boar, stuffed in turn with a whole roast lamb, stuffed in turn with a roast goose, which was in turn stuffed with a roast squab stuffed with its own eggs—was brought out for their inspection, he could have sworn that he heard her whimper. 

Still more food was brought out, to the point where Hiccup was pondering where and how Magnhild had been _storing_ it all in the limited confines of the mead hall kitchens.  The more plebeian fare was set out for the tribe at large, while the exotic dishes were reserved for the high table.  He found that the stuffings between the layers of meat in the roasted animals were also delicious—there were herbs and onions on the boar, and the lamb was coated in broth-soaked bread, and the goose was coated in ground giblets and chestnuts.

People began to sing; Ketil and the other musicians brought out their instruments and began to play, which echoed weirdly off of the stone walls of the mead hall.The kitchen staff worked in shifts as people ate, drank and toasted to the health of the newlyweds.  Storytellers made little knots of conversation at the various tables, and bouts of laughter rang out as jokes, both clean as snow and filthy as a midden pit were told. 

"…and then he said, 'wait, you're supposed to use the wax on the _ax?!'_ " Gobber said, and the whole table erupted into laughter.  Ruffnut was turning bright red with laughter, and Magnus was trying to suck down air as his chest heaved.  Hiccup, having heard the story already, was able to keep it down to a snicker as Astrid, who hadn't heard it before, was desperately trying to breathe between giggles.  Tuffnut's feet were drumming on the floor as tears leaked from his eyes.  The others present from Magnus's court and Stoick's advisers clapped and laughed.

As they calmed, Rolf and a few others from the village artisans approached the high table, carrying oddly-shaped objects wrapped in fresh linen.  "If we have your leave, my lords, we bring gifts for you on this, your blessed day," he said, kneeling and presenting a large disk under his cloth to Magnus and Ruff. 

Magnus nodded and said, "Please!"

Rolf beamed and swept the cloth away from his hands. 

Hiccup gaped as it became clear that not all of the Green Death's remains had been bartered away over the last year.  Rolf had found a scale the size of a standard round shield, like they'd used during dragon training the previous year, and had carved a depiction of a moment from the battle on it—Ruffnut and Tuffnut's rescue of Snotlout from the great dragon's head.  He had used the natural colors of the scale to great effect, with a minimum of paint, mostly to emphasize the lines.

Rolf's wife, Catthumbs, unwrapped a section of a fang that was the length of Hiccup's whole leg and laid it gently on the table in front of Magnus and Ruffnut.  Ruffnut choked, and Hiccup stared at the tooth, his mouth opening in awe.  Catthumbs had scrimshawed the surface, depicting the five dragons and their six riders flying down its length, with the Green Death's jaws open at the end and breathing fire down the length of the tooth. 

Still more gifts were brought up; while some were of a practical nature, befitting gifts to newlyweds, others were works of art.  Gobber vanished at one point, and returned to present a pair of bones from the Green Death that he had carved into two boxes, with his own etching of that battle on the sides of them: one for the king, and one for the chief. 

One of the Hoffersons gave a dagger, carved from another tooth fragment; it was inlaid with runic blessings of victory and triumph and glory.  Smiling, Magnus had spoken quietly with Ruffnut for a moment and they then turned and gave the blade to Hiccup, both of them beaming at him. 

Grinning back, he accepted it.  He had the sneaking suspicion that more pieces were being hoarded against his own wedding, but that didn't make the gift any less meaningful, and he found himself tearing up out of sheer happiness.

The rest of the afternoon and evening passed in bliss, and Hiccup, carrying the torch as the sun set, led the escort of the bride and groom to their house next to his own.  As one of the witnesses honored to watch the pair enter the bedchamber, he closed the door and sank into a chair nearby with a happy, if somewhat tired, squeak, a grin stretching from ear to ear feeling like a permanent fixture.  Yngvarr was weeping tears of joy in a nearby chair, and it seemed to be contagious.

Hiccup fell asleep in his chair next to his friends' bedchamber, smiling, as a best man should do, feeling as if the world had just taken a step in the right direction.

###

Mildew locked the last of the iron cages with a satisfied grin.  "There we go.  I managed to get a few extra, but, hey, seller's market."  He shut the baby dragons away in the cubbyhole where he'd been storing them before shipping them out, and awaited his own moment to be rid of this place.  They had betrayed him by accepting the dragons that he had fought against his entire life. 

Turnabout was fair play.  And with essentially the whole village passed out drunk for the wedding, it had been _easy_ play.  He'd been trapping the hatchlings carefully for the last month.  At first, he'd made mistakes, accidentally killing two.  But he had managed to place their remains out as the victims of accidents, and he'd been careful not to take more than one a week after that. 

Then the damn dragon-loving boy had returned, but that had turned into a blessing in disguise.  With the chaos of the preparations for the wedding, he'd had ample cover to step up his trapping of the curious hatchlings.  And now, with tonight's haul, he had taken a total of a dozen, to be used as the purchase price for his new life as a high lord, as he deserved.  As _they_ deserved—because that was all that a dragon was good for.  Being used as payment. 

He leaned back on his staff and looked down at the feasting village.  His lip curled in a sneer. 

Ever since his brothers had banished him from his own clan half a century ago, he had lived for himself, and by himself.  He owed them nothing. 

And if the dragon-loving heir was going to take his livelihood and life's work away from him, then Mildew had no issues about taking what he needed from the scrawny heir in return.

He glanced towards the storage compartment, and smiled.

And he had done just that.

###

The next morning, Hiccup, feeling a bit pickled but not that much worse for wear, escorted the grinning couple up to the hall for the presentation of the morning gift, which was a simple and elegant circlet of silver and gold, done in the form of a wreath—a _crown._  

It truly sank into Hiccup's realization that his old friend, even if they were never close, was now a _queen._

Of course, the fact that all of Magnus's attending courtiers had immediately gone to one knee and then acknowledged her as their queen consort probably had something to do with that _._

It looked like it was sinking in for Ruffnut too. 

On the trip back to Berk, she had confided to Hiccup and Astrid that she liked _him._   The whole kingdom aspect was gravy, as far as she'd been concerned.

 _Some gravy_ , was Hiccup's ludicrous thought now. 

Blinking, he listened as his friends spoke to their courtiers.  Ruffnut was now legally his queen consort, and everything that went with that was now hers.  Estates, control over the royal household…

Wow.

It was enough to make him feel grossly inadequate.  What did he have to offer his own beloved that would be at all comparable? 

Despite the glee of the moment, he suddenly felt depressed, as if he had been climbing a cliff only to find that the top had retreated from him.

Then someone poked him in the ribs, and he gave a muffled yelp.

"You all right?" Astrid asked him out of the corner of her mouth.  "You were looking a little down there."

He blinked and looked at her.  She was looking at him with a bit of concern, and an adoring smile to go with it.

Thinking quickly, he said, "Just feeling a little… sad, I guess.  It'll be just you, me and Fishlegs once the twins head off for Norway."

She waggled her eyebrows at him.  "Well, you'll just have to step up the explosions to cover for them, won't you?"  She grinned, and took his hand in her own.  "I know what you mean, though.  And I'll miss them, but we'll get to see them when we go visit."

He nodded, and she leaned over and gave him a lingering kiss.  "Love you," she said.

"Love you too."

As she turned back and applauded Queen Consort Ruffnut Thicknutsdoittor House Fairhair as the newly minted Queen Consort proceeded to give her royal husband a passionate kiss in front of the assembled tribe and court, Hiccup smiled. 

He loved her, and he wanted to give her the world.  But, barring that, he'd settle for enough to make the world sit up and notice her and know her worth. 

And he'd get there.  And then it would be their turn. 

###

Snotlout heaved the stone and placed it on Ondott's chest, right over where the raid leader's sword was clasped in the Norseman's hands.  Kormak was still giving him dirty looks, but they had worked together to gather the stones for his brother's cairn and dig the shallow grave. 

The bodies of the other raiders had been dumped into a common grave after he, Vidkunn and Gunnar had finished relieving them of their valuables.  While the bows, arrows, and clothing had been destroyed by the fire, there had been enough coin and other small valuables on them to make Kormak into a moderately wealthy man. 

Not that it seemed to be much solace; he'd said to Gudmund the other night that he would trade it all to have his brother back.  And he had made sure that Snotlout had heard him when he'd said it. 

The final stones in place for the cairn, Kormak went to one knee and began to pray to Odin, Thor and Freyja to find his brother worthy of Valhalla.

Snotlout backed off.  Walking over to where Gunnar and Gudmund were standing by Hookfang, he stood shoulder to shoulder with them—which was a little annoying, because his eyes were just about level with their shoulders—and they watched to pay their respects.

Tomorrow, they would continue on their way to the Varangian Guard.  Tonight was for Ondott and the others who had died in the attack.

Prayers complete, Kormak stood, and then walked over to Vidkunn.  "Sir.  I have been thinking."

Vidkunn nodded, reached out a hand, and clasped Kormak on the shoulder.  "Aye, lad.  What is it?"

"You will be returning to the Swedes when you are done in Miklagård?"

Vidkunn nodded.  "Aye, that is my plan."  His face softened.  "Do you have any messages that I should carry with me?"

Reaching to his belt, Kormak pulled the purse of coins and gems that they had taken from the bodies of the raiders.  "Yes.  I would have you swear on your honor and your soul that you will take this," he placed the purse into Vidkunn's open hand with some force and held it there, clasping his hands around Vidkunn's and the purse, "to our… to _my_ parents, and tell them how their son died with honor, and how their other son goes to fulfill our joint oath alone, not just for his own honor, but for that of his brother!  They should use this blood-bought coin to raise a runestone for Ondott, so that all should know of his bravery!"

Vidkunn looked down at the purse, and then up at Kormak's face, and then nodded slowly.  "I will accept this oath and this charge.  I, Vidkunn  Guthhersson, swear on my soul and my honor that I will do as you have said, Kormak Brandrsson." 

Kormak released his grasp on the purse and Vidkunn's hands.

Snotlout, watching, took a deep breath.  He would remember this moment, for his saga.  While certainly he was not at fault for Ondott's death, he had liked the twin, and it would be a memorial just as fitting as Kormak's runestone for the Swede to be immortalized in verse. 

He then turned and rummaged in his saddlebags, finding the thinning purse of dragon-scales.  Extracting a small handful, he walked over to Vidkunn and Kormak.  "If I may…" he nodded towards Kormak, "I would add these to that purse."

Kormak scowled at him.  "A paltry weregild for a death that you claim is not your fault?  Begone, and take your dragon scales with you!  I will not have you sully my brother's memories with your taint!"

Snotlout clenched his fists, but then glanced at the cairn, and bowed.  He would not dishonor the dead with a brawl with the bereaved.  Pulling back, he walked back to where the others were standing, and returned the scales to his purse. 

Tomorrow, they would return on their voyage to the Varangian Guard.  And, when they arrived,  Snotlout hoped, he and Kormak would be assigned to different units.  Because now there was no question that the Swede was his enemy, or at least his rival. 

Snotlout grinned nastily to himself.  Well, if the man wanted to set himself in opposition to the glory that would be Sigurd Trondsson, then so be it.  It would make his own saga that much greater. 

###

The week of feasting in celebration of the marriage passed without incident.  Even though he wasn't pressing for details, Hiccup still found out from gossip that Magnus and Ruffnut were enjoying themselves.  Of course, he might have found it funnier if he and Astrid had had time to themselves, but they'd had no substantial private time since they had left Norway over a month ago.  The last time they'd had together at all had been those scant minutes during the Washday before the wedding, and it was starting to get a little frustrating for both of them.  It was hard to go back to being demure and chaste after what they'd shared.  Worse, a number of people seemed to detect this and found it _funny._  

Hiccup had to resist the urge to order Toothless to toast some backsides, but it was getting more and more difficult as time passed…

Traders, having apparently heard of the king's presence, were descending on the village to offer their wares in droves; Hiccup, mindful of last Thawfest, had beefed up the watches, and they'd done an audit of the dragon flock to the best of their ability.  Problem was, the wild flock was _wild,_ and roosted in the Rookery because they liked it there, not because they had to.  So it was hard to tell if they had lost any of the adults to poachers. 

Well, aside from the one idiot who leapt onto the back of a Nadder and tried to fly off with it. 

Boy, had he been surprised when the dragon didn't listen to his orders and flew home for dinner. 

He and his entire crew had been banished from Berk in perpetuity in front of the other traders, which was being seen as either incredibly harsh or incredibly lax, depending on perspective.  But otherwise, it looked as if dragon training would be become an impromptu and extended harvest festival and trade fair, and his tribe were doing a roaring trade with the visitors.

Tuffnut had been given the title of Thane and was now part of his brother-in-law's household, and would be returning with them to Nidaros after the training was over.  Hiccup had put five coppers in the betting pool on Tuffnut not realizing that his sister now outranked him for another two weeks.  Astrid had gone in with a silver and bet ten days from the end of the wedding week, and Wulfhild went with six coppers for a month.  Gobber had chided them for gambling and then tossed in eight coppers for three weeks. 

In between the feasts and the preparations for the dragon training, Hiccup returned to the smithy in earnest, having some ideas for various projects and creations.  While he'd been back since his return from Norway, those had been for some specific projects, like the rings for his friends.  Now he came in to put in some work while Astrid was playing hostess, and found the newly freed thrall Murchadh there, having taken up his old job as Gobber's spare right hand.  That had felt… odd, but understandable.  And honestly, it just freed him up to work on his own projects. 

All in all… things were good. 

As the wedding week wrapped up on the following Frigga's Day, Hiccup found himself pulled into a board game with Astrid and Wulfhild.  The three of them were sitting around the table in Magnus's hut, tossing dice and playing a three person variant of the King's Fist game that Roald had introduced Wulfhild to at some point or other, the lyra that Hiccup had made for her sitting nearby.  She was getting better at playing it _,_ slowly, although apparently she had considered playing it as a way to protest and fight back when Magnus and Ruffnut were making too much noise _._   But for the moment, it was sitting in the case that Hiccup had made for it, and the game board was the center of attention instead. 

Tossing the dice, Hiccup frowned at the result.  Astrid was whipping the tar out of both him and Wulfhild so far, and, if he didn't know better, he'd say that the dice were conspiring against him and for his girlfriend. 

"So, Wulfhild, how do you like Berk?" he asked as Astrid captured another of his pawns. 

The princess grinned at him.  "I love it.  This place is amazing.  Dragons, of course, but the island itself is beautiful.  I love seeing the sunsets and the ocean… and your artisans are so talented.  Everything is embellished with skill, and it makes walking through your village a delight on the eyes," she said, taking the dice from Astrid and rolling.

She then frowned at the result, making Hiccup grin.  "No luck?"

"I think your girlfriend has hexed these," Wulfhild said with a quirked eyebrow at the low roll.

Astrid shrugged with an evil grin.

"Well, I can do this at least…" the princess said and moved her king a few spaces.

Hiccup looked at the board and sighed with a smile.  "Leaving me to the wolves over here, I see."

"Yep.  She'll go easy on you, won't she?" Wulfhild asked lightly, a humorously insincere grin on her face.

Astrid laughed, took the dice, and tossed a high roll.

As two of his pawns joined the defeated pile on the sideboard, Hiccup looked at Wulfhild with a mournful expression.  " _Easy_ on me?  Have you _met_ her?"

Astrid gave an evil chortle and handed him the dice. 

"Thanks, love," Hiccup said, looking at the carved stones in his hands, and sarcastically asked, "Would you like to slit my throat now, or should I struggle a bit first to make it more lively?"

She just grinned at him, and Wulfhild laughed and said, "Oh, come now, Hiccup, be sporting.  At least she hasn't taken lessons from Roald on how to properly bait a game board…"

Hiccup snorted and tossed the dice, only to start pounding his head against the table as the dice rolled up minimum value, the singular little dots on the carved stones seeming to mock him.

Wulfhild patted him consolingly on the back of the head as Astrid laughed.

"There, there, Hiccup, I'm sure she'll make it a clean slaughter and not stretch out the pain."

He moved his pieces with a pained expression and handed off the dice to the princess.  Wulfhild rolled a bit over the average value, and managed to get her king a bit closer to safety.

Leaving Hiccup's behind to face Astrid's onslaught. 

As more of her army of pawns encircled his own diminishing forces, Hiccup looked up mournfully at Wulfhild.  "Can you convince Roald to come up with a version that includes kings on dragonback?  I think I'd be better at that one."

The princess laughed.  "Riiiiight, because it would be a _good_ idea to give the man another version of this game to hustle."

Hiccup just gave her his best puppy-eyes look, and she laughed.  "Astrid, your boyfriend is trying to use his cuteness to get his way with me."

"Whack him on the nose with a piece of rolled up parchment," Astrid advised with a smirk.

"Does that work?"

"Dunno.  Usually when he gives me that look, I end up kissing him."

All three of them laughed, and the game went quickly after that. 

Astrid claimed a forfeit for her victory over Hiccup; he had to serve the two women for the evening's feast, the last feast of the wedding week.

The girls settled at the high table in the mead hall, Hiccup brought over the platter with Astrid's favorites, roasted chicken with a glaze of honey, a side of bread stuffing, pan-fried fish, and sweet ale.  As his girlfriend dug in with gusto, he turned to Wulfhild in his best theatrically servile manner, a wide smile on his face.  "What can I get you, milady?"

She grinned at him in a friendly manner.  "I'd like a nice slice from that roast, plus some of the whipped turnips and roasted carrots," she said.  "And some of the roasted salmon and the vegetable stew."

He bowed and walked off, laughing to himself.  Astrid was giving Wulfhild a piece of her fish, and the two of them were sharing a joke, clearly at his expense, and he made a slightly rude gesture in response, which made Astrid give him a wink and Wulfhild fall back in her chair laughing.   

Hiccup brought over the platter, laden with the requested foods, and set it in front of his friend.  Because she had become a friend, without a doubt.  Even if she had left him alone on the field of battle to face his girlfriend.  That had oddly made it even more of a friendship. 

"Anything else, ladies?" he asked in his most over-the-top obsequious tone of voice, inspired by one of the merchants attending the impromptu fair. 

They both grinned at him.  "Not yet."

"But if we think of something…"

"…we'll be _sure_ to let you know."

He laughed and went to get himself a plate, reflecting on the weirdness of friendship, which could turn a chore like serving food into something fun and funny. 

###

King Harthacnut of the House of Knýtlinga, son of King Cnut the Great and Emma of Normandy, and by God's Grace King of the Danes and England, looked up in irritation from his sumptuous meal in the great hall of Winchester Castle. 

"What is it?" he asked curtly, holding his knife with the dripping slice of beef halfway to his mouth.  "And can't it wait?"

"Milord, I apologize for the intrusion," his courtier Osgod Clapa said.  "But a courier just came in, and he has news!"  The man had clearly just come from the stables that were his responsibility, and he stank strongly of the horses—an unwelcome scent at the meal laid out before Harthacnut and the household.  While Harthacnut made a point of regularly dining with his men, sitting as an equal with the Thingmen, and laying out an excellent meal, he did insist on _some_ standards for attendance! 

"What of it?  More trouble in the north?" Harthacnut said curtly, and took a bite from the meat before it could dribble more sauce on his hand.  "Discontent in Worcester again?"  He chewed as he glared at the man, who looked uncomfortable.  "Well?  What is it?"

"Sire… King Magnus…"

Harthacnut scowled and he felt his jowls quiver as he chewed.  "What about him?  Has he broken our treaty?"  Harthacnut loathed the bastard king; his father, Cnut the Great, had conquered that realm, only for Harthacnut's older brother, Svein, to lose it through sheer incompetence!  And the Norse nobles who had once supported his father's control had betrayed him and put their support behind a bastard boy as a king—and a puppet at that!  It was practically farce! 

Now the only way for him to regain his father's legacy was to outwait the bastard boy, thanks to that damnable treaty that the treacherous nobles had forced out of him and the boy. 

Well, he wouldn't make the same mistake as either his brother or the bastard boy.  He ruled, not reigned, and his word was law in all of the lands under his authority.  There was no questioning as to _who_ was King here! 

Osgod winced.  "He has made allies with the dragon riders to the north."

There was dead silence for a moment, as every man at every table in the hall stopped and turned. 

One of the Thingmen, his eyes a little wild, asked, "Are you certain, man!?  How do we know?"

Osgod continued.  "Earl Siward has it from several Alban merchants who were stopping off for resupply in his lands.  Magnus is there, he is friends with the Hero, and he brought half of his court with him to get dragons of their own.  Even Magnus's own sister!"

Harthacnut stared at him, the mouthful of beef suddenly tasting like ashes in his mouth. 

Further down the high table, his mother Emma and his half-brother Edward shared a look.  Then Emma spoke curtly.  "My lord son, the bastard has clearly broken his treaty with you.  How can this be anything other than the first step in taking by force of arms what he failed to take previously?"  She sat back in her chair and said, "Before, he and you were equally matched.  Now… you are not."

Harthacnut painfully swallowed his mouthful of beef and then nodded in agreement.  "My thoughts exactly, mother."  He pushed back in his chair and stood.  "But we can take steps to remedy that before the bastard boy can take advantage of his newfound power or allies."  He turned.  "Osgod!"

Osgod came to attention.  "Yes sire!"

"Send word to the earls!  I want them here, and they are to bring every soldier and levy that they can muster with them!  And send word to the Danes.  I want every longship available here as soon as possible!"  He slammed the table.  "We are _not_ waiting to be attacked from the skies again!  We will take the fight to them!"

* * *

 

A/N: Wheee!  Oh man, I have been looking forward to posting this chapter for what feels like forever!  And the best is still to come!  


	23. Changing The World

**Chapter 23: Changing The World**

_When considering the various polymaths who have speckled history's pages, Hiccup Haddock was certainly more influential than many of his peers in this multi-talented category, with noted and far-reaching works in the economic, political, social and scientific realms.  Indeed, compared to the Arabian polymath Ibn al-Haytham, who passed away shortly before Haddock's rise to prominence, Haddock's direct effects on history are immeasurably greater.  This holds true even when putting aside the fact that Haddock encountered al-Haytham's writings later in life and immediately began to make use of them in some of the most earth-shattering scientific innovations of his career.  However, this is exaggerated to the point where, in much of the literature on the topic, he is held up as_ singularly _influential, a world-changer without peer in his own or any era._

_What many of these historians have failed to consider is the simple facts of Haddock's life in comparison with those of other exceptional intellects—he was of the nobility, and as the first tamer of dragons, essentially sat on a treasury equal to that of the combined vaults of every contemporary European noble and royal.  This meant that unlike many other polymaths throughout history, Haddock, as his own patron, needed not labor for his supper; he was able to pour significant efforts and funds into his experiments without worrying about where his next meal would come from, and could afford to share his innovations freely.  Al-Haytham, in contrast, had to work as a tutor, and was once imprisoned under house arrest for ten years by the Fatimid Caliph while feigning madness to avoid punishment.  While Al-Haytham spent the time imprisoned productively, writing his famous Book of Optics and other treatises on math and the sciences, the obvious question arises of what sort of innovations the man might have produced had he possessed Haddock's resources and freedoms._

_This is not to discount the distractions and diversions of focus that his diplomatic accomplishments cost Haddock, as he was the chief's herald and later the chief and king himself.  However, while his innovations and dragons attracted significant and intense interest from all over Europe and Asia Minor, the argument may be reduced to the point that, regardless of how many offers of alliance or marriage were made to Haddock and how many state visits he made over the course of his life, even with his complete upending of the status quo in regards to communications speeds, he still possessed idle time and resources in abundance for the pursuit of knowledge and innovation, something not available to most other polymaths in history._

_—The Genius Has No Clothes: An Alternate View Of Innovation, 1818_

The three shiny red apples danced through the air as Heather watched, holding Fishlegs' hand.  The brightly dressed juggler grinned at the watching crowd as he kept the fruit in motion.  He'd arrived with one of the traders two days before, and was amusing the crowds at the impromptu harvest fair. 

Her heart was still pounding in surprise and agony.  Perhaps an hour ago, Fishlegs had shown up at her door and invited her for a stroll through the vendors.  He'd seemed much more anxious than usual, and she'd realized with shock that he was trying to court her. 

She'd wanted to weep at the irony of the man she was falling for also falling for her when she had done nothing but lie to him, but that would have been suspicious.  So instead she'd said yes, and hoped that she could take a little joy in the moment with him.

The juggler, still grinning, moved almost too quickly to see, and then one of the apples in mid-air visibly had a bite in it.  Then another, and another.  Heather stared with wide eyes as the man managed to eat all three apples, reducing them to cores, _while juggling them._  

Tossing the cores aside and chewing on his last bite as people applauded, the juggler said through a mouthful of apple, "Thank you, thank you!"  He took out a bright blue cloth ball, and started aimlessly tossing it in one hand.  "You know, folks, this sort of thing is just trickery."  He produced a pear from mid-air and started juggling the two objects one-handed as he looked around the crowd, coming to focus on Meatlug as she walked behind Fishlegs.  "But riding on dragons?  That's real magic there, that is."  A yellow apple joined the other two objects, and he continued to juggle them one-handed.  He affected an expression of exaggerated boredom and then turned his head and looked at his hand, still juggling the three, and yawned.  "See?"

People laughed, Heather included. 

"I mean it!  I've traveled the world, and I've never seen anything like it!"  A dagger, its blade looking sharp enough to draw blood with a careless touch, appeared in an instant and joined the wheel of objects flying through the air, and the juggler switched to using both hands.   Heather was impressed; she hadn't even seen the moment where he'd plucked the blade from some hiding place. 

"It is a time of miracles, and here is the home of it all!  And I'm already seeing these talents being invested, as the Lord intended!"

A small leather purse, jangling with coins, appeared; she thought that she saw the moment when he'd produced it from his belt, but she wasn't certain.  One thing that she was impressed by was that he was juggling now _five_ objects of different weights and shapes.  She'd only ever managed three before Adalwin had cut that part of her training, saying that she didn't have the talent for it.

The citation of the Christian parable, however, made her mood sour slightly, and she grimaced, even as she appreciated the man's own skills. 

Fishlegs noticed and leaned over.  "You okay?"

She nodded.  "I'll explain later," she whispered, and he gave a nod of acknowledgment, as the juggler continued his patter; when she had glanced away for a moment, another pair of brightly-colored juggling balls in yellow and green had joined the flurry.

Then the juggler seemed to start losing control of his motley assortment of objects, and staggered forward to catch one, nearly coming up against Fishlegs.  People gasped, and he recovered, only to seem to lose control again and bump into another man. 

Then Heather noticed that one of the balls and the purse were gone from the objects in the air.

"Oh, excuse me!" the juggler said.  "Sorry, so clumsy, you know how it is—whoops!"

One of the balls—the green one—vanished, followed by the knife, then the apple, and then the pear.  This time, though, he wasn't bumping into anyone.  Heather searched Fishlegs surreptitiously, and found the leather purse neatly tucked into Fishlegs' belt. 

She laughed to herself and continued to watch as the man finished his juggling with a flourish, catching the three remaining balls, and then making them disappear with a flick of his wrists. 

"Oh, bother, now where did they get to?" he asked, and the crowd laughed.  "Oh, good sir, could I have my purse back?"

Fishlegs startled, and said, "What?"

"My purse.  I think you have it." 

Fishlegs patted himself down, blushed, and tossed the purse back to the juggler, who had it open in an instant and started knuckle-walking the coins across his hands.  "Ah, there we go.  You know what they say, a fool and his coin are soon parted!"  The coins vanished, and try as she might, Heather couldn't spot the moment when he had palmed them. 

People applauded, and the juggler turned to the next man.  "My apple, please.  I missed lunch."

The man, abashed, found the apple under his hat, and handed it shyly back to the juggler to general applause. 

The pear and knife were similarly returned, and then the juggler looked around curiously.  "Now, where has that green ball gotten to…?"

People were patting themselves down—even those who hadn't been close.  And then one Hooligan—Glenn clan Hofferson—in the back row froze.  "How…?" he asked, and produced a green ball from his boot.

"Ah, there it is!"  The juggler lightly hopped over.  "It likes to wander."  He went to take it, but the ball seemed to vanish before his hand reached it—Heather barely managed to spot his left hand reach out like a striking snake and snatch the ball while everyone was focused on his right hand's flourish.  "Oh, where did it go now?"  He reached over and patted Glenn down, and the tall warrior seemed too startled to object. 

"Ahah!  But… oh, dear.  It seems to be a bit… shy."  The juggler reached into Glenn's shirt with two fingers and started to tug, only for a green kerchief to be produced. 

That turned into the first kerchief of several, with the corners knotted together, Glenn's expression one of astonishment as his shirt produced a stream of colorful cloth. 

Everyone applauded. 

"Thank you, everyone!  It's my privilege to be here!  Now, if you enjoyed the show, please, I would humbly accept tokens of your appreciation!"  He doffed his hat, which quickly filled with coins of various denominations, along with stacks of dragon scales. 

A thought occurred to Heather just then, inspired by the moment when the ball had vanished from Glenn's hand.  The juggler had snatched it with his left hand when everyone had been watching his right.

The Dragon Book had a special spine, made by Hiccup, that allowed for pages to be added _and_ _removed._  

That meant that the pages—pages filled with valuable information—could be removed.  She realized in that moment what her plan would have to be—rather than trying to steal the book itself, she could swap in blank pages and remove the contents.  That, in combination with her dragon and whatever eggs and hatchlings she could steal, would hopefully be enough to buy her parents their freedom.

Now, she just had to do it.  And she'd been paying attention to where the book was kept.

And, even though she hated the gods, she still prayed that maybe, one day, Fishlegs would forgive her for her betrayal of his trust. 

Because she doubted that she would be able to forgive herself.

He walked up to her, having tipped the juggler with some coin and scales himself, and grinned.  "Shall we?"

She nodded and pasted on her best smile.  "Yes, let's.  Come on, I saw something interesting back at one of the stalls."

###

Hiccup plummeted limply towards the waters below, and Astrid felt her heart in her throat as she watched.  Toothless was falling alongside him, his wings furled.  She urged Stormfly to try to catch up, but they were falling too fast, and were quickly out of reach.  She could see the waves below growing larger and larger—and then Hiccup reached out and pulled himself into Toothless's saddle, and she heard Toothless's wings unfurl with a _snap!,_ and they pulled out of their fall just in time, skimming along the waves.

Then they flew up next to her and Stormfly, both of them waving cheekily at her.

"Hiccup!  When you said that you had something cool to show me, you, you, you…!"  She spread her hands in frustration on either side of her head, wanting to clench them in her hair.  "Argh!"

"What?  It worked just fine!  And wasn't it cool?"

"Hiccup, you were falling!  What was cool about that?  You don't have wings!"

"You should try it!  It's so exciting!"

She glared at him.  How _dare_ he be so casual about this?  They had been taking their friends out for some flying time, trying not to neglect them—and getting out from under the watchful eyes of their chaperons back on Berk.  Although there were still the other riders out flying with their own dragons, plus the patrols.  They had passed Hammeredge Frodesson, Fishlegs' cousin, a little while ago; he had taken over Ross's usual patrol to the south while Ross was unavailable.

Hiccup's eyes suddenly narrowed and he pointed.  "Astrid, look!"

She squinted in the direction he was pointing; it took a moment, and then she saw it.  Two ships on the choppy surface of the sound, and they were clearly fighting aboard. 

"Pirates," she said, teeth clenching.  "You'd think they would have learned by now."

"I'll go check it out!" he said.  "You go get reinforcements!"

She shook her head.  "How about we go _together?"_   After his sky-diving stunt a few minutes ago, she wasn't letting him off on his own. 

He shrugged and nodded, and they flew towards the pair of ships.  As they grew closer, Astrid could pick out more details; it was definitely a boarding action, with a group of pirates in a longboat attacking a trader's cog _._   The fight was at an odd standstill, though; it looked like neither group was making any headway in overcoming the other as they approached.  And that was strange—the pirates clearly outnumbered the traders.  Maybe the traders were just really good fighters, or the pirates were trying to take them alive for them to crew the prize. 

Well, Stoick's standing orders were clear—chase off pirates after giving them a lesson on why raiding in Berk's waters was a _dumb_ idea. 

The fighting gradually paused as the men aboard the two ships noticed the pair of incoming dragons, and the majority of them began to take cover behind the hulls or stacks of supplies as she and Hiccup approached.

Once they were close enough, Hiccup bellowed, "Hello the ships!"

One of the men aboard the cog looked up at him and whooped from where he was hiding behind a stack of sacks. "Thank you!  We were set upon by these pirates!  Help us!"

A large Norseman, ax in hand, looked at Toothless and said, "Just go on your way, rider!  You can't hurt us without setting their ship ablaze!"

"Oh, really?"  He shared a glance with Astrid and motioned to her ax.  "Shall we?"

She counted twelve pirates and eight crew of the cog _,_ and nodded.  They landed on the decks of the two ships, and Stormfly, not needing her tail for flying, immediately extended it with her tail spikes brandished. 

"Now, what were you saying?"

"NOW!" one of them bellowed.  There was a flurry of motion, and she, Hiccup and both dragons yelped in surprise as the men aboard the ship took worn fishing nets that had been hidden under the supplies on _both_ ships and tossed the nets over them.

"What the…!" she cried out as the pirates and the cog's crew worked together to haul the nets down to the deck.

Someone started to laugh, and she looked up in a grimace to see a dark-haired man standing over her and Hiccup, cackling. 

Hiccup motioned to her and the dragons to stop struggling.  Giving him a bewildered look, she paused in her efforts to get free for a moment. 

"What's going on?" Hiccup demanded.  "Who are you?"

The man, still laughing, looked at him, and started to guffaw, holding his hands over his belly.  "Boys, God has smiled on us!  We didn't just catch a dragon, we caught the heir himself!"  He clapped his hands in glee.  "Imagine the ransom we'll be able to claim!"

The pirates—and they were now obviously all pirates to Astrid's eye—all cheered.

"Who are you!?" Hiccup asked, exasperated. 

"I am Sir Henry of Brittany, and you—and the girl, too, I suppose—are now mine to do with what I will!"  He cackled.  "When your father threw me off of your pathetic island, boy, he thought that he was dooming me to a life of penniless misery!  But now…!"  He threw his head back and laughed.  "I'll be able to claim whatever ransom I want!  A hundred dragons!  No, a thousand!  I'll make myself King of Francia!" 

Astrid blinked at the near-hysteria in the man's voice.  She didn't know what his problem was, but he didn't sound quite sane. 

She shared a look with Hiccup in his net.  He shrugged, rolled his eyes, and nodded. 

She heaved with her ax and slashed open the old net, and then Stormfly rushed out among the pirates, knocking some overboard and flinging tail spikes into others.  The pirates holding Toothless yelped as suddenly the Night Fury spun on his front paws and knocked a few of them down.  Hiccup yanked the net off and dropped it on a trio of the pirates before grabbing an ax that had clattered to the deck. 

"What—!  No!  You're my prisoners!  You can't—!" Henry ranted, drawing his sword and advancing towards Hiccup.  Behind him, Stormfly was cheerily rampaging through the assembled pirates on the longboat. 

Two of the pirates moved towards Astrid barehanded, clearly intending to grapple her into submission.  She huffed and whacked one with the pommel of her ax, and slashed at the other with her blade.  He yelped as she cut through his shirt and drew blood. 

At Astrid's huff of effort, Stormfly paused in running rampant through the pirates and looked towards her.  That was a mistake, as one of the pirates managed to toss a net over her and started to haul on the attached rope, trying to drag her down to the deck.

That proved to be _his_ mistake, though, as Stormfly started to whip the net around, and the man, who had wrapped the rope around his wrist, was flung into the longship's mast with a wince-inducing crunching noise.  He slumped bonelessly to the deck as Stormfly did her best to detangle herself from the net. 

One of the other pirates rose up from behind some of the deck cargo, pointing a bow and arrow at Hiccup and Toothless.  She shouted, "Look out!"

Henry and Hiccup turned, and to her surprise, Henry stabbed at the bow just as the man loosed, sending the arrow off wildly into the air.  "No, don't kill him!  He's worth too much!"

The pirate glared at him incredulously, and then bellowed in pain as Toothless, irked at the shot at his friend, proceeded to give a small precision fireblast at the bow, making it explode into flaming splinters with an odd _twang!_ as the bowstring snapped. 

Another of the pirates tried to close with her, this one carrying a mace.  He swung, and she parried with the shaft of her ax, which thankfully did not crack.  Her joints screamed at the jolt of the impact, and she used his own force to swing her ax around and bury it into his gut.

He screamed as she wrenched her weapon free, and slumped to the deck, his mace landing with a thud as he let go to grasp his leaking wound.  She looked down and gagged as the fecal smell of a gut wound hit her nose a moment later.  He was dead as soon as the infection set in, she thought grimly. 

Henry was babbling as he menaced Hiccup.  "No!  No!  This is all wrong!  I caught you!  Don't you have any honor?!  Stay _caught!_   You're _my_ prisoner!  _I_ claim your ransom!"

Hiccup rolled his eyes.  "Well, then you won't mind if I _ran some_ more," he snarked, and hopped up onto Toothless's saddle.  With a rush of wind, they were airborne a moment later. 

"NO!" Henry screamed, and then turned around to see another of his pirates pointing a bow at Hiccup.  He stabbed the man with his sword, screaming, "Capture him!  Don't kill him!  Use the nets!"  He turned and looked at Astrid, and she backed up a step instinctively from the maniacal gleam in his eyes.  "Use _her!"_

Astrid looked around.  The pirates that had been knocked into the water were climbing back aboard; there were still about ten of them in the fight; at least one was succumbing to the Nadder venom from the tail spikes sticking out of his shoulder and leg; he might not die, but he was going to feel vile if he woke up.  Stormfly had managed to get herself more tangled in the net, with some of the loops of rope having wrapped themselves around her head-spikes. 

The first pirate rushed her, and she dipped to meet his charge, tossing him over the edge and back into the water.

"Hiccup!   Need some help here!" she called. 

A small fireblast from Toothless made a water barrel explode, and the staves sent another pair of pirates sprawling to the deck. 

Henry screamed, "Why is it so hard to take them!  They're children!"  He strode forward, his sword in hand.  "I'll do it myself!"

She grinned ferally at him and hefted her ax.

Screaming, he swung at her, and she dodged back, then feinted right and struck left, her ax cutting into his arm up near the shoulder.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Toothless and Hiccup snatch a pair of pirates at speed—a splash behind her an instant later told her that they'd been dropped overboard a ways away from the ship. 

Henry struck again at her, and she parried, getting inside his reach, and punching him in the gut.  He gasped and wheezed, but before he could do anything else, still moving in the flow of the attack, she chopped with her ax.

His sword hit the deck, with his hand still gripping it. 

Henry screamed incoherently right next to her, making her ears ring. 

She looked around the ships, ax at the ready.  "Next!" 

The last two pirates aboard stared at her, stared at the bleeding, screaming and crying nobleman as he slumped to his knees, and raised their hands in surrender.  Just then, Stormfly finally managed to free herself from the net and came up behind them. 

###

Heather slithered through the murmuring crowd in the mead hall.  The rumors were spreading thick and fast.  Hiccup had been attacked. A group of outsiders had set a trap and almost succeeded. Hiccup and Astrid had taken on a ship full of pirates by themselves and won. 

She wasn't sure what she believed, but she wanted to find out… if for nothing else, finding out how Stoick would treat people guilty of these sorts of crimes.

It rather had a degree of personal interest for her.

She could see that Stoick and a Thing of twelve jurors from the various clans were seated at the head of the mead hall.  Stoick looked furious, while the jurors—ranging from crabby old Bladewit clan Ingerman to the young and enthusiastic Cináed clan Hofferson—were variously intrigued, guarded, or excited. 

The doors to the hall opened.  Hiccup and Astrid walked in, leading a procession of a dozen or so prisoners in chains, flanked by their two dragons and a half-dozen thanes.  Hiccup looked windswept, as usual, but Astrid was covered in blood.

Heather blinked in surprise as she recognized the finely dressed man in the front of the prisoners; he was the Francian who had been pestering Stoick for a dragon last month and been dragged off by Spitelout—although he'd had both hands then.  Fishlegs had told her about the man's wager, and she could only hope that his brother wasn't as stupid as he was, because he had clearly gambled again and lost. 

She glanced at Stoick, and saw that the chief was giving the Francian a murderous glare, and his hands were clenching and unclenching, the skin over his knuckles turning white as he made fists.

Eek. 

She looked back at the crowd of prisoners as Hiccup, Astrid and their dragons moved out of the way.  Then she saw the manacled men standing behind the Francian clearly, and she choked at the sudden burst of memories boiling up.  The last time she had seen that face had been when she and her parents had stood on the auction block at Vedrarfjord. 

Her blood pounding in her ears and her breathing shallow, she looked at the rest of the captured pirates, and saw the faces of some of the men who had destroyed her life, taken her and her family as chattel, and sold her into hell. 

Fishlegs came up behind her, having pushed his way through the crowd.  He then took one glance at her and said, "Heather, are you all right?"

She shook her head.

"What's wrong?"

"They…"

She paused.  Should she say it?  She could get justice… but if the pirates remembered her parents, then the question would come up of where they were.  And she could lie and say that they'd been sold off to someone else but that was risky if the pirate remembered her.  Or she could say that they had died…

She looked at Fishlegs and saw the concern in his eyes.

And the… the love. 

And made a decision. 

She shuddered, leaned up against Fishlegs and said quietly, "I… I recognize them."  She nodded her head towards the one behind the Francian.  "They're… they're the ones that took me from my village and sold me."

His eyes darted to the pirates and then back to her.  "Are you sure?"

She nodded.

"Then come on," he said, and took her by the hand and pulled her through the crowd.  They found Gobber near the head of the room, and Fishlegs gently tugged her forward.  "Tell him what you told me.  Quick, before they start."

Gobber cocked his head questioningly, and pulled them off to the side, behind one of the big wooden pillars. 

Slowly, painfully, hesitantly, she said, looking down, unable to meet Gobber's eyes, she said, "I… I know those men.  The pirates."  She told her history in broad strokes to Gobber and Fishlegs, letting their own minds fill in the gaps—like the fate of her parents, whom she did not mention.  But she told them the truth, and, oh _gods,_ did it _hurt._  

She had been taken from an Alban village by these men.  She had been made into a thrall, collared, taken across the Eirish Sea, and then she had been sold to the King of Vedrarfjord nearly two and a half years ago.

Truth was a weapon, and she hoped that she had not just sharpened it for herself to fall upon.  And her trust was like a muscle long-cramped and hard-clenched—trying to move it only brought her pain.

As she finished, she leaned back against Fishlegs as Gobber hobbled off to talk with Stoick.  She felt drained, yet terrified. 

Adalwin had taught her fear, paranoia, and mistrust.  His household had been one of shadows and betrayal and pain and ears in the dark.  She had once made a brief friendship with another young thrall woman, Toiréasa, who had been sent to the kingdom of Ulaid as a gift last year—and, Heather was fairly sure, a spy herself.  They had both been given short rations that first winter, and Heather had told the other girl about a loose panel in the cook's pantry, from where she had been sneaking food. 

A week later, the panel had been nailed shut, and Adalwin had made her watch as her parents were given a methodical beating by his guards. 

A month later, on an errand for Adalwin, she had happened onto Toiréasa kissing a boy from the city in an alleyway.  So she had told Adalwin… and was given a full dinner for her and her parents, while the boy was arrested and given lashes, in front of Toiréasa.

As she watched Gobber speak to Stoick, she couldn't hear anything in the hall.

All she could hear was Toiréasa moaning and whispering about how she was so hungry, and it was so loud in her ears…

Stoick glanced in her direction and she flinched and cringed up against Fishlegs' supporting bulk.  The chief obviously caught the motion, as his eyes softened with sympathy.  Then he turned back to the manacled men, who were standing in front of his throne, and his eyes hardened. 

He pounded the table in front of him, and the whispers quieted.  "I call this Thing to order," he said formally.

Heather listened with half an ear as Stoick read out the formal charges for Sir Henry and the pirates.  Then he called Hiccup and Astrid forward to give their testimony on what had happened out on the waters of the Sound of Berk earlier that day.  Once they were done, the pirates and the nobleman were brought forward and questioned by Stoick and the Thing. 

The summary of it was simple enough; after having been kicked off of Berk and desperate for a dragon to take home with him for his wager, Sir Henry had found the pirates in Dubh Linn.  He had hired them on for a retainer and a promise of more riches in Francia.  They'd agreed and hatched their plan.

Then Stoick turned to her and said, "Heather.  Come forward."

Hesitantly, she did so, letting go of Fishlegs and his support with painful reluctance.  As she walked over to the throne, she scanned the faces of the pirates for any flicker of recognition and saw none; turning to Stoick, she said, "Yes, my chief?"

"You have accused these men of having taken you as a freewoman and made you a thrall, is that correct?"

She swallowed against a lump in her throat and said, "Yes."  She pointed to the pirate captain.  "That man there.  His name is Hallr the Stone, because he has a heart of one.  He and his crew…"  her throat tightened and she swallowed as people murmured in the crowd.  "He and his crew… many of whom I recognize right here… they came to my village and…" should she mention her parents now or not? "…and took me as thrall and… and sold me in Vedrarfjord."

"When was this?" Bladewit asked flatly.

"Early summer, two, two and a half years ago.  I was… I had just seen fourteen winters."

"And which village was it?" Bladewit asked in that same tone.

Heather swallowed hard and felt a surge of fear.  This could be it.  Her ability to hide as a spy might start unraveling at right this moment.  But she didn't dare make anything up, just in case they checked.  "Claonaig, on Kintyre, ma'am."  She glanced at the pirates.  "Assuming it's still there."

"And they took you to Vedrarfjord?" Bladewit asked, her eyes looking sideways and her head tilted upwards in thought.  "I would think that they would have taken you to Dubh Linn, instead.  It's closer, and has a larger thrall market."  She said this last in a tone of loathing. 

She shuddered.  "I, I don't know, ma'am."  In truth, she did know, but showing the sort of political awareness that such a statement would reveal… she might as well hold up a sign reading _The Kitchen Scullion Is A Spy!_   But they had taken her to Vedrarfjord because Ímar mac Arailt had just ousted Echmarcach mac Ragnaill from Dubh Linn's kingship and they didn't want to risk dealing with the new man.  And she couldn't blame them for that—Adalwin had intended for her to spy on mac Arailt, and she'd been taught a great deal about him in the process, little of it complimentary. 

"I see," Bladewit said, and for a heart-stopping moment of terror, Heather was certain that Bladewit _did_ see—right through her, that is.  That she'd be clapped in irons next, and denounced as a spy. 

Her heart hammered against her chest and her blood rushed in her ears as Bladewit looked at her for a long moment of consideration.

"I have no further questions," she finally said, and it was all Heather could do to keep herself from sagging out of relief. 

Then Stoick asked, "And are yeh certain that they're the pirates that took yeh?"

She looked at him, and then looked at the pirates.  Oh, yes, she was certain, but with every word she said, she risked them recalling her—and her parents.  And if he said anything about them, then she would have to lie that they were dead or sold off, which might not survive examination.  Or tell the truth.  And if she told the truth… she might as well admit to being a spy, with Adalwin holding hostages over her. 

She still nodded, and said, "Yes."  She took a deep sigh, closed her eyes, and said, "The man standing behind him is named Kerr," she said.  "He's the one that… that carried me off to the boats.  He has a tattoo on his back, on his right shoulder, done in black ink, of Huginn and Muninn."  She smiled bitterly.  "I saw it from up close as he slung me over his shoulder."

Stoick motioned to the thanes, and Kerr was seized and his shirt stripped as he protested.  They made him kneel and turned him so that his back was visible to the chief, the Thing, and the onlookers. 

And visible in the flickering firelight were a number of tattoos… including Odin's ravens, on his right shoulder. 

Stoick drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair as the onlookers rumbled menacingly.  He said tartly, "Well, that settles that."  He motioned again, and the thanes pulled Kerr back to a standing position.  Stoick then looked to Hallr. 

The captain shrugged.  "And here I thought I was just on trial for trying to help kidnap your heir," he said lightly.

Stoick rumbled at him, "I wouldn't make mock of that, man.  The girl claims that you took her as a thrall, and has backed up her claims strongly, although all she's done is show that she's seen your man's back.  Do you claim otherwise?"

Hallr looked at her dispassionately and shrugged.  "Nah.  I might have."  He spread his hands as widely as the chains would allow and said, "I've been raiding up and down the Eirish Sea for ten years.  Taken plenty of thralls."

The crowd behind him murmured; their tone was angry.

Stoick slammed his hand on the arm of his chair.  "Did yeh, or did yeh not!?"

Heather shuddered.  _Please, please, please, don't make him remember my parents.  I don't have another lie in me today, I don't…_

Hallr shrugged again and looked at her.  "I might as well have."  He snorted.  "Look, chief, sure, I'll claim credit for taking the girl.  I mean, look at her.  She's trembling.  But I honestly don't remember."

Stoick gaped at the man, appalled.  Heather stared at him too, not sure whether to be relieved or appalled as well.

The moment stretched out, and then Bladewit spoke up.  "By his own words, he stands condemned as a thrall taker.  We should deal with him justly," she said, glaring at the man.

He snorted.  "Clap us in irons then," he held up his manacled wrists with an ironic look on his face, "and sell us.  That'll teach us a lesson, eh lads?"

His crew laughed with him.

Bladewit waited until they fell silent and smiled grimly at him.  "Oh, we don't take thralls here on Berk.  You'll hang from a tree in the sacred grove.  You _all_ will."

That wiped the smiles from their faces.

"As for you," she looked at Sir Henry, "the only things that you're guilty of, beyond the poorly executed attempt at kidnapping, are arrogance, gross stupidity, and a remarkable lack of competence.  And," she glanced at his stump, "one might argue that you've already been punished."  She gave a dry and nasty chuckle.  "Send him home in disgrace."  Before anyone could do anything other than murmur or gasp in surprise, she turned back to Stoick.  "Those are, of course, my suggested sentences, my chief."  A grim smile crossed her face.  "Of course, last time we had an attempt at kidnapping here, _someone,_ " she glanced at Hiccup meaningfully, "argued for clemency and mercy to send a statement."

Heather had heard that story; Fishlegs had told her, explaining how that ship had ended up in Adalwin's courtyard.  And she saw what Bladewit was aiming for—if Stoick imposed a harsher sentence on Sir Henry than she had suggested, she would reveal the chief's double standard.  Same crime, different sentences depending on the victim. 

Stoick sighed, and then turned to her.  "Lass.  Which of them are the thrall takers?"

She pointed them out quietly, giving their names if she could remember them, and as much detail as she could recall, Stoick nodding along.  Out of the twelve, eight were known to her, including Hallr.

Once she was done, Stoick back turned to her.  "Lass.  I know that was hard.  But thank yeh.  Yeh're dismissed."  He turned to Bladewit as Heather gratefully retreated back into the comforting embrace of Fishlegs.  "Milady of the Thing, how do you find these men?"

Bladewit snorted at the formality.  "I don't know why you needed us, Stoick.  They stand self-condemned as guilty of their crimes."  She smiled unpleasantly.  "Especially that one."  She nodded towards Hallr.  "Give sentence as you see fit… but you should recall the lack of temper of your boy there."  She smiled tartly at Hiccup, who glared back. 

Stoick gave her a narrow-eyed glare.  "Thank you, clanhead Bladewit."  He mused for a moment.  "Fine."  He pointed at the nobleman.  "In accordance with our last ruling in this, we will return him to his home as a warning to others!"  He snorted.  "Besides,  I doubt that he'll have any ransom worth the effort anyway, given what he said about his wagers.  Let him live as a lesson!"

Sir Henry looked aghast.  She hadn't been looking at him before, having been concerned with Hallr, but now he had her attention, especially as he began to babble about his worth and the value of his ransom, even as a thane dragged him away. 

Stoick waited until the blubbering nobleman was gone from the hall before continuing. "And for these—" he pointed to the pirates that she hadn't pointed out as being involved in her original capture, "—they will be branded as outlaws."  He glared at them.  "You will be branded with hot irons and put ashore with only the clothes on your backs.  Any piracy in my lands or waters by any of you again will result in immediate execution."  He then turned to Hallr the Stone, Kerr and the others that Heather had pointed out.  "As for you lot…  You will be taken from this hall directly to the sacred grove.  There you will be hung by the neck until dead, and then your bodies buried in an unmarked grave.  You will not even have the ravens of Odin to mark your passing."

Hallr, to his credit, didn't break down or blubber, although a few of his crew did.  All he did was turn to her and give a mocking salute. 

She felt sick, and buried her face in Fishlegs' shirt as the thanes came and took Hallr and the other pirates away. 

The release from the terror of the last few minutes flooded into her, and she shook.  Fishlegs embraced her and whispered words of comfort to her.  "There there.  He's gone.  You got justice."

She continued to shake like a leaf in a high wind, but it wasn't the confrontation with Hallr that was on her mind, surprisingly.

It was the questioning by Stoick and Bladewit.

Her life had balanced on their next questions, and she had survived only because they hadn't asked the wrong ones. 

She could never do that again.  Trust… it hurt.  Just like the clenched muscle it felt like, it was better to leave it be than to dare stretch it forth. 

She wrapped her arms around Fishlegs, grateful for the comfort even as she continued to lie to him, and hating herself for it. 

Even as she fell more in love with him, her gentle and kind scholar. 

###

Hiccup laid back on Toothless's saddle and watched the clouds go by overhead, occasionally twitching his peg to work the harness when Toothless needed him to. 

"That… that was pretty intense yesterday, wasn't it, bud?"

Toothless coughed in agreement, and gave a chuff of concern, followed by a full-body twitch to jostle his rider.

Hiccup sighed.  There was a lot that needed to be done on the ground, but he didn't want to neglect Toothless's needs.  So when his friend had come up to him in the forge and indicated that he wanted to go flying, Hiccup had put his current project aside and hopped on. 

Astrid had stayed behind, though; she had insisted on going over the Dragon Training materials again, as the classes were going to start next Mani's Day, and she wanted their preparations to be perfect.  So he'd promised her that they would stay safe… and now that he was up here, he suspected that Astrid had deliberately tried to give him space to think.

Gods, he loved her so much.

Even though…

"I can't believe she chopped off his hand," he muttered, and Toothless rumbled agreement.  " _Slice-_ thud!  Gone like that!"  His left foot itched in sympathy, which was annoying, because it _wasn't there anymore._  

His father had given him the background on Sir Henry after the Thing.  He'd been appalled at the noble's wager, and the man's selfishness, callousness, and obvious instability made Hiccup's guts twist a bit, in revulsion, pity, or fear or some mix of all of them.  The nobleman still didn't seem to understand why Hiccup hadn't accepted being captured; he seemed to believe that he had to order something and it would be done, and was at a loss when people didn't leap to action to satisfy him. 

He sighed.  "I guess it was better than chopping off his head… or disemboweling him."  The one pirate that she'd gut-chopped had died before sunset yesterday, in agony.  And the only one who had seemed bothered by that was him.  The body of that man had been tossed in the mass grave with the rest of the pirates who had taken Heather, and Hiccup's father had ordered that the gravesite not be recorded anywhere.  Hiccup didn't even know where it was.

He sighed again to try to relieve the tension mounting in his chest. 

Heather.  Dear gods, Heather.  If Fishlegs _hadn't_ been hugging her already after the trial, Hiccup might have tried to comfort her himself, just on general principles. 

A thought occurred to him with that.  The man who had died from Astrid's ax opening his guts had been responsible for Heather's pain as well.  Maybe it was justice served?

He scowled and ran his hands through his hair.  He didn't know!  Gah!  He'd have to talk this over with Astrid, or maybe even Bladewit as senior jurist.  But it didn't seem _right!_

His missing foot itched again, and his scowl deepened as he tried to scratch at it fruitlessly. 

One thing was for sure, though. 

He was still no Viking. 

More than a dozen men had died yesterday, between his lover's ax, their dragons, and the hangman's noose, and he seemed to be the only one discomforted by that.  The rest of the tribe was jubilant at their victory, and satisfied at the deaths of thrall-takers. 

Toothless interrupted his sulking with a huff beneath him. 

"What is it, bud?" Hiccup asked as he sat up. 

Toothless cocked his head towards another shape in the sky, far to the east—another dragon, flying in from over the Alban mainland.

Hiccup felt his mood lighten and a smile spread on his face.

"Yes!  C'mon, bud!  Let's go meet them!"

Toothless hoarked in agreement, and they shifted from their lazy ambling through the sky to a speedy dive.

A few minutes later, they pulled up alongside Ross and Leatherwing, who were looking exhausted but triumphant.  Leatherwing's harness was dotted with the satchels that Hiccup and Astrid had designed and tested back in the beginning of the summer.

Wordlessly, he and Toothless moved in front, allowing Leatherwing to rest in their wake.  Leatherwing gave a rumble of gratitude, which Toothless replied back with a cheerful bark. 

They made straight for Berk, and perhaps a third of an hour later, they landed on the grass in front of the mead hall.  Ross toppled off of his saddle, clambered back to his feet and then staggered over to his dragon's head.  He patted Leatherwing proudly on his snout, making the big dragon purr tiredly. 

While they slumped against each other in their exhaustion, Hiccup eagerly detached the satchels from Leatherwing's harness, noting Magnus's royal seal on the wax button that held each satchel closed.

As he worked, Astrid came running up, carrying a waterskin that she handed to Ross, who drank gratefully. She then came over to Hiccup as he worked at the latches that she'd tested back during the summer and the two of them quickly relieved the big dragon of his burdens. 

The door to Magnus's hut burst open, and Magnus and Ruffnut ran out; they looked like they had dressed quickly.  "Is that…?" Magnus asked, half out-of-breath. 

Hiccup tossed the largest satchel to his friend, who caught it, and then wordlessly nodded towards it with a grin.  _Yeah.  It is._

Magnus looked down at the satchel, his hands shaking slightly, and then, with a swift motion, he cracked open the wax seal on the first round-trip run of the new Dragon Mail.

What had taken two and a half weeks each way by sail had been flown by Ross and Leatherwing in three days. 

And a day of _that_ had been resting and recovering in Nidaros after the first flight of ten hours.  Up to the Shetland Islands, east to the coast of the Norsemen, and then north to the capital.  And then back south to the city of Stavenger, west and south across the North Sea, until they reached the coast of Alba, and then to home. 

Ross looked up at them.  He was lying flat on his back on the ground next to his equally exhausted dragon, his head on Leatherwing's flank while Leatherwing's neck was bent nearly double to rest his head on Ross's legs and gut.

"They were really surprised to see me again, let me tell you.  Were all worried that I was coming with news that you'd all been lost at sea or something.  Must have taken me a good chunk of an hour to get it through their heads that I had _mail._ "  He rolled his head against the grass to look up at Ruffnut and Magnus.  "Congrats are in bag three.  Oaths in four.  Reports are in five.  I'm gonna take a nap now, kay?"

He closed his eyes and was snoring in a matter of moments.  He didn't even stir as Hiccup had him carried off to bed by his brothers and wife, and Leatherwing was carried off to his sleeping stable by a group of dragons and husky thanes working together to carrying his limp sleeping weight. 

Magnus, kneeling with the satchel on the ground, looked up at Hiccup in between riffling through the bag of government correspondence.  "Hiccup… you realize this changes everything, right?"

Hiccup just grinned and tossed Ruffnut a bag.

Ruffnut looked at him, and shook her head.  "If he gets any more smug at remaking the world…"  She pointed at him accusingly.  "You're only allowed to do that so many times in a lifetime, Hiccup!"

Astrid laughed.  "What's the limit, Ruff?"

"Clearly not one," Magnus said, grinning. 

Hiccup shrugged, smiling.  "Put this one on Astrid's tab.  I may have had the initial idea, but without her, it would still be in my notebooks as a scribble.  She pushed for it, she refined it, she made it _work."_   He patted the satchel under his arm. "This?  This was her idea.  I would have just made saddlebags or something.  But she came up with the idea of these, she helped test them, she hurt herself on testing them, and she's the one that came up with all of the refinements. When they write the histories, she gets the credit here."

Astrid was blushing a bit and swatted him on the head.  He laughed and pulled her into a kiss. 

Yngvarr arrived, huffing, with a trio of little dragons—two Terrible Terrors and Pinhead—following in his wake; he'd clearly just run from the Rookery's higher levels, where he had been spending a lot of time lately.  Coming to a halt, he looked around the ground with a wide smile and then burst out in enthusiastic laughter.  "So it worked, I take it?"

Magnus mutely handed him a scroll.

"That would be a yes, then," Yngvarr said, cracking the wax seal on the scroll with a thumbnail.  He looked at Hiccup as he unfurled it.  " _You_ are going to put _me_ out of work."

"Nonsense!" Magnus said jovially as Hiccup gave a mock-incredulous look and pointed wordlessly at Astrid.  She fondly swatted him again.  "I'll just have to send you farther from home next time!" Magnus said to Yngvarr, watching the byplay between the two of them with a smile.

"Very good, sire."

"Besides, there'll always be a need for heralds.  You just might never get to set sail again."

Yngvarr mused on that for a moment.  "If the alternative is flying, I think I can live with that."

As Magnus, Yngvarr and Ruffnut unpacked the various bags, their other courtiers carried off the contents to Magnus's guesthouse, Hiccup found himself watching the proceedings with glee.

A year ago, he had been the village screwup.  Gobber had been the only person interested in talking with him, and even then, it was with strained patience. 

Now… he had the love of his life, a dragon friend, and was on a first-name basis friendship with a king, a queen, and a princess, and had seen more of the world than he had ever dreamed—and would get to see even more of it in the future. 

He looked back at that lonely boy from a year ago and smiled. 

###

A forest of masts crowded the waters of the Thames, and one could practically walk from one bank of the river to the other without need of the London Bridge, just by stepping from hull to hull. 

King Harthacnut looked out over his assembled forces from the prow of the finely decorated longship that had been given to him by Godwin of Wessex.  One hundred and forty-six ships, the majority levied from his Danish vassals.  They were loaded with two-thirds of his three thousand Thingmen, three thousand Anglo-Saxon men-at-arms and Danish warriors, and another three thousand Anglo-Saxon and Danish conscripts.

It was the largest force he had ever mustered in his twenty-three years of age and thirteen years of rulership, although it was nowhere near the strength or size of the force that his father had raised twenty-six years ago to conquer England.  That force had numbered ten thousand Danish thanes in two hundred longships.  But time was of the essence, and he was afraid that he had dallied long enough. 

Bad enough that the cost of equipping every man he could with bows or crossbows had plunged him into debt; the _time_ it had taken for the bowyers and fletchers to craft the weapons needed was even worse.  But he _had_ to deal with this _Berk_ before they could join forces with Magnus's armies, and arrows were the best way for bringing down a beast on the wing. 

In whipping up the fervor for this expedition, he had spoken to the earls, his Thingmen, and even once to the assembled army. 

He had told them of a threat to his realms, of a treaty-breaking foreign king, who was prepared to conquer their homes by mounting his entire army on the backs of demonic dragons, and who had married a demon-woman for his power.  He had told the men that Magnus and this Berk would do to every place in his joined realms what they had done to Brycgstow this past spring.  That the era of the Viking raiders had been born anew, trading their longships for dragons, and that they would pillage the land with steel and fire.

They had been terrified at the picture of words that he had painted, and although oratory was not his gift, he had done his best to communicate the direness of the threat that they faced.  Even his Danes had looked awed  at the thought, and many of them had once gone a-viking themselves.  Perhaps that was why—they had executed such raids against others, and were now stricken with the thought of having the same done to them in turn. 

He had allowed that to sink in, before continuing in his speaking—that there was hope for them, and all was not lost.  His men had hushed and listened intently. 

The gates to hell were open in one place, and one place only, he had told them, and the demons roosted there, and could be slain with their riders there on the ground. 

Yes, it was autumn; yes the harvest might rot in the fields; but if they did not do this, the following year there would _be_ no fields of grain.  Only smoking corpses. 

They had roared their approval of his plan, such as it was, and had prepared to go.  Especially when he had promised a purse of coin for each dragon and dragon-rider killed, and emphasized that, if they acted now, they could scourge the earth of this threat forever. 

Even his earls, who he knew viewed him as an oathbreaker and tyrant, had knelt and agreed to follow him in this. 

Not that he trusted them.  So he would be coming with the army, as there was no way that he would trust such a potent force being out of his direct control; it would be the height of irony if they forgot who was King and backed one of the earls against him on their return.  So he had left a thousand of his Thingmen with his half-brother Edward to secure the throne, and would go to see the destruction of this Berk personally.

Pulling his sword from its sheath as the tide turned, he pointed the blade downriver to the mouth of the Thames, and the assembled soldiers and sailors roared their approval. 

And so they sailed to war.

###

Fishlegs leaned against the wall of the tunnel, pointedly not listening to Hiccup and Astrid having a kiss behind him.  It was a _trifle_ difficult, as they were making little noises that piqued his curiosity, but his sense of politeness and decorum had taken his curiosity three falls out of three. 

So he gave his two friends the moment of privacy that he could and considered the upcoming lessons that would be starting in a few minutes. 

It would be a big class—over fifty people.  In addition to Magnus's people, there were the eight freedmen and freedwomen who had wanted to learn to ride, the people who wanted to learn some specific technique or skill that had been developed over the last year, those who needed their hands held because they had barely done anything with their dragons in the year since the battle with the Green Death, and the kids who would have been in the dragon-fighting class after his own.  They'd broken it down into two groups—New Riders and Advanced Riders.  He was going to be teaching the Advanced Riders, while Hiccup and Astrid would be handling the the New Riders.

That meant he wouldn't get to help Heather with her Dragon Training… but that was probably for the best.  He wouldn't trust himself to be fair to the others in the class if she was there. 

Continuing to ignore the happy kissy sounds from behind him, he strode over to the door to the training pit and peeked outside. 

A fair number of onlookers were lining the rim of the pit above, while the students were standing by the portcullis, looking excited.  He could see Magnus and Wulfhild front and center, both of them bouncing up and down on their toes.  Heather was standing a little back and to the side, and she looked dazed. 

His heart went out to her, even as he enjoyed the expression on her face; she hadn't believed, despite his repeated assurances, that she'd be allowed to participate in this.  It was going to be the most satisfying 'I told you so' that he'd ever had the chance to deliver. 

Clearing his throat without turning around, he then said tactfully, "Wow, we have a busy day ahead of us.  We might want to get started."

The kissing sounds continued, and he rolled his eyes, waited for a count of twenty, and then said cheerfully, "Hi there Gobber!"

There was a doubled yelp of surprise behind him, followed by muted swearing.  He turned around to see both of them still dressed—thankfully—but their clothes were a touch rumpled. 

"Don't open—" Hiccup started to say, his eyes wide.

Fishlegs interrupted.  "Sorry.  Needed to get your attention."  Gobber was actually lounging in a chair up on the rim, an expression of smugness and pride on his face. 

Astrid pointed a threatening finger at Fishlegs.  "You… you…"

Smiling slightly, Fishlegs pushed the door open the rest of the way.  "Sorry, but we have a class to teach!  Better now than having one of them come over for real, right?"

Astrid stared daggers at him as she marched out past him and into the training pit, muttering something under her breath about getting even with him later. 

Hiccup gave him an irked look of his own before following her. 

Fishlegs shrugged.  He'd given them what time they could afford; it wasn't his fault that they were greedy for more.  Although he could definitely understand their irritation; he and Heather were still officially 'just friends' and yet he ached to spend more time with her. 

The class began; Hiccup brought the students in, giving the speech that they'd composed and practiced.  Listening with half an ear, Fishlegs turned and walked back into the tunnels up to the Rookery.  The example Gronckle—a sweet-tempered young male named Horrorcow—was right where he'd left him, munching away at a bucket of mixed fish and slate.  With a light touch, Fishlegs brought him out into the pit.

Hiccup proceeded to introduce the dragon, aiming his speech to the Norse and the freedmen, going over the Boulder-class's general temperament, tips, tricks, and, repeatedly with each demonstration, the emphasis on understanding and respect. 

That set the pattern for the next several hours; Fishlegs and Astrid would bring out individual dragons one at a time into the pit to be introduced by Hiccup, who would tell what they knew of the dragons, and show how to approach them safely. 

A few of the dragons caused trouble.  The Razorwhip came down with a sudden case of shyness, and ended up stubbornly staying in the tunnels.  The Changewing promptly took an interest in Mark's balding head and started to imitate him, which caused much hilarity, but disrupted Hiccup's discussion.  The Monstrous Nightmare got into a dominance display with Toothless, who was unimpressed—and demonstrated why.  On the positive side from that mess, they now knew that the layers of dragonskin leather on the walls were enough to protect the straw underneath from catching fire, and thankfully, nobody was hurt.  And the Skrill, skittish as always, pulled its vanishing act and was nowhere to be found.

Overall, though, the morning and afternoon passed more or less successfully, and they broke for an early dinner having covered what they wanted to for the first day. 

Fishlegs ended up sharing a dinner table with Heather and the other freedmen undergoing the training, and talk of the dragons consumed most the time they ate. 

The next day, he started his class with the Advanced Riders; as they already had dragons, they didn't need the training pit's enclosure, and he started demonstrating several of the techniques that he, Hiccup, and Astrid had developed over the last year.  The twins, thankfully, wouldn't be joining his class until later, when they'd picked their new dragons and transferred in, so he actually got some teaching done without any pranks played on him. 

The next few days passed in a blur.  Class in the morning, lunch, followed by an afternoon seeing to his other duties—preparations for classes, steward training, auditor-scribe for the merchant traffic, and managing the needs of the Rookery.  There were a few more moments where he, Stoick, Gobber and Spitelout were able to meet and discuss the spy, but they hadn't caught anyone yet.  But by this point, Fishlegs was certain that the spy was Brogan; he had bought a sword from Gobber and was getting training of his own from some of Mildew's cronies. 

His time with Heather, on the other hand, mostly consisted of talking about their classes, or taking a stroll through the improvised market that had sprung up; ships were coming every few days, and it always seemed like there was something new. 

Eventually, the weekend came, and a break from the classes.  His plans involved a sumptuous meal for two, made with exotic ingredients, that he'd cajoled—and paid—Magnhild to help him make, and a silver necklace featuring a beautiful peridot pendant that he'd found at one of the trader booths that she had admired.  He'd gone back later and purchased it for an entire handful of dragon-scales.  It matched her eyes.

Things were going just fine.

###

Things were getting out of hand.

Hiccup flopped bonelessly into his bed, his face hitting his pillow at speed.  Moaning into it, he said sarcastically, "'Oh, sure, we can handle all of that in a week.  No, no, we're not overdoing it.  No, the class won't be too large…'"

Toothless made a questioning grunt from his spot on the stone slab. 

Hiccup turned and gave his best friend a piteous look.  "Why did I think that this was a good idea?"

Toothless burbled questioningly at him, cocking his head inquisitively to the side. 

Hiccup sagged into the straw-stuffed mattress and let out a long, tired groan.  Between the classes and Astrid's Master of the Dragon duties, he and his lover had barely seen each other.  Specifically, their all-too-brief moments before the start of classes had been the last time they'd had anything resembling some intimate affection; the demure pecks on the cheek in public were like having to eat dry crackers after a feast.

But Astrid took her job seriously, and while he'd offered to take the Dragon Training class over by himself and leave her to the Master of the Dragon stuff, she'd flatly refused. 

Even though he could tell that she was every bit as frustrated as he was.  Aside from that frantic encounter… gods, was it really three weeks ago now?, aside from that, their last bout of private time together, much less any lovemaking, had been nearly a month before that in Nidaros. 

"I've barely seen Astrid alone for over a month!" he moaned to Toothless, who looked sympathetic.  The Night Fury proceeded to stalk over to the bed and gave Hiccup a friendly lick on the head.  "Gah!  Hey!  You know that that doesn't wash out!"

Toothless chuffed, amused, and then made an inquisitive noise while smiling. 

Hiccup looked up at his friend, bleary-eyed, and groaned.  "Easy for you to say.  You don't _have_ a mate.  Although I wish I knew how to fix that…"

Toothless huffed and sniffed, and laid back down on his slab next to the bed.  Hiccup drifted off into the arms of Nott and her dreams; he didn't notice Toothless looking contemplative as he fell asleep. 

The slight noise as Toothless padded over to the roof hatch and slipped out didn't even rouse him. 

###

With a grunt, Fishlegs got up from his scribing desk, stretched, and then massaged his back with his balled fists.  To distract himself from his not-a-date tomorrow, he'd been going over a proposal for Hiccup to look over for the last few hours, and he had all of his ideas written down now… and crap, it was dark outside already?  He sighed.  How long had he been working?  He shook his head to clear it and wandered off to get something to eat before going to bed. 

As he munched on a day-old loaf of barley bread, spread with butter and some of the pan-fried onions he'd found off to the side of the Ingerman kitchen, he quickly reviewed the high points to tell Hiccup. 

Essentially, with all of the stone they'd been eating, the Whispering Deaths and Gronckles had created a massive pile of… well, to be blunt, they defecated sand.  Immense _piles_ of sand.  And one of the traders had made an off-handed comment about using it for glassmaking.

So Fishlegs had gone over his books to see if there was anything in there on glassmaking, and collected what he'd found into a few pages of parchment.

He scowled.  Too few pages, really.  He'd found a few limited bits and pieces here and there, but it was frustrating in what a limited picture it painted.  Pliny was, again, his best reference.  But while his talk about the springtime scale shedding had been useful, this time all he told Fishlegs was that glass was made with materials that they didn't have.  Or, at least, he was was pretty sure that they didn't have any supplies of natron (whatever that was) on Berk, and the River Belus was a pretty far ways away from northern Alba, so sand from its mouth wasn't exactly available here. 

But given how much they paid for the limited pieces of glass that the traders brought with them, Fishlegs thought that it was an avenue worth pursuing, and he hoped that Hiccup and Stoick would agree. 

He polished off the bread loaf and washed it down with some sweet ale, then stretched again, yawned, and wandered off to bed.  On the small table next to his pillow, the silver and green necklace for Heather glittered in its box on its small bed of white linen.  He patted it fondly before closing his eyes and nodding off. 

###

The iron hissed as it hit the water and the glow of the hot metal was quenched.  Gobber pulled it out of the water barrel and examined the spar.  It looked acceptable, so he put it to the side to start on the next one.  Breakfast heavy in his belly, he looked out across the neatly organized stack of shaped iron and shook his head.  The boy was a genius, and he thanked Odin, Frigga, and Freyja for partnering him with those that would keep him from being a _raving_ genius. 

The door opened behind him, and he called out, "One moment!" before turning to the forge and dropping in the iron bar into the coals. 

Walking over the bellows, he started pushing on the lever and looked to the door.  Standing there were Toothless and Stormfly, saddleless and riderless, looking expectantly at him.  Toothless was carrying one of the woven lidded baskets in his front paws as he walked on his hind legs, and damned if the dragon didn't hold out the basket to Gobber like he expected the smith to take it. 

Cocking his head and stepping over to the two dragons, he said, "I don't have any fish for you, sorry.  Have Hiccup and Astrid not been feeding you two?"

The dragons kept looking at him and Toothless tilted his head to the side, looking at him, and then gave a little shake of the head with a negative-sounding chuff. 

"They have been feeding you?"

An affirmative shake of the head from both dragons.

"So you're not here for fish?"

Another affirmative. 

Gobber sighed. 

"Does it have something to do with Hiccup?"

Toothless nodded, Stormfly didn't.

"And Astrid?"

The other dragon nodded this time.

Gobber rubbed the bridge of his nose with his hand.  This was going to be difficult.

###

Ruffnut yawned in the big bed next to her _husband,_ and stretched out in the morning sunlight.

Propping her chin up on the palm of her hand, she looked him over, grinning.  Mmmh… yes…

Maybe two inches taller than her, he was lean and well built, with the muscles of someone that knew how to fight.  Also, his patchy blond beard was soft and growing out nicely.  She liked playing with it, and it tickled a bit when they kissed. 

Part of her was still expecting to wake up from this dream.  Not just the part where she had a king for a husband, but that she had a husband _at all._   Tuffnut had tended to chase off anyone that was interested in her. 

But now she had someone that was _hers,_ as opposed to _theirs._

The fact that he was cute, smart, strong, athletic, and witty, and had some really interesting scars on his body, and was completely willing to recite poetry and sagas and prose for her on request…

Well, that just made him perfect.

The kingdom part was gravy.

He blinked awake as she stroked his bare chest, and grinned, and sleepily quoted, " _Sigrun the joyful, chieftain sought,_

_Forthwith Helgi's hand she took;_

_she greeted the hero helmed and kissed him,_

_The warrior's heart to the woman turned."_

Hearing the stanza from the Edda of Helgakvitha Hundingsbana, with the meeting between the soulmates of Helgi and Sigrun, Ruffnut felt her heart melt.  Kissing him thoroughly, she rolled on top of him.

Twenty minutes later, sweaty and sated for the moment, they cuddled; as he played with the ends of her long hair, and Ruffnut sighed happily to herself, thinking how much _fun_ this all was.  It would make a mess and be so _annoying_ when her courses came…

Still smiling, she idly counted up the days in her head.

Wait.

They should have come already.

Her eyes widened.

###

Hiccup sailed through the early afternoon sky on Toothless's back, Astrid and Stormfly flying beside him.  After the intensity of the week of Dragon Training, it was nice to be able to fly off and relax a bit.  At least he was feeling somewhat refreshed from having gotten to sleep in until mid-morning.

They were coming up on the sea stack maze, and Hiccup turned towards Astrid with a grin.  "Race you!"

"You're on!" she said, and they darted through the sea stacks at speed, whooping and cheering.  Hiccup won, but it was a close win, and he and Toothless emerged through the sea mists out into the open water with Stormfly and Astrid hot on their heels.

He and Toothless rolled, hanging upside-down over Astrid and Stormfly, and he and his girlfriend clapped hands together in glee.  Then he and Toothless righted themselves, and they banked back for another run through the sea stacks.  Before they could get started on the race, however, Toothless huffed and changed course towards one area of the sea stacks—a convoluted set of columns of differing heights, called the Drunken Pillars from the way that they leaned at odd angles.  Stormfly grunted and followed in Toothless's wake. 

"What is it, bud?  Is there something wrong?  Did you find something?"

Toothless just gave one of his non-committal hoark sounds, and Hiccup frowned.

Astrid called out to him, "Do you know what's going on?"

"No idea!  I think they spotted something on that sea stack!"

"But what?  It's not a big one!"

Hiccup looked at the sea stack, one of the broader and shorter ones of the Drunken Pillars.  It was moderately sheltered by the surrounding taller and narrower stacks around it, featuring some trees and bushes on it, and a covering of green grass, all about sixty or seventy feet above the sea surf below.

"Wait, I think I see something," Astrid called out to him.  "In the bushes!"

Hiccup squinted and looked where she was pointing.  She was right—there was some odd shape hidden in the bushes.  It was hard to see because of the concealing mists, and he wondered how on Midgard Toothless or Stormfly had even seen it from further out. 

Toothless landed lightly a few yards away from the shape in the bushes, followed a moment later by Stormfly. 

Hiccup glanced over to Astrid.  "Shall we?"

She shrugged and unhooked herself from her saddle, and Hiccup followed suit, and then dismounted.  The grass underfoot was soft and long, and the air cool, damp and salty, as the sounds of the surf below added a comforting rumble.

He'd taken maybe five steps towards whatever-it-was in the bushes when suddenly he heard the rustle of wings and felt a sudden rush of wind. 

He whirled, to see Stormfly and Toothless nonchalantly hop over to the neighboring sea stack.  Toothless had a touch of trouble, but Stormfly helped him climb up.  A moment later, both dragons were looking down at their friends over the lip of the neighboring sea stack. 

"Huh?" both he and Astrid said in unison, looking at each other.

"What's going on?" Astrid asked. 

The dragons giggled from their perch.

"Toothless!" Hiccup scolded.

Toothless chortled and rested his head on his front paws, looking down at them. 

"Stormfly!  Come back girl!  I'm sorry whatever it was we did!"

Stormfly chittered, amused, and nodded her chin at them—or past them—before turning around, her tail hanging loosely over the edge of the sea stack.

Hiccup raised his hands helplessly.  "Toothless!  What's going on?"

Toothless gave his little bark-laugh and closed his eyes, a smug expression on his face.

Astrid huffed, sending her bangs fluttering, and turned, marching off to the bushes behind Hiccup. 

Hiccup continued trying to reason with his friend.  "Bud, what's going on?  Is this a joke?"

Toothless cocked his head consideringly, and then shook his head in a definite _no._

"Toothless!"

Then, behind him, he heard Astrid said hesitantly, "Hiccup…"

"What?" he asked as he turned.

The object in the bushes turned out to be a woven lidded basket, with a piece of parchment pinned to it.  Gobber's distinctive handwriting was scrawled on the front reading: _Hiccup and Astrid._

Then Hiccup noticed the set of Nadder tracks in the grass in front of the bush where the basket had been hidden.

Incredulous, he strode over and plucked the parchment from the basket, as Astrid opened lid.

_Lad and Lass,_

_It took some doing, but from what I got, your dragons both think you two have been working too hard.  I'm not sure what they're planning, but they got me to fill this up with dinner for you both._

_And let me tell you, it was a very interesting game of charades._

_-Gobber_

His jaw hanging open out of incredulity, Hiccup looked over at the pair of dragons who were pointedly ignoring their riders, much like a pair of cats might follow their human from room to room so that they can be seen by the human being ignored. 

Astrid, for her part, was plucking things from the basket and laying them out on the grass.  "Dinner for two, mead, a soft fur…"  She shook her head and called out to the dragons, "Stormfly, you little sneak, how long have you two been planning this?" 

The Nadder just chortled, and Toothless gave his little bark-laugh again.

"Are you two deliberately stranding the two of us over here…" Hiccup started, then comprehension dawned on him. "…the two of us."  He put his arm around Astrid.  "Really?  You two went through all of that, just to give us some time together?"

Toothless's bark-laugh was _distinctly_ smug this time. 

"But… but… we were taking you out flying!  You didn't have to sacrifice flying time for, for us!"

Stormfly's tail flicked dismissively, while Toothless gave them a grin, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. 

Astrid laughed as Hiccup called back, "You are a tricky, sneaky dragon, and I couldn't ask for a better friend!" 

"I second that, Stormfly!" Astrid tossed in. 

The dragons laughed.  Then Toothless turned his back to them.  If Hiccup was any judge, they were both lying on their backs on the stones of the sea stack and closing their eyes to enjoy the warmth of the sun. 

Hiccup and Astrid looked at each other. 

"We just got outsmarted by our dragons," Hiccup said, shaking his head in bemusement.

She leaned into him.  "I'm not complaining.  Are you?"

He bent to kiss her.  "No."

###

Her fingertips sore, Wulfhild put the lyra back into its case.  Ketil smiled at her and said, "Your Highness, that was much better!"

Eindride gave the thane a sidelong look.  "Well, it doesn't sound like she's torturing cats anymore, I'll give her that much."

Ketil rolled his eyes at the marshal.  "It takes time and discipline and practice, and nobody is forcing you to be here."

Eindride scoffed.  "Aye, except that I got voted to be her chaperon for the day." 

Wulfhild sighed.  In an election by Einar's cronies, at least.  At least they trusted Hiccup and Astrid to be her minders, thank God. 

Ketil quirked an eyebrow and turned to Wulfhild with an ironic look.  "Your Highness, given that I'm old enough to be your father, with thinning graying hair, and perhaps a bit more love of beer than I should have," he patted his gut humorously, "do you feel that being alone with me is a risk to your honor and reputation?"

She snorted.  "You've already sworn an oath to my brother, sir thane, to safeguard his household's honor."

Eindride snorted, but said nothing more. 

Ketil crossed his arms, gave Eindride a smile, and changed the subject.  "So, milord, what sort of dragon are you considering?"

Eindride beamed.  "I can hardly decide!  When Dragonlord Hiccup arrived in Nidaros, I, I was honestly picturing a small flock, a small flock, all of the same kinds of dragon he'd brought with him.  Then, I had decided on a Monstrous Nightmare.  But now that I'm here, I, I can barely decide!"

Wulfhild sat and leaned back in her chair.  She had to admit to herself, she liked this enthusiastic and overwhelmed Eindride a great deal more than she liked the scheming and brutal Eindride that had been his primary character back in Nidaros.  She listened as he reviewed the various types of dragon that had caught his eye, and the difficulties in picking between them. 

"—but the Nightmare, while fast, doesn't seem to be as useful as the Timberjack—"

There was a knock at the door, and they all looked up.

"Yes?" Eindride asked, turning to the door.

It opened, and one of the Hooligan children—Snotlout's younger sister, Snitwit, if Wulfhild recalled correctly—stuck her head in.  "Hey, so, there's a ship from the Rus' here, and the guy on the ship is saying that he's Wulfhild and Magnus's cousin and he met my brother!"

"Aye?  So?" Eindride said.

"Well, I was comin' to see if the princess wanted to see her kinsman!"

Wulfhild grinned at the girl, hauled herself out of her seat, and followed her, while her brother's retainers remained behind to cautiously extract him and Ruffnut from their bedroom. 

Their timing was exquisite; she and Snitwit arrived down at the docks just as the Rus' galley pulled in and was tied down.  Stoick was there, but Hiccup was nowhere to be seen—nor was Astrid, for that matter.  Wulfhild chuckled slightly to herself; her friends had clearly been working themselves ragged, and she hoped that they were taking some time for themselves finally.

Stoick stepped forward as the gangplank was extended.  "Hello the ship!"

"Hello the shore!" a man's voice, thick with a Rus' accent, called back in Norse.  "We come with greetings from the Grand Prince of the Rus', my father Yaroslav the Wise!"

Wulfhild clapped her hands in glee in recognition at the voice.  "Vladimir!" 

There was a pause, and her cousin, baffled, scanned the crowd until he caught sight of her.  Then there was a glorious double-take.  " _Wulfhild!?_   What are you doing here?"

"The same thing that you are, I imagine," she replied tartly but fondly.  "How is Aunt Ingegerd?"

Vladimir, a little staggered, said, "Uh, Mother is fine."

Stoick, visibly holding back a laugh by sheer force of will, interjected.  "Well, I suppose that proves your identity well enough.  Come, Vladimir Yaroslavsson—"

"Yaroslavich," Wulfhild corrected quietly.

"—Yaroslavich," Stoick accepted, giving her a slight nod of thanks, "I am Stoick the Vast, Chief of the Hooligans.  I offer you and your men hospitality.  Do you accept?"

Vladimir nodded.  "We accept the offer of bread and salt, and will act as proper guests in your home, Dragon Jarl."  He bowed.

Stoick's eyebrows rose at that, but he made no other comment on the title. 

As Vladimir and his crew—including a double-portion of oarmen, she noticed—disembarked, her brother and Ruffnut came down the ramp, with his thanes bringing up the rear.  Magnus's face brightened at the sight of his step-cousin, and he ran up for a heartfelt embrace.  While they were thumping each other on the back and exclaiming at the sight of each other, his thane Oddmund did a double-take of his own.  "Karl?  What are you doing here!?  I thought you were going to the Varangians!"

"Hi Uncle!" the blond Norseman said, grinning.  "When we stopped in Kyiv, they offered me a job on the personal guard of Jarisleif's family."  He spread his arms wide.  "So now here I am!"

Oddmund shook his head.  "Well, I guess I should be glad for that."

Magnus, meanwhile, was enthusiastically introducing Vladimir to Ruffnut.  As they talked, the whole engorged party of Norse, Hooligans and Rus' started to wind their way up the paths to the village proper. 

Stoick came over to Wulfhild as they walked.  "Lass?"

"Yes, Chief?"

"Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't your kinsman there very far from home?"

She nodded.  "If Snotlout told them about Berk, they must have set out within a few days of meeting him to get here, and traveled fast." 

Stoick raised an eyebrow.  "Thank yeh, lass."

She grinned at him.  "Not a problem."

"So, he's kin through his mother?"

"Our mothers are half-sisters, daughters of old King Olof of the Swedes," she said.  "So technically he's Magnus's step-cousin, although Magnus knows him better than I do; he spent… seven years? in Kyiv, at my uncle's court."

"Thanks, lass," Stoick said, and fondly patted her on the shoulder.  She squeaked and grabbed at his wrist to keep from being knocked down by his prodigious strength.

"Uh…" Stoick sounded embarrassed and gently helped her right herself.  "Sorry, lass."

"Apology accepted," she said sardonically, and craned her neck to look up at his face; it didn't help that he was a foot and a half taller than she was.  He was obviously contrite, and she smiled at him. 

He smiled back, and then turned to her cousin, who was looking at the pair of them with amusement.  "We don't stand on ceremony overly here on Berk," he said.  "And yer cousins are already our close allies.  With all of the miles yeh've traveled, can I ask for what?"

Vladimir nodded, a grin still on his face from his talk with Magnus.  "If you wish, Dragon Jarl."  He gave a sweeping bow and pulled a scroll from a satchel.  "My high father wishes to offer you and your tribe an alliance, much as my kinsmen already have.  He offers my sister Elisiv's hand in marriage to your son."

Wulfhild felt the smile on her face vanish, and her gut felt like she was riding a diving dragon, as she looked at Stoick.  Who was looking… contemplative. 

"I see.  We will have to talk."

A mental image of a hnefatafl board suddenly came to Wulfhild's mind, with pawns of a dozen colors all hemming the king in from escape.  And the king wore Hiccup's face. 

And Hiccup always lost at the game. 

###

With a final grunt of effort, Heather used the hammer, awl and stamping form that she had taken from Hiccup's workshop to punch the last hole in the last sheet of parchment.  Removing it from the form, she added it to the stack that she had already accumulated, and contemplated it.  If she'd done it right—and she was pretty sure that she had—it was about the right amount of parchment to match what was currently in the Dragon Book.  She could swap the contents out at her next opportunity.

Working to her advantage was the fact that Hiccup, Astrid and Fishlegs, having _written_ the damn thing, didn't need to consult it that often.  So she'd have a window of opportunity before it was missed. 

Looking at the stack of parchment—nearly three inches thick and over a foot wide and tall—she marveled for a moment.  It was a fortune in parchment, enough to buy several unskilled thralls at the market, and yet she, a kitchen cook, had been able to afford it all out of her wages. 

Putting the stack away in its hiding place under her bed, she sat on the mattress and folded herself in close, wrapping her arms around her knees with her feet flat on the bed. 

She felt tears welling up in her eyes and she did nothing to stop them from coming.  Instead, she welcomed them.  Better to purge them now than to break down in weeping during her date with Fishlegs.

She wondered if the night would end with the two of them making love on this very bed.

The thought sent her whole body shuddering with sorrow and desire.  Gods.  She loved him.  He was kind, and considerate, and, and… _all she had done since the day they'd met was lie to his face._  

He deserved better than her. 

And she didn't deserve him. 

She shook with her weeping; her nose was running, and she felt thick phlegm at the back of her throat that made her cough. 

So, as much as she wanted him, she'd leave it in his hands, like the trustless, faithless coward that she was.  If he tried to take her to bed, she'd accept.  But she wouldn't start anything.  That way, it would be for his sake, rather than for hers.

Even though the idea of Fishlegs being her first was enough to make her weep all on its own.  Adalwin's thrall, the woman that had taught her how to please men, had been clear enough on that.  Her body belonged to Adalwin, for his use.  He just saw better use for it as a snare for other men than for his own pleasure.  And now… the idea of having someone she loved as a _lover,_ not as a mark or target…

Her chest felt like it was trapped between two rocks pressing together.  It hurt, but she welcomed the pain.  She deserved it.

She sat that way for a long time, until her tears stained and soaked her shirt, and her shudders lessened and slowly died off.

She felt hollowed out and purged.

Unwrapping her limbs from around herself, she stood and wiped at her face.  Gods, she probably looked like a mess.  Well, if Fishlegs asked, she could blame Hallr for the tears, and he'd accept that. 

She looked down at her shirt and sighed ruefully.  It was damp with her tears and covered with the goo from her running nose.  Well, no matter.  Much to her amazement, she had another shirt.  She had a great deal, actually.  Stoick amazed her in how he ran his home.  His village was like none she had ever heard of.  No one in the village went hungry.  If she had wanted, she could have saved every single coin and scale she had towards her own coffer and just lived off of the _very_ basic needs for food and housing that were provided by law to every member of the tribe—which now, apparently, included her.  But that would have raised suspicion, and she saw no point, so she had bought herself some new clothes, better lodging with some of the other thralls, better food, and weekly baths at the bathhouse. 

So she had a new linen shirt because… because she was here. 

This upcoming week, she would be allowed to pick a dragon of her very own.  The greatest treasure and resource that Berk possessed, and she was being allowed access to it… just because she was here.

They had accepted her as one of their own.

And she was going to betray them. 

Because she had to. 

For a moment, she wildly considered telling Fishlegs.  Telling him everything.  Considered even taking him to bed and telling him everything over pillow talk.  His male pride would like that, wouldn't it…

But if she did that, then she would be trusting not only Fishlegs, but Stoick and the clanheads.

And they would talk and debate and argue.

And if Adalwin didn't at least have a spy among the merchants that were visiting, she'd eat Fishlegs' helmet.  That wasn't even considering his statement about the minder hidden among her fellow thralls. 

So if she told the Hooligans… he would hear.

And her parents would die horribly. 

There was a knock at her door, and Fishlegs' voice came through.  "Heather?"

Pulling on the linen shirt, she called out, "One moment!" and rubbed at her eyes with her discarded shirt, cleaning them up as best she could. 

Thus prepared, she pulled open the door.  Fishlegs was standing there, a smile on his face.  "Ready?"

She nodded, trying to summon up what joy she could, in order to back a convincing smile of her own.

"So… um…" he stammered a bit and then said awkwardly, "So you said that your birthday was last month?"

She nodded.

"I got you something.  Close your eyes?"

Obediently, she closed them.  If she opened them to find him naked or something like that, she'd close the door and take him right to bed. 

Instead, she heard a slight whisper of fine metal on metal, and his arms extended around her shoulders for a moment, before a fine weight settled on her neck. 

"Okay, you can open them," he said, and she could hear his grin.

She opened them and looked down, to see the carved peridot pendant that she'd admired the other day hanging from a fine silver chain around her neck.

Oh gods. 

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes and pulled him into a hug.  "Thank you!"

He patted her on the back.  "You're welcome.  Now, since you always cook for me, I figured that it was time to return the favor."  He let her go and extended the crook of his elbow to her.  "Shall we?  Dinner awaits."

She took his arm and they left the room.  As she closed the door, she wondered if she would be coming back here alone or not…

###

Snotlout watched in awe as the vast city came into view past the sides of the Bosporus Strait. 

He had not known that mere men could build such things. 

Grand walls encircled the city on the seaward side, and judging by the men visible walking at their base, unloading cargo from ships at the docks, they were thirty feet or more in height.  According to Vidkunn, the landward walls were even grander.  Behind the walls, though, lay magnificence. 

A grand complex of buildings lay behind the walls on the side of the hill visible from the water.  Every single one was crafted of white stone, which gleamed golden in the late afternoon sun.  The largest and most magnificent of these was a vast domed building, which, according to Vidkunn, was called the Hagia Sophia.  It was half a thousand years old, and rose to a height of nearly two hundred feet, and every inch of it was dedicated to the tortured god of the Christians. 

At a signal from the Roman galley escorting them in to the great fortress of Galata, the great river chain across the waters of the Golden Horn was lowered in a great clatter of metal and rush of foaming seawater.

And thus Vidkunn's ships, Snotlout with them, entered the sheltered waters of the Golden Horn.  As they moved up the waterway, the great buildings of the seaward side hill vanished from their sight.  Replacing that magnificent view came something even grander: a vast city, composed of more streets and buildings than he could count. 

Vidkunn clapped his hands in glee as Snotlout and many of the others gasped in awe.  "Is it not magnificent!?" he called to Snotlout and the other young men with him.  "Behold, Miklagård, the Great City of the Romans, and one of the grandest cities in the world!"

They cheered.  Then Vidkunn pointed out the sights visible from the water.  The Venetian quarter.  The Amalfitan quarter.  The Pisan quarter.  Each of them composed of peoples from distant lands, staying close to the two great harbors along the Golden Horn.  Each of them was a small city in their own right, holding more people than all of Snotlout's own home—and each but a tiny fraction of the grand city, which Vidkunn said extended for miles.  And Snotlout had no reason to doubt him or his claims.  Not here, not now. 

Finally, they came into the Neorion Harbor, surrounded by industrious commotion.  Dozens of ships lay at anchor, and each one was engaged in trade and commerce.  Snotlout saw the wealth of nations being loaded and unloaded in a frenzy of longshoremen, crates, barrels, and sacks.  Spices, fruits, gems, gold, silver, weapons—thralls?—iron, stone, lumber…

Snotlout was aware that he was staring at the tumult in awe, but that was all right.  So was everyone else aside from Vidkunn, Balli and their permanent laborers. 

Gudmund was staring from his spot nearby Snotlout, and swore softly under his breath.  "Father told me… but I never really understood…"

A richly dressed man came walking up the docks towards the ships, and Vidkunn stiffened.  "I'll handle this part, Sigurd," he said to Snotlout.  "Let's avoid any misunderstandings."

Snotlout blinked but nodded.  Vidkunn hadn't mentioned anything about problems here.

With a heave, Vidkunn hopped up onto the boards of the dock, and addressed the man in a language that Snotlout didn't recognize.  It sounded boring, like Vidkunn was deliberately trying to keep the tone calm. 

Then Snotlout noticed that more and more people in the harbor were staring at Hookfang.  Men were tapping each other on the shoulders to get their fellows' attention and pointing, and more and more of the harbor was falling silent as they stared at the dragon that was calmly sitting aboard a small Norse ship. 

Then Vidkunn heaved a theatrical sigh and spoke loudly in that other language.  Snotlout heard the word "Varangian" several times. 

At this point, Balli took pity on him and came up next to him to give a running translation.

"Papa told the harbormaster what we had for cargo.  The harbormaster thought at first that we were bringing in Hookfang to fight in the arena, and wanted to know why he wasn't muzzled and chained." 

Snotlout went for his ax, and Balli caught his wrist.  "Nuh uh.  They're clearing that up right now.  The harbormaster doesn't believe it, and thinks you're tricking him somehow—how, I'm not sure.  But Papa is repeating that you and the others are here to take service with the Varangian Guard, and so is Hookfang.  And repeating it again… and again… and looks like it got through to him."

The  harbormaster was staring at the two of them, and then marched off.  The rest of the harbor was staring with awe, and he kept hearing the word _Varangian_ on the air.

"What happens now?" Snotlout asked, as he basked in the attention. 

"Well, we get you in touch with the Varangians and they probably march you all to the barracks for newcomers.  You, you're probably going to be in for an interesting time," Balli said wryly as Vidkunn talked to a young harbor urchin.  "Because the harbormaster isn't going to want to take responsibility for Hookfang, so he's going to kick the job to someone else—and Papa just sent a runner to the Varangians." 

The urchin had taken some coin from Vidkunn and was running flat out for the gates from the harbor to the main city.

Balli turned and gave him a droll look.  "Well, there you go.  Your fate is now going to be in the hands of the Romans."  He patted Snotlout on the shoulder fondly.  "It's been quite a journey, Sigurd."  He extended his hand, and Snotlout shook it.  "We'll check in on you next time we're visiting the city."

Snotlout grinned and, on impulse, pulled Balli into a half-hug, thumping him on the back with his free hand.  Balli returned the gesture, laughing. 

They let each other go, and Snotlout climbed up to the dock, Hookfang sinuously following him. 

Miklagård.  Constantinople.  The Great City.  He was here at last.  It had taken nearly three months from Nidaros, countless stops at every little river village, and then waiting for clear weather to cross the Éfxeinos Póntos, and making their slow way along the coastline of the vast sea.  According to Vidkunn, the sea was surrounded by enormous mountains to the south and east, and both his mother and his wife had come from the deserts to the south of them.

He had traveled far from home, and seen much, and his saga was only beginning.  He already had this part mapped out for when the saga was composed, arriving to awe and adulation after a long journey, seeking to serve in the court of a grand Empress. 

Yeah.  This was going to be good.

###

Astrid, feeling warm and happy, opened the door to her family's house; Stormfly had hopped up onto the roof and was waiting by the window to her room.  The two dragons had left her and Hiccup up on the sea stack until the sun had nearly set.  She and her boyfriend had talked, and had just had… time to themselves to _be_ themselves after the utter degree of sheer busyness from the last few weeks.  They'd commiserated over saddle sores and backaches from demonstrating during the dragon training, which had led to innocent… and then not-so-innocent massaging of each other.  And then a little light… exercise.  And then spending time curled up, skin to skin, in the soft fur that Gobber had packed.  She just hoped that it wasn't a favorite of his, because he wasn't getting it back. 

She gave a happy sigh as she walked in, feeling at peace with the world.  If it hadn't been just after dark, she probably would have been singing softly.  The tune for one of the old songs about young lovers at the hearth kept rising to her lips.

Her father looked up at her as she walked in. 

"Astrid?  You're looking happy."  He smiled warmly.  "Positively radiant."  Astrid just beamed at him, the glow from the memory of the wonderful afternoon infusing her.

He gave a happy parental sigh, before sobering.  "Could you come in here, please?  We need to speak about you and your young man."

The bottom dropped out of Astrid's happy glow.

"What's wrong?" she said, suddenly apprehensive. 

He indicated a seat, and Astrid sat without thinking.  "First, I need to ask you this.  Is this relationship more than a childhood infatuation?  Is he the one for you?  I believe him to be, but I need to be certain."

Astrid looked at her father and scowled, feeling threatened and confused.  She was old enough to know exactly what these conversations usually meant, what they ultimately all led to. "I'd hardly have spent the last year with him if he wasn't, Dad!  I adore him, and he thinks the world of me."  

"Adoration and worship aren't the basis of a sound relationship, Astrid," her father said levelly.  

"And how would you know?" she shot back, anger sparking within her.  "You and Mom act like warriors first and husband and wife second!"  

Her father froze and grimaced.  "That's fair," he choked out after a moment.  "And we raised you to be just like ourselves—which is something that I'm trying to _fix_."  He crossed his arms.  

"How?  By asking if I actually love the man who saved my life—no, _all_ our lives!?  That's how you fix things?"  She stood and started pacing angrily through the room; she couldn't attack her own father, but her instinct was still to batter down the threat with what she had.  "Yes, I love him!  How can you even ask that?  Have you talked to him?  Have you seen the kind of man he is?  He's a skald, a scholar, has a heart big enough to hold the world in it, and yet he chose me!  He loves _me!_ When we're not together, it's like a piece of me is… missing. And now… now you're saying that..."

She turned away from her father to stare at the low flames of the hearth, her arms crossed in front of her chest.  She was suddenly reminded of a year ago at the Nest, watching helplessly with everyone else as Hiccup plummeted into fire and smoke. "I still have nightmares, Dad," she said, her voice quiet but simmering with discontent. "Where he falls into those flames and doesn't come out. Or sometimes he does, but he never wakes up."

She heard her father sigh. "Astrid, I didn't—"

The anger within flared, compelling her to turn back to her father.  "Yet you still question my dedication to him," she continued, her words burning with indignation.  "He makes me smile, makes me laugh, makes me think, makes me a better… _me_.  And I have to point it out to him because he doesn't even realize it!  He just thinks that I'm that good, that all this now is just who I've always been." Her hands curled into tight fists. "But you and Mom want to 'fix' me? You think that I'm…" She shook her head in near-disgust. "Well you don't have to. Hiccup already helps me be sharper and faster and smarter! He's _been_ fixing me, just like he's been fixing this whole damn village. What have _you_ been doing, Dad?"

"Astrid," her father warned, folding his arms across his chest.  "I don't want to get into an argument with you."

"I won't let you break—"

" _Astrid!_ " Her father sprung up from his chair, and Astrid was immediately reminded of who had spent fifteen years molding her into the greatest Viking warrior of her generation.  She could imagine his face right now, fierce and dark from heavy disappointment, but she felt too ashamed and foolish to look at anything but her own feet.

He sighed again as he slowly sat back down. "Sit, Astrid," he commanded, quickly adding a gentle "please" afterwards.

Astrid closed her eyes and took a few deep, shuddering breaths.  "Sorry," she said as she eased herself back down.  "Sorry. I'm sorry, Dad.  But, yes, I love him, and he's the one for me.   I just..." She took another deep breath, if only to give her time to think. "When I look back on all those years I ignored him because he was 'Hiccup the Useless', I just want to go back and smack that old me.  With an ax!"  She opened her eyes and glared at her father, who held up his hands.  "Are you _happy_?"

Her father sighed and nodded.  "More than I can say."  He patted the seat of the chair that Astrid had vacated.  "But I had to be sure.  Children always think the first love is serious, and you are still a child in many ways, dear.  It could have been that you were just very close friends, with the dragons being the bond."  He looked down at his hands.  "In many ways, that would have made this easier."

Astrid looked at her father, blood rushing in her ears, the fury cooled in an instant as if doused by Hiccup's quenching bucket, replaced by cold horror.  _No, no, no!_   "You haven't… no, you haven't…"  She sat down, hard, in the chair.  She was with _Hiccup._   They couldn't… wouldn't…

A look of sympathy and pity on his face, her father looked up at Astrid.  "We haven't.  Not that there haven't been offers for you, but I have been watching you and the boy for the last year and have been so happy, and _proud."_   He gave a wry smile.  "I knew that I trusted _him_ the day that I deliberately left you two alone in the mill last winter, and came back to find you both with your clothes still on, and _you_ clearly having started things.  And I knew that you were devoted to him in return when you dove into freezing water without question."  He nodded at her gently.  "I think that he is a fine young man, and will be a wonderful chief one day, a great leader.  Possibly even a king, with the power and allies he now commands."  He sighed.  "And _that_ is the problem."  He put his hands over Astrid's.  "We have _not_ had an offer from Stoick for his son, formal or otherwise.  And his son _will_ be the next chief, regardless of what the Jorgensons try to do to." 

He patted Astrid's hands while Astrid sat there, her heart feeling like it was crumbling.  "Dearest, I would adore a love-match between you and Hiccup, but… it's almost certainly not going to happen."  He let that sink in for a moment, as Astrid's heart went to pounding in fear. 

"We are a strong, honorable and prosperous clan, and, ironically, that is your problem.  Stoick can count on our loyalty.  He does not need you as a peaceweaver between our family and his in order to guarantee it."  Astrid sniffed, making a noise of protest as she tried to hold back tears, as her father resolutely and mercilessly continued onwards.  "But he cannot say the same in regards to everyone else.  The Welds, the Saxons, the Swedes, the Normans, the Franks, even the Rus'… there are kings and _emperors_ that now take notice of your boy.  And Stoick must be pragmatic—and your boy is not in charge of the purse-strings to the coin of his marriage bed."  He looked down at his hands, holding his daughter's, who was trembling.  Speaking very softly, he said, "And I heard that an offer arrived today from High Prince Jarisleif of the Rus' for his daughter, Elisiv."  He grimaced.  "Apparently, he heard about us from Snotlout passing through on his way to Greece.  And Stoick said that 'they would have to talk.'"

Astrid looked up at her father, eyes wide with terror.

He looked at her sadly.  "Do you know what it means when dozens of lords all send tribute to the same chief?  When a _king_ sends tribute to a _chief?_   It means that they're all either scared of him, or trying to soften him up for a bargain that will benefit them—or both.  And the best bargain that they're _all_ going to want is _their_ daughter or sister in _that_ house, with a child as soon as possible to cement ties.  Like what _we_ have done with Ruffnut.  And while you were away in Norway, there was an offer of marriage for your boy nearly every week, from what we have heard.  Barons and counts and dukes and jarls and kings, all wanting to wed their daughters or sisters to him.  Stoick would be a fool to pass up on what is being offered to him… and we both know that he is no fool.  He may take his time in choosing… but he _will_ choose for Hiccup.  And that choice will not be you."

"No," Astrid tried to say, but her voice stuck in her throat.  She said it again and again, still unable to make a sound.

Her father gave her a moment to compose herself, while reaching up to wipe away the tears from his daughter's face. "And that is why I had to be sure, that your heart was true to him."  He sighed.  "We talked first, but your mother fled the field of battle and left me to tell you this.  So, dearest… all hope is not lost."  He put his finger under Astrid's chin and gently lifted her face to meet his own. 

Still speaking softly, as if not to startle Astrid into flight, he said, "Any peaceweaver that Hiccup marries will be a political marriage.  A stranger.  An interloper, here to assure some foreign chief or king that the dragon riders of Berk will not pillage his lands, as that Jorgenson boy did for coin and glory."   Astrid's hands balled into white fists, and she had a brief moment of utter incandescent fury at Snotlout, remembering that moment in the Nidaros fortress.  "And, most likely, that they themselves may have such riders to count as their own." 

He sighed, stroking at the tension in Astrid's hands and wrists with his mill-roughened hands.  "But do you feel that your boy would be able to come to love such a person?  One here for greed and fear, sent to a cold island as a hostage?"  He snorted.  "I have watched him, seen how he looks at you, and I do not doubt that he would turn to you… his friend, his partner, his _love…_ for companionship."

Astrid looked up at her father, eyes wide.

Her father continued, still speaking softly.  "And we spoke, me, your mother, your great-grandfather and his wives, your uncles and aunts, your cousins, your grand-uncles and grand-aunts, your grandmother.  We spoke at great length.  Normally, we would forbid such a thing.  You would be a concubine, like my grandmother is to your great-grandfather.  By law, your children would be unable to inherit the chiefdom unless there are no other candidates, and we are the third most potent clan in the tribe.  There would be no advantage to spending your wedlock on a fruitless bond, not when there have been other offers for you.  Under any _other_ circumstances, allowing you to join with him out of wedlock, in concubinage, even as we define it here, would be intolerable, and you would be forbidden." 

He patted her knee.  "But, thanks to your boy, these _aren't_ normal circumstances.  Even those who were not convinced based on the trueness of your love saw that having a voice in his ear and councils, having someone close to him to speak for us when the First Dragon Rider spreads his wings and makes law and war in Berk, would be… advantageous."  He spoke this last word as if it was somehow rotten.  "And so they agreed.  And they left it to me to tell you, the cowards."

Astrid was shuddering with a thousand emotions, all tearing in different directions.  Part of her wanted to run upstairs and slam the door.  Part of her wanted to leap on Stormfly, race over to Hiccup's house, drag him out of bed and onto Toothless's back, and flee together.  Where, she didn't know.  Maybe Greece.  The Varangian Guard would take them in, wouldn't they?  And part of her was furious with Stoick, with her father, with the greedy, scared kings.  Part of her was even furious with Hiccup, for no good reason.  Another part just wanted to weep, or smash things, or just scream, or all at once.  And part of her wanted to just crawl into Hiccup's bed and never leave. 

Her father looked at her, empathetic as only a parent could be for their child, and nodded.  "So, now, we leave the hard choice to you, my dear.  I am sorry, but I do it out of love, for you, my daughter." He put his hand on Astrid's shoulder.  "Astrid, my dear… do you want him?  Would you be willing to deal with an empty bed, divided time, and anger and resentment from the mother of the next chief, if it also comes with a whole heart, and perhaps the potential for a loving wedlock thereafter, when your boy can say that his first marriage is over, its requirements fulfilled?  Are you willing to share him and wait for him?"

He stood and stooped, stroking his daughter's dampened cheeks.  "You do not need to answer now, or today, or to me, or to the rest of the family.  This is for _you,_ Astrid.  It is not the gift of love I would pick for you, but it is the only one I can actually give.  Whatever you choose, you have the support of the clan.  This choice is yours."  Kissing the crown of his daughter's head, he then straightened and left the room.

Astrid sat for several minutes, as if frozen, before putting her head into her hands.  She wept. 

Elsewhere in the house, her father did the same. 

* * *

 

 **A/N:** Happy birthday to Dischord!  Have a nearly double-length (19k) chapter as a present!  (Before people ask, no that wasn't intentional, but I will say that, while I couldn't find a spot that I was satisfied with for breaking the chapter in half, I didn't look that hard when I found out what today would be).  


	24. Your Only Hope...

 

 

**Chapter 24: Your Only Hope** **…**

_King Harthacnut's attack on Berk, in addition to costing the lives of dragon-riders in the first recorded battle on dragon-back (featuring human belligerents against the dragon-riders; Haddock's battle against the Green Death belongs to a different category), set the stage for the events that followed.  Within a matter of months, the entirety of Europe had heard of the event, and the awareness that dragons could be tamed set off what could only be called an arms race among the European kingdoms as they sought to replicate the feat, or defend themselves against dragons being used against them.  This was, of course, exacerbated by the fact that the continental European dragon populations had crashed due to human predation over the preceding centuries._

_—A History Of The Isles, Oxford, England, 1591_

Heather sighed as Fishlegs kissed the side of her neck.  "I can't wait to introduce you to them… they'll love you…" she gasped.

He paused and said, "What are their names?" before getting back to the important work of kissing her and undressing her.

"My mom is Griselda, my dad is Murray… well," she gasped, "they're not actually my parents—they, they adopted me when I was ten—"  

She had told him everything, and he'd accepted it all.  That she was a spy… that she was here to spy on him and his friends…  here to steal dragons for the man holding her parents hostage…

And he'd accepted it all, and they were careening towards lovemaking, in her room or his, she couldn't tell.

The kisses were growing hotter and deeper, and she sighed as he worked.  Then they were in bed, moving together, and building together, and the feeling of joy and satisfaction was so strong that it hurt and then—

Heather spasmed in her empty bed with a soft cry and woke. 

Blinking, the dried tears on her eyelids making her face feel sandy and gross, Heather looked up to see her bedroom in the barracks, and then sagged, groaning into her pillow.  Her entire self was throbbing with frustrated need and disappointment from the sex-charged wish-fulfillment dream. 

No, she hadn't told him anything.  They'd had a private dinner with a single chaperon nearby, consisting of thin sheets of boiled dough called _lagana_ wrapped around fillings of goat cheese and herbs, and he'd formally asked her if she'd consider him as a suitor for a courtship.  She'd been surprised by the formality of that—she was a clanless freedwoman, after all.  In most places, she would socially be only a single step above a thrall, and he was not only a freeman from a powerful clan, but a boon companion of the Hero Himself.  The social gulf between them could scarcely be any greater, and that was just counting in her cover identity.  But apparently he wanted to do right by her, and that meant treating her with full formal dignity.

So she'd said yes, of course, even as her excellent dinner had revolted against her for the lies.  But the yes hadn't been a lie.  If anything, it was the hardest truth she had ever told. 

Maybe… maybe if she planned things right, she could sneak away to Vedrarfjord with the book and some dragons, and then come back with her parents?

It was a narrow hope… but still a hope—if one ignored the complications, like, oh, say, having to explain the disappearance of the contents of the Book and an indeterminate number of dragons at the same time as her own disappearance.  And not to mention her parents' stories and how quickly those could unravel under, say, _Bladewit's_ questioning…

But that hope was all she had right now, aside from a formal courtship and a polite kiss goodnight on the back of her hand. 

She could still feel the impression of his lips there, hours later. 

Rolling over onto her back, she grasped the pillow, held it over her face, and screamed.

If she only had the smallest drop of courage, she would have made that dream, that wonderful, fulfilling dream, into a reality.

But noooooo.  She was a coward.  And now she was finding out why the gods hated cowards so—and was in complete agreement on that point. 

Feeling better—slightly—for having purged her stresses a bit, she rolled out of bed.  Opening her coffer, she grabbed a handful of coins and scales from within; it might be Sunna's Day, not Wash Day, but she desperately needed a bath.  She felt so dirty, and not just because she had managed to cry herself to sleep last night. 

###

The Rookery was in chaos.  Fishlegs was running around trying to keep order, but he wasn't having terribly much luck. 

A month ago, Fishlegs had taken pride in perhaps being the first natural philosopher and archivist to observe a dragon mating season in its entirety.  He'd taken copious notes to add to the Dragon Book, noting the differences between breeding sheep, cattle, cats, or dogs, and the dragons.  Some of the dragons seemed to be monogamous, while others took as many as five mates.  Aerial dance and other forms of display seemed to be important, but in contrast with, say, sheep or cattle, there was definitely competition for mates by both sexes of dragon.  He'd seen males engaging in dueling, racing, and other displays before the females, but the females did the same for the males, and the single most vicious duel that he'd witnessed—he'd actually had to intervene before someone got hurt—had been between two female Nadders over a male Nadder (who had looked distinctly complimented, and Astrid's father had mock-complained for days about Cloudfox's strutting).  Also, oddly, the type of dragon seemed to be of no concern for many of them; he'd observed Gronckles mating with Nadders, a Nightmare rutting with a Thunderdrum, and even a Zippleback and a Scauldron.  He'd done his best to record all of it, but he doubted that he'd caught even a tenth of the total activity, even with a quarter of his clan helping him with his observations. 

Now, it seemed, was the time to lay the eggs, and _wow_ did the dragons get territorial. 

He had rounded up as many Hobblegrunts as he could find, but they weren't enough to keep order, and besides, half of them—the female half, he was pretty sure—were acting just as territorial. 

Horsefeathers whistled to him from down a side passageway as Fishlegs was walking past; having just finished breaking up one fight between a Gronckle and a small pack of Terrors, and being on his way to dealing with the sounds of another fight, Fishlegs sighed with a heave of his shoulders.  Then he turned and strode down the passageway, to find his brother's dragon clinging to the wall of the side chamber, with another Monstrous Nightmare making grunting noises lying splayed on the floor.  "Yes!?"

His brother appeared from behind the Nightmare on the floor, and held up a damp egg; the shell looked like a lump of shiny tree-bark, brown and smooth.  "Toast here is helping me keep the ladyfolk calm," he said, nodding his head towards his dragon on the wall.  "As for these, wow, they're heavier than they look."  He gently placed the egg down onto a stone slab with a dip in it, next to several other eggs.  Straw, they'd already found, just made a mess—although the dragons would gently burn it away and replace it with the spongy webbing that matched what they'd found in the Green Death's Nest, holding the eggs to the walls, floors and ceilings. 

Fishlegs breathed out a sigh of relief; it wasn't an emergency, it was mostly his brother showing off.  Fine.  Then he could take the moment to learn what he could about how the egg-laying was proceeding.  "How's it going?"

His brother shrugged.  "Compared to calving season?  I'll take this, nine times out of nine.  Little muss, you're dealing with the fuss—"

"Thank you," Fishlegs muttered under his breath sourly.

"—and I don't have to worry about umbilical cords or having the calf or lamb stop breathing.  I think things will calm down out there once the lady dragons realize that we're here to help."

Fishlegs crossed his arms.  "And why do you think they're fighting?"

Horsefeathers held up a hand.  "One moment."  He went back to the black-and-purple Nightmare that he was helping.  A minute or so later, he popped back up holding another egg, which he gently placed with the others.  "See what I mean?"

Another Nightmare came nosing in, huffing and snorting, and the purple Nightmare huffed back.  The two of them reared up for a moment, before Horsefeathers ran between them.  "Whoa, whoa!  Ladies!  One at a time!" 

They huffed and slunk back down to all fours, giving each other baleful looks.

He turned to the newcomer, a green-and-black dragon three quarters the size of the purple one.  "You here for egg-laying too?"

She hissed and snorted, and dipped her head. 

"All right.  Be right with you."  He turned to the purple Nightmare.  "I'm going to help her next.  Let me know if you have another one coming."

She gave an acknowledging groan-cough and Horsefeathers turned back to Fishlegs, who had watched his brother (who had once killed a fully-grown Nightmare for his own graduation) run between a pair of upset dragons and calm them down. 

"I think they're fighting over prime nesting spots, plus they're feeling _very_ uncomfortable.  Once they get it through their heads that we'll be taking good care of the eggs for them down in the Broodery, they'll calm down and this'll go more smoothly."

Fishlegs nodded enthusiastically, with a touch of hysteria.  "Let's hope!"

"In the meantime, get everybody with any shepherding experience in here to help!  They're very anxious about dropping their eggs on the stone, and I've noticed that a pair of helping hands goes a long way," he patted the purple Nightmare on the flank, "isn't that right?"

The Nightmare made a rumble of agreement and gave him a lick that made Horsefeathers' blond hair stand on end.  "Hey!"

The Nightmare laughed, and then the green one made a sound that Fishlegs was starting to recognize. 

"Uh oh.  Time to get to work.  Good luck, Fishlegs!" Horsefeathers said with a grin. 

Fishlegs sighed.  "Yeah."  He went back out into the dim corridor, suddenly coming face to snout with an agitated golden Nightmare in the dim torchlight.  "Oh, hi there."  She huffed, little tongues of flame jetting from her nostrils.  "Uh, here to lay eggs?"  She huffed again, and Fishlegs smelled some of his hair singing from the flames.  "My brother will be right with you."

She snorted and turned around, curling into a circle, her tail lashing back and forth impatiently. 

Fishlegs took a deep breath and walked past her quickly, the Hobblegrunts and Meatlug following.  He wondered when she would be laying her own eggs; she'd mated with a pair of other Gronckles last month, and he'd had reports already of several of the other Gronckles already starting to lay eggs of their own.

Next he checked in with Fishwings, who was helping out a line of cranky Nadder mothers, which did result in one surprising moment.  As he entered the chamber, he found that his sister was handing the eggs—coloration a marbled mix between sky-blue and that of the mother—off to a pack of Terrible Terrors and Changewings.  The smaller dragons were accepting the eggs from her hands, carrying them off, and gently placing them down on fresh divots in the stone. 

He watched the coordinated activity as a dozen eggs were laid; his sister was bouncing frantically between half a dozen antsy Nadders, catching their eggs one at a time, with the smaller dragons artfully taking them from her and placing them out of the way.  Fishwings was looking so harried that he wouldn't even have been surprised if she had completely failed to notice the nature of her assistants. 

He continued on, breaking up smaller dominance bouts and directing distressed mothers-to-be to the laying stations, before running into Hiccup and Toothless, who were… well, lecturing a bunch of contrite-looking dragons like they were a class of naughty children was probably the best way to describe the scene. 

Hiccup was angrily splinting a Nadder's wing while haranguing a bunch of dragons, all of whom looked embarrassed.  Toothless was standing behind him, his tail swishing back and forth. 

"—you broke her wing!  I can't believe this!" Hiccup shouted at them, and the dragons cringed.  "We promised you all to take care of you, and this is how you're acting?!  What in Hel's name is wrong with all of you?!"

One of the Gronckles in the crowd sniffled and cautiously approached the wounded Nadder.  The Nadder was obviously pained and taking great satisfaction in Hiccup's dressing down of her assailants.  The Gronckle gave an apologetic lick and then retreated back to the abashed crowd. 

Fishlegs stared in awe, and a touch of jealousy.  He had a Hobblegrunt squad to help him keep things calm, and he felt like he was barely managing to keep things in order in dealing with small groups, as if he were a half-trained juggler trying to put on the act he'd seen the other day.  Meanwhile, Hiccup and Toothless, by themselves, had apparently broken up a fight that had reached the point of actual violence.  And they'd not only put a stop to it, but they also had the better part of a hundred broody dragons sitting down calmly and looking attentive and embarrassed. 

Fishlegs suddenly had a moment of incredible empathy for his aunt Catthumbs when she'd had to stand in for their usual teacher, his uncle Cattongue, when Fishlegs had been a child.  Cattongue had been able to keep even the _twins_ under control, along with all of the kids that had been older and younger than Fishlegs and his group.  Catthumbs… hadn't. 

Hiccup then spotted Fishlegs.  "Oh, good.  I need a spare pair of hands here." 

As they bandaged the Nadder, Hiccup asked quietly, "How's it going on out there?"

"I think we're past the worst of it, but I want to bring in everyone that we can to help with the egg-catching," he said intently.

Hiccup nodded.  "No problems here.  Get as many hands as you want in on it."  He paused, and then said, "Why not bring in the class of New Riders?  This is a perfect chance for them to start getting to know the dragons personally."

"Is that a good idea?" Fishlegs asked, holding the splint around the broken bone. 

Hiccup sighed as he wrapped up the splint.  "No, but it's my least-bad one.  We need the help, they need the experience, and we can partner them with other people so they're not alone… and we can get a better feel for how they'll treat the dragons."  Fishlegs nodded at that.  That was why Fishlegs was teaching the Advanced Riders, even though he felt like a fraud, trying to teach people old enough to be his parents (and, in the case of his mother and her Nightmare, who were getting training in long-haul mail techniques, his _actual_ parent).  It was because Hiccup wanted to personally handle the New Riders and hammer home the importance of treating the dragons as their friends and companions, and not as a dumb horse with wings. 

"This going to hurt," Hiccup said quietly to the Nadder, and then made a final yank and tied off the bandage around the splint.  The squawked in pain, and its tail spikes, already wavering, stood on end.  Immediately, Hiccup was patting them gently down and whispering quiet words of encouragement to the Nadder.  A moment later, she was laying there, calm and purring.

Fishlegs, watching his friend work, mused to himself that Hiccup, at least, didn't seem to need any help with calming down dragons. 

Hiccup, still gently patting the Nadder, looked up with a smile.  "As for help… feel free to have Heather be your assistant, even."

Fishlegs blushed, but said resolutely, "All right then.  I'll do that."

Hiccup grinned as the wounded Nadder chittered and stood up.  Hiccup turned to her and gave her directions to the chamber where Fishwings was helping the Nadders. 

As she walked off, Hiccup turned back to Fishlegs and, wiping his hands against each other, he asked, "So… Heather.  Things working out there?"

"Wonderfully.  We're now officially courting, and I figure that I can ask for the betrothal once I get a bride price together—"

Hiccup whistled.  "Moving fast, aren't you?"

Fishlegs looked at his friend with his lips pursed into a thin line and his eyes narrowed.  "No.  I'm deliberately taking this slow so she doesn't feel rushed or pressured, thank you.  But I'm still planning things out.  I figure I can ask for the betrothal around Thawfest, maybe Midsummer so that she doesn't feel rushed, and get the wedding done by this time next year, before the end of the season."  He scoffed.  "Besides, you're one to talk.  What about you and Astrid?  You two are courting, but you haven't asked her to betroth you yet, and you're running out of time in the season to get married.  Another month and a half and you'll have to wait until next year."

Hiccup blushed, looked down and said, "I… um… I'm saving up for the bride price too."  He then glanced around.  "Where _is_ Astrid, anyway?"

Fishlegs grimaced.  "I meant to ask _you_ about that."

"Huh?"

"Hiccup, I ran into her after breakfast a few hours ago, looking upset and walking off into the woods with her ax."  He fixed his friend with a flat look.  "Did you upset her or something?"

The blood drained from Hiccup's face, leaving him with a mottled complexion that reminded Fishlegs of poorly-made porridge. 

"I… I… 'Legs, I'm gonna go check on her, okay?  Can you handle things from here?  Great!"

Without another word, Hiccup hopped onto Toothless's saddle and they were off.

Fishlegs cupped his hands around his mouth and called after him, "Okay, but you owe me!"

"Thanks 'Legs, and I owe you triple!" Hiccup called before he and Toothless vanished down into the central shaft. 

A Timberjack nosed up to him, and Fishlegs patted it on the nose, making it purr.  "You better believe you do," he said quietly, remembering the look of hopeless fury and loss on Astrid's face.  "But go help our friend, just in case you broke her heart."

###

The ax thudded into the tree next to the year-old scars in the bark.  Astrid walked over and yanked it free, and _flung_ it at the next one. It bit deep into the bark in a satisfying manner.

_Damn_ Hiccup for breaking her heart.

But that wasn't fair either!  Not only was she judging him for something that hadn't even _happened_ yet, her father was right—he had no say in the matter!  She knew that if he _could_ marry her, they'd have been exchanging vows right next to Ruffnut and Magnus.

Which, of course, made her all the more certain that he couldn't, wasn't _allowed_ to ask her.

For a wild moment, she had wondered what her chances would be in a fight against Stoick, before the obvious counter-point that killing his father would be sure to make Hiccup hate her followed on the heels of _that_ thought. 

The bushes rustled nearby, and she whirled, holding her ax in her hand, ready to throw…

Only to reveal Hiccup, standing there, staring.  In the same spot that he had been a year ago.

Except now, instead of fear, she saw concern in his eyes.  And he was holding his own ax.  "I, uh… heard that you were out here.  So I came to see if you wanted company," he said hesitantly, proffering the hatchet.

Her jaw mouthing wordlessly for a moment, she felt her anger melt, into sadness and love.

Approaching cautiously, he walked over and hugged her, and she melted into the embrace. 

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She shook her head, uncertain of what to say. 

"Want to talk about it?"

She shook her head against his chest.

He paused for a moment, and then kissed the crown of her head.  "Okay."

She managed to get out, "Parents are idiots."

Hiccup relaxed and then stiffened.

"What?"

He muttered, "I thought it might have been something I did… or we did…"

"What…?"  Understanding dawned.  "Oh.  Uh, no.  You didn't do anything."

"Not even…" he gave her midsection a significant glance. 

She shook her head. "I'm not pregnant."  Or, at least, she was fairly sure that she wasn't.  Unless she had caught yesterday out on the sea stacks—which was certainly a possibility—it had been over a month (nearly two, now) since their times together in Magnus's kingdom, and her monthly had come when they were out at sea on the way back to Berk.  And hadn't _that_ been fun to deal with?  And their all-too-brief bout of frantic lovemaking three weeks ago hadn't caught either; her monthly had come a week late and unusually heavy, but it had still come.

Hiccup looked like he was feeling both relieved and disappointed at the same time, and patted her on the back gently.  "You're sure you don't want to talk about it?"

She looked at him and just gave him a kiss.  Breaking it gently, she whispered, "Not now.  I love you."

He smiled.  "I love you."

She leaned up against him, feeling his heart thud against her own chest, and thought to herself.

Magnus had sold _himself_ to Ruffnut, who, a year ago, had been an unexceptional girl from an unexceptional Viking village. 

Did she _really_ think that Hiccup wouldn't end up having to do the same?  For the good of the tribe, for the good of their people?  That he would give up that kind of advantage for her sake?

Or, better way to ask it, _Hiccup_ might.  Would _Stoick?_

And she didn't know. 

And she was afraid to ask and find out that it was a no.  No, he would not give it up.  He was a man who led to protect his people, first in, last out.  He'd gone up against the Green Death to buy his tribe a few minutes of life.  She remembered sitting behind Hiccup on Stormfly's back and seeing Stoick down there on the beach, a defiant insect against a giant.

So then, she had to ask herself… where did she stand?

And that was apparently right here, where she felt safe and loved enough that she could ask herself such questions.  In his arms. 

Yeah.  Better to have to share him than to not have him at all.  Her great-grandmother Ingrid had made that same choice for her great-grandfather, and had never regretted it, not in more than half a century of legally being 'just' a concubine.  But in her great-grandfather's heart, he had three _wives_.

And she didn't see Hiccup being any less loving to her than Rikard clanhead Hofferson was to either Dagn clan Hofferson or Ingrid clan Hofferson.

Decision made, she broke the embrace and smiled wanly at him. 

"So… ax practice?  We can start strengthening those long arms of yours," she said.

He looked at her, and she could _tell_ that he wanted to ask.  _Needed_ to ask.  But had too much respect for her privacy _to_ ask. 

So, instead of asking him if he was going to marry her, they threw axes at trees.

And that was still fine, because of the respect that was underneath it.

And his form was getting better, too.  He was at least _hitting_ the target now.

At least with the handle. 

Honestly, his form was still terrible, if improved from the _horrendously terrible_ it had been before; it helped that he was actually starting to get some strength into his bones, from his growth spurts and forge work.  The ax flailed through the air at random, but he had enough strength to reach the target each time now. 

As the hatchet tumbled past the tree and into the underbrush, he swore sulfurously, and she smirked as he waded into the thorny brambles to get it back, airily making suggestions as he grimaced and yelped from the scratches. 

As he emerged a minute later, hatchet in hand, she just smirked at him and unceremoniously dragged him back to their starting point, and ungently corrected his stance and his form, and he yelped a few times when she was being especially blunt with putting his limbs in the right orientation. 

But then he grinned at her.  "Like this?"

She reached out and yanked his elbow to the right spot.  "Nope.  Like this."  She stepped back.  "Throw."

The hatchet grazed the tree bark this time and went spinning off into the underbrush again.

Hiccup watched it go and then bowed his head and sighed. 

She laughed.

He made a rude gesture at her and then started to laugh ruefully at himself.  "I'm getting better."

"Yep!  I feel safe standing off to the side now!" she said, smirking. 

He made another rude gesture, and she grabbed his hand and twisted it behind his back as he mock-resisted.  Forcing him to kneel as part of the same motion, she kissed him on the head and said sweetly, "Now now, you're overusing that."

"Ow… oh?  Am I?"  He twisted and broke the half-hearted hold with a yelp.  They grappled briefly, and then she had him in a chokehold. 

"I'm the one that _taught_ you that trick," she said chidingly, and pinched his ear. 

"Oww! … point taken."  He slumped in the hold.  "Can I go and get my hatchet now?"

She smirked and let him go. 

A minute later, he was back with his ax, and she showed him proper form, and he studied her motions and copied them.

When he threw this time, the ax hit the tree and _held_ … for a few seconds, before slipping loose and falling to the ground.

He jumped in glee.  "Astrid!  I did it!  I did it!" 

She cheered with him, and pointed to the ax.  "Now do it again!" 

As his ax thunked into the tree again, she grinned, her black mood from before having retreated.  He was trying to cheer her up, she could tell, even if that meant making himself the butt of the joke of the moment, and she appreciated the gesture for what it was.

Yeah.

She wasn't going _anywhere._  

And that gave her the courage to ask.  It was funny.  Before in the cove and at the smithy, confronting him had been easy.  It was much harder now that her heart was tied up in knots.

"Hiccup…?"

"Yeah?" he said, looking at his ax as if it had personally offended him.

"Umm… so… where are we going?"

"What do you mean?"

She grimaced and threw her ax at the tree, where it bit deep into the bark, and then turned back to him.

"Are… are we… do we have a chance together?"

He blinked and paled.  "Why…?  Has something happened?"

"Hiccup… just answer me.  Do you want me?"

"More than anything.  How can you ask that?"  He looked at her, terror in his eyes, stammering slightly.  "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the bride price and maybe the morning gift, if you don't mind courting bad luck, to make sure that you'd be happy with what I have in mind—"

Part of her cheered at the thought, but the rest of her shut it down ruthlessly, because the odds of Hiccup actually being allowed to make her that offer… were slim.  And if she got taunted with the possibilities, she might break down in tears.  "Have you talked us over with your father?" she pressed instead.

"I… no, I haven't." He paused for a moment. "I've been waiting for the right moment," he said sheepishly.

She turned to hide her grimace.  That was what she had been afraid that he'd say. 

He came up behind her and gently, cautiously, embraced her. 

"Do you want me to go talk to him?  I will.  If you want me to, I'll go right now."

She shook her head.  "No, it's okay.  Get your right moment.  I'll be right here."  Let him continue to think that they'd be allowed to marry.  She wasn't going to take that away from him today.  She couldn't be that cruel to him, not when she was feeling that pain herself.

He kissed the crown of her head.  "Okay.  Are you okay?"

"I'm just… I love you.  And I want you."

"Then you have me," he said, smiling into her hair. "Partners?"

"Partners."

She sighed into his shoulder.  So he wanted her.  But she still didn't know if Stoick was willing to spend his son's wedlock on a girl from his own village when there were foreign kings looking to give him an alliance.

But there was hope, at least.  And, at the very least, she was going to stay with him.  He was occasionally thoughtless, and way too proud of his own cleverness, and thought that everyone would just get along if he showed them that they could shake hands, and liked making a big show out of everything. 

And he was kind, and generous, and treated others with love, even when they didn't deserve it, and she missed sharing a bed with him so much that it _hurt_ at night. 

So, yeah.  Stoick could decide which foreign princess he'd marry his son off to.  That didn't change the fact that she'd given Hiccup her heart, and he'd given her his.  They were partners.  He crafted.  She sharpened.  He built.  She fought.  And they both protected.  And that wasn't going to change, whether she had a ring on her hand or not. 

Then there was a flapping sound, and she looked up in irritation, ready to tell off whoever was coming to bother them.

Instead, she saw a Changewing hanging on a nearby tree, looking anxiously at them as it flashed its color-changing scales.

"What is it?" she asked despite her irritation.

It chirped and flashed one last time, crafting a crude image on its skin.  She blinked.  She didn't know that they could do that, although it made sense that they could.

Then the rough scene became apparent, and Hiccup groaned.  "Another fight?"

Astrid stared, appalled.  The image was of the two Razorwhips bellowing at a crush of mixed dragons trying to get access to the Razorwhips' side chamber for whatever reason.

The Changewing nodded, which made the image distort in a gut-wrenching manner.

"What?  _Another_ fight?" she asked, startled, as the meaning in Hiccup's question penetrated.

Hiccup grimaced.  "Come on, I'll explain on the way."

###

Snotlout… _Sigurd Trondsson_ kicked his feet impatiently as he and Hookfang sat in the fancy courtyard.  His awe at the gorgeous surroundings had faded hours ago, and now he was bored. 

The messenger-urchin that Vidkunn had hired yesterday had come back with a squad of Varangians within half an hour or so.  The heavily armed and armored thanes had swaggered into the Niorion Harbor as if they owned it, each of them carrying a large Dane-ax on their back or shoulders.  The squad leader, a hulking Dane named Jorn, had promptly taken him, Hookfang and the other recruits in hand and marched them to the palace complex's barracks.  Snotlout had enjoyed the looks that the squad members had given him as they marched across the city—awe, respect, or at the very least a sense of dignity.  But the marching Varangians hadn't reacted any more than that, although the pedestrians in the streets had reacted in shock at the sight of Hookfang gamely walking along behind the squad.  Gunnar had commented quietly to Snotlout that the only reason Hookfang wasn't sparking riots was how calmly they were marching.  Everything was under control. 

Once they had reached the barracks in the palace complex, however, things had immediately turned boisterous.  A thousand Norsemen had immediately celebrated their arrival; while word of Berk's battle with the Green Death had arrived ahead of him, it had been treated as rumor at best, a fable at worse.  But now they had proof in front of their eyes, and they all wanted to know the tale.

He would have told it, too, if not for the fact that Thorred had beaten him to it. 

It turned out that his new friend fancied himself to be a skald… but one that had gotten the _wrong_ sip of the Poet's Mead.  Forced rhymes were the least of his crimes there, and Snotlout had listened to an abridged version of his tale in doggerel verses, all the while muttering curses.  Worse, Thorred's sole gift as a poet was that he _did_ have a skill at setting his words to tune… meaning that Snotlout's epic tale had been turned into fresh lyrics for a well-known _drinking song._

The only reasons Thorred had survived the night were Gunnar and Gudmund's hands on his shoulders.  Otherwise, he might have throttled the Danish thane.  In pain.  Before he drove Snotlout insane. 

Worse still, the rhymes were infectious, and he had to find a skald before they drove him reckless, or took all of the memories that he was holding precious—

Gah!

He was going to _strangle_ Thorred if he ever could wrangle a moment alone with the gangling man!

Holding his head, he gave it a forceful shake, as if to dislodge the rhymes, but that was a mistake, and it just left him with an ache. 

Hookfang sniffed at him and gave a purr as he sat, basking in the afternoon sunlight.  At least it was warm here, although the morning fog had made it clammy as they had waited.  He was waiting to meet with the _akolouthos,_ which he understood to be the native Greek head of the Guard, who would formally accept (or deny) his application to join.  The men in the barracks had laughed uproariously at the idea of him being rejected, though.  He'd been brought here by a group of Varangians an hour or so after sunrise and been told to wait.  So he had. 

Now it was after noon, and he was not only bored, he was suffering from outbreaks of painful rhymes. 

He'd already examined the courtyard.  It was splendidly decorated  with a small fountain and the walls were embellished either with pictures made of little pieces of glass, or with elaborate carvings of intricate crosses. 

But the pretty pictures had lost their appeal to him at least an hour ago, and the outbreaks of painful rhymes were getting worse and worse. 

The door opened, and he looked towards it in desperation.

An older man with light brown skin and black hair, wearing a plain silk robe and a silk hat with gold embroidery, entered the courtyard, a quartet of heavily armed and armored Varangians followed him.

Snotlout rose from his seat and, at a surreptitious gesture from one of the Varangians, he went to one knee before the _akolouthos_. 

The _akolouthos,_ for his part, was staring at Hookfang, who was looking back lazily with heavily lidded eyes, still curled up in the sunlight on the courtyard's flagstones. 

After a long moment when Hookfang didn't do anything more exciting than lay his head back down on his flank and start snoring, the _akolouthos_ turned to him. 

"I will admit that I did not believe what I had been told at first," the man said in heavily accented Norse.  "But my own eyes do not deceive me.  A dragon you have.  A dragon you have come with.  Why?  Why have you come to the service of the Empress?"

"My name is Sigurd Trondsson," Snot… Sigurd said.  "I have traveled far and risked much to serve, to lead, to gain glory and respect and renown." 

The _akolouthos_ stared at him for a long moment, and then back at Hookfang, lingering on the saddle on his friend's neck, and then back to Snotlout.   "You ride a dragon, and yet you are concerned about respect?" He shook his head.  "Norsemen.  You are all insane."

Snotlout scowled.  "If one does not find glory and respect at home, then one goes to where one is appreciated."  He looked around.  "That is here."

The functionary nodded, and looked at Hookfang again.  "I suppose.  But if you ride a dragon and had problems getting _respect_ at home, your homeland terrifies me."

Snotlout grinned at him nastily.  "Aye.  It probably would.  So, I am willing to take oath to the Guard, but I want it understood that Hookfang here," he patted the dragon on the flank, making him perk up to see what was happening, "stays with me.  I'll pay for his food and stuff out of my pocket, but if anyone tries to take him away from me, they won't live to regret it."

The man nodded.  "But as part of that, you are willing to take him into battle?"

Snotlout nodded.  "Yes.  He's tough, he's deadly, and," he gave the hand signal to Hookfang, who promptly caught fire, "we have some advantages."

Flinching at the sudden heat, the Greek man looked at him with eyes that were wide at first, and then narrowed.  "Won't you burn if he does that when you're riding him?"

Snotlout flipped up the hood on his dragon-skin jacket and leaned against his toasty dragon.  "Dragonskin armor.  I'm fireproof."

The man's eyes glittered.  "Really.  I've heard rumors to that effect, but the skin is so rare that we could never justify it for use in armor.. _._   Oh, indeed, you have possibilities, my boy.  Pray tell, have you ever heard of Greek Fire?"

He shook his head.  "Nope.  What is it?"

The other man gave him an assessing look.  "Suffice it to say that I hope that you show as much promise as the last young man from Thule that came with skill and devotion.  Do you wish to join the Guard?"

He grinned and nodded. 

"Splendid.  Simply splendid.  Our emperor is currently away from the city, but that does not prevent you from taking oath to the empress, should you wish."

Snotlout nodded again, still grinning. 

"Excellent.  I shall arrange it."

###

The torch crackled and popped as it burned in Wulfhild's hand, the heat from the flame warming her cheek.  She was pretty sure that this was potentially one of the stupidest things she had ever done in her life—and potentially the last.

But it was her choice to do it, and that thrilled her.

The torchlight reflected off of puddles of drying blood on the stones, and she grimaced.  The injured Razorwhips were somewhere up ahead.

Then she saw another torchlight ahead of her, and hesitated.

Hiccup had actually forbidden her and the rest of the New Riders from coming down here, insisting that it was too dangerous.  When the brawl had broken out in the upper reaches of the Rookery while she and her brother and their court had been at Sunday Mass, the two Razorwhips had gotten badly hurt, and had fled down into the tunnels beneath the Rookery.  Hiccup and Astrid had tried to go in after them to help treat their wounds, but the Razorwhips had chased them off with waves of razor spikes from their tails. 

They… well, they hadn't given up, exactly, but there were lots of other dragons who had gotten wounded in the brawl.  Treating them was where Hiccup and the other senior riders were now—or at least she thought so.  Maybe Hiccup had stationed a guard down here?  He had said that he was going to come back later to see if the Razorwhips had mellowed at all.

Fingering the length of linen bandages at her belt, Wulfhild stepped forward and called out, "Hello the light!"

The torchlight ahead flickered, and there was a slight feminine gasp.   Wulfhild rounded the corner to find Heather holding a torch of her own, with a satchel on her shoulder, looking frantically along the bare stone of the tunnel for a place to hide.

"I, uh, I can explain!" the younger, taller girl said, and then paused.  "Princess Wulfhild?  What are you doing down here?  I thought that you were helping up there."  She motioned upwards with her torch.

Wulfhild put her free hand on her hip.  "Funny, I thought the same about you," she said with a smile.  "Let me guess—you saw Hiccup, Astrid and Fishlegs leave those two hurt dragons alone, and figured that you'd go help them yourself?"

Heather gave a weak grin and an even weaker chuckle.  "Something like that, yeah…"

Wulfhild shook her head with a smile.  "Well, shall we then?"

"Huh?"

"We're both down here for the same reason.  I say that we work together.  Those dragons need some help."

Heather froze and looked at her intently.  "You… you want to work with me?  Together?"

Wulfhild quirked an eyebrow.  "Is there some reason I _shouldn't?_ "

"I… well… you're royalty, and I'm… I'm just a freedwoman."

Wulfhild looked her up and down and said softly, "And you're someone who cares about those dragons, same as me.  And Hiccup trusts you.  And Fishlegs trusts you.  And Stoick trusts you.  So I'll trust you."  She extended her hand.  "Shall we?"

Heather eyed her hand as if it were a snake ready to strike, and then reached out and shook almost convulsively.  "Let's."

"So, what did you bring?" Wulfhild asked, eyeing Heather's satchel.

"Um… needle and gut, boiled bandages, and some dragon nip that I… uh… _borrowed_ from one of the supply closets," Heather said quietly.

Wulfhild grinned.  "You're more prepared than me, then.  I just have bandages and some more dragon nip.  And here I was wondering why the door to the supply closet was open."

Heather laughed softly.  "I was in a hurry."

"Well, let's not keep them waiting any longer," Wulfhild said.  Heather nodded in agreement and they continued to follow the blood trail from the wounded dragons.

Wulfhild glanced up at Heather as they walked; the girl was much more skittish than she expected.  She recalled from gossip that she and Hiccup's friend Fishlegs were supposedly courting, which made her want to both sigh romantically and give a little huff of envy.  Unlike _her_ , who was "royalty," Heather the freedwoman would get to stay here and be happy, and see Wulfhild's friends every day. 

Well, the sin of envy didn't help anyone. 

In as friendly as a tone as she could, given how the pair of them were walking down a rough stone tunnel deep underground, following a trail of blood and with only their torches to give light, she said, "What strange twists fate gives us, right?"

Heather smiled slightly and nodded, sending the green gemstone hanging around her neck bouncing.  "You can say that again.  I sometimes feel like the plaything of the Norns."

"Oh yes," Wulfhild said.  "I know exactly what you mean."

"Is that so?" Heather asked almost tonelessly, but Wulfhild picked up on the slight disdain in her voice.

For a moment, she bristled at the other woman's skepticism at her own tragedy.  Then, taking a deep breath, she pushed the resentment down.  What reason did a freedwoman have to listen to the complaints of a girl of royal birth?  She remembered Alfhild, Magnus's mother, who had been a _gift_ from Wulfhild's mother to her father.  If she _hadn't_ ended up on Berk, with its strange and compelling ways, that would have been Heather's best possible fate—ending up as a toy to a powerful man, her survival dependent on the whims of fate.  And wasn't that what they were discussing?

So instead of snapping back at the younger girl and ruining any chance of making another friend, Wulfhild said mildly, "Very much so.  I certainly started off well enough.  Firstborn child of a king and all of that.  If I had been a boy-child, I would have been perfect, you know?"

Heather made an affirmative snort.  "Yep.  But then your brother came along, right?  And usurped your place?  But that's not the Norns, that's just men being men."

Wulfhild shook her head.  "He couldn't usurp my place.  He's my half-brother, and he was born to my father's concubine."

"But that would make him—"

"A bastard, yes.  But that was just the first stitch in my thread.  I was barely nine when I went from the spoiled daughter of a king, to having to flee into exile—that's a long story for another time.  Then, barely two years later, my father died in battle, trying to reclaim the throne.  My brother and I managed to survive with the support of family, but… it was grudging.  Then, then we became useful again; six years ago, a man without conscience decided that a bastard boy would make for a good puppet… and a legitimate daughter would make for good coin for marital alliances.  And my relations gave me up with a sigh of relief."

Heather gave a sharp intake of breath, sounding disgusted. 

"So, now, here I am, getting trained to fly a dragon, having a taste of freedom for myself for the first time in my life, and I find myself _envying_ you.  Because _you_ will get to choose who you will get to love, in a way that I never will.  You will get to stay here, on this beautiful, wonder-filled island, free to do as you you please, in a way that I will never have."  She turned to Heather, who was staring at her with some incredible mix of emotion on her face.  "I… I'm sorry.  I've offended you.  I… I didn't—"

"My father was a brutal and bloodthirsty tribal chieftain," Heather blurted to her.  Then she stared down at her mouth as if it had betrayed her.

"Go on…" Wulfhild said encouragingly.  She hadn't damaged this chance, this moment to make a friend.  She _hadn't_. 

"I, I, I…" Heather swallowed against a lump in her throat that Wulfhild could almost feel in sympathy.  "I… I was six when he sent me away to be a ward of an ally of his.  Then… I was ten… when… when my father died… same as you.  But… I was luckier than you.  My guardians… adopted me as their own daughter.  And… I was happy…"

Wulfhild politely pretended that the sheen of tears on Heather's eyes was from the smoke of the torches and looked away as the younger girl wiped her face on her sleeve. 

"Then Hallr came?"

"Then Hallr came," Heather said tonelessly.  "We… gods… I…"  Her voice cracked. 

Wulfhild reached out and gently embraced the other girl, who promptly put her head down on Wulfhild's shoulder and shook for a moment, dropping her torch with a clatter on the stone.  "Shuush.  It's okay.  It's okay.  We both know what it is to be under the control of conscienceless men."

Heather shook soundlessly against her embrace.  A wracking sob hit her, and Wulfhild patted her on the back.  Then the other girl dragged herself back into control in a way that Wulfhild was so very familiar with—like a mask carved from soapstone, as fake as it was fragile, hiding the truth underneath.   Still sniffing, Heather pulled away.  Sounding choked, she said, "We should get going," and bent to retrieve her torch.  They resumed walking.

After a few more half-dry blood puddles passed, Wulfhild said softly, "Friends?"

Heather, still sounding like there was a lump in her throat, said, "Friends."

"I think that we have a lot to talk about, later," Wulfhild said quietly. 

"Yeah…" Heather said.  "After dragon training?"

Wulfhild nodded.  "Before I leave to go… go home, to my own conscienceless man.  Yes."  She sighed.  "You get to stay, at least."

"I… I get to stay," Heather said, sounding even more choked than she had a moment before.  "But… but after we're done with training, I… I want to talk with you.  About all of that.  You'll understand, I think, like nobody else here will."

"Oh, I think I—Ah!"  There was suddenly a hiss of air and a line of hot-red pain down the side of Wulfhild's right cheek.  She dropped the torch and clapped her hand to her face, feeling the blood seep from the cut.

"Princess, I think we found them!"

One of the Razorwhips stepped into view in the dim light cast by the torches, her metallic plates gleaming.  She was visibly wounded, with missing or cracked scales all over her body, and there were drying lines of blood down her flanks, but that didn't reduce the deadliness of the scales poised to throw on her tail, or the look of aggressive fear in her eyes. 

Wulfhild and Heather shared a look, and took a step forward together. 

The dragon hissed and backed off, but not before sending another scale flying towards them. 

Heather dodged it.  Their eyes met in the torchlight, and Heather glanced at the wound on Wulfhild's cheek and grimaced. 

"That bad?" Wulfhild asked, trying not to talk.

"Um… here.  Let me see what I can do." 

The work of a few minutes had the cut stitched and bandaged, and Wulfhild managed to keep from screaming as Heather sewed the wound shut.  "Hopefully it won't scar badly, but I don't think that you're getting out of this without one."

Wulfhild nodded.  "Well, it missed my eye and ear, so I'll just say that it adds character." 

Heather choked, and started to laugh.  "You've been hanging around Astrid and Ruffnut too much."

"I'm still Norse, thank you," Wulfhild said with half a smile, trying not to jostle the wound, which was still agonizing.  "It really is only fun if you get a scar out of it."  She heaved herself to her feet.  "Come on.  Let's go."

Hours passed.  She and Heather would follow the two dragons deeper into the tunnels.  The dragons would hiss, threaten, throw a few scales, and then retreat, and they would continue after them.  Each time they got a little closer, until finally, on their eighth or ninth encounter, the dragons stopped retreating and threw a barrage of scales at them. 

Wulfhild and Heather stood there and waited for the hissing storm of metallic scales to end, unflinching.  None of them hit; the dragons were trying to scare them off rather than wound or kill them.  They'd learned that on the fifth or sixth encounter, when they realized that if the dragons wanted them dead, they'd be dead. 

The dragons ran out of scales, and stood there, their sides heaving, staring at the two humans, who stepped forward and slowly approached them. 

Then they reached the trembling dragons.  Wulfhild reached out gently as Heather did the same with the other dragon. 

The Razorwhip's snout was cool and smooth under her hand as she moved forward and bumped into Wulfhild's outstretched hand. 

Moving in closer, Wulfhild reached into her pouch and brought out the dragon-nip that she'd taken, and saw Heather do the same next to her.  "You'll be all right.  We're here to help you."  She took out a bandage and started to clean the wounds of the dragon, who hissed occasionally in pain, but otherwise let her get on it. 

"So… do you think that Hiccup is going to be upset with us?" Heather asked.  "Or happy that Windshear here is okay?"

Wulfhild turned and looked.  "Windshear, eh?"

Heather smiled.  "After all of that… I'm not giving her up."

"Neither am I," Wulfhild said.  "As for you…  I know what to call you," she said to the dragon.  "Mistletoe."

Heather laughed quietly as she started to clean Windshear's wounds.  "Laying on the portents a bit much there?"

Wulfhild shrugged, and continued to clean the dragon's— _her_ _dragon's_ wounds, as the dragon purred under her touch.  "Let her name be a warning to anyone that might think to take advantage of me—we are more than we appear."

Heather sighed appreciatively.  "I like it… my friend."

 

###

Snotlout… _Sigurd Trondsson_ stretched and yawned as he waited in the fancy antechamber, even as Gunnar gave him a sidelong look from the spot next to him in the ranks. 

Today was Odin's Day, four days after they had arrived; he and the other new recruits were to meet with the Empress Zoe and swear the formal oaths.  The Varangians had drilled them mercilessly for days on the ceremony, and given them the formal uniform tunics that they would wear.  He was proud of himself—he hadn't even slugged Kormak when the taller man had expressed mocking astonishment that they had uniforms in his size!

The door opened as he was in mid-stretch, and the Varangian at the door gave him a look of disapproval, and he yanked in his arms from his stretch, despite the pain that it cost him. 

Standing front and center, Snot— _Sigurd_ marched in with the others in formed ranks, the intense drill making their movements polished and precise.  They walked to the center of the room, and prostrated themselves before the empress. 

He got a brief view of a beautiful old woman, her skin a bit wrinkled—if he hadn't been told that she was in her mid-sixties, he would have guessed that she was ten or even twenty years younger—with her blond hair covered by an elaborate golden crown embellished with gemstones.  She was sitting in a richly carved throne, looking at them all assessingly.  Even the thick formal robes that she wore couldn't hide her beauty. 

Then the priests in the room stepped forward.  There were several, including one that was clearly the senior priest.  He was old, with a magnificent beard, dressed in fine golden-yellow vestments, and carrying a cross and a staff.  The others had much less fancy outfits, being dressed in black tunics with silver or gold crosses.

Sno… Sigurd smiled to himself as each of the recruits were called up one by one to take oath to the Empress of the Roman Empire by one of the younger priests. 

Finally, his turn came. 

Kneeling before the Empress, he placed his hands on a large, gold- and gem-encrusted book (which was apparently holy somehow?  How could a _book_ be holy?  Did they worship the words inside it?), and spoke his solemn oaths, administered in both Greek and Norse. 

He would be a guardian of the office of the Emperor of the Romans _._ His charge was to defend the _Basileus Rhomaíōn_ from threats within the walls of the palace, threats beyond their borders, and everywhere in between.  He would take their desires as law.  And he would act to protect and serve the Empress unto death and beyond. 

His heart was hammering in his chest.  He was now bound to this great empire.  His saga would speak of this moment as the instant where he began his rise to greatness, the personal protector of an Empress of a vast and ancient Empire.  He would be recognized as worthy of glory because of this moment and all that followed. 

His oath concluded, he took his place back in the formation, and the next Varangian recruit stood and took his own oath.  And the next, and the next, until they were done. 

And then they were marched off again, to be tested and placed with the units of the Guard. 

Except for Sigurd. 

They already had an assignment for him—to report to Jorn Eriksson, the senior commander who had brought him and the others to the barracks.

Just as he'd hoped— _known_ —that they would. 

Even now, he was getting respect and recognition for his skill, potential, and prowess. 

###

With a ruffle of parchment, Fishlegs looked up from the clipboard that Hiccup had made for him, with springs instead of pins to hold down the parchment, and said, "Well, it looks like the bulk of the laying is over."

Hiccup sighed.  "Thank the gods."  Next to him, Astrid and several of the other riders echoed the sentiment.  They were finishing up the classes for the day, having finally been able to _resume_ with the classes today after the disruption that the egg-laying had caused. 

On the positive side, the laying had given everyone a chance to put their lessons on how to interact with dragons to use.  Also, in the hubbub, several of the New Riders had bonded with their new dragons, and Hiccup would be starting the basic flying lessons for them shortly.  Ruffnut and Tuffnut would be transferring to Fishlegs' class tomorrow, having both picked their new dragons in the chaos. 

Fishlegs gave a light chuckle.  "Yeah.  I think that we'll still have a few coming in over the next few days, but I'd say at least nine out of ten of the female dragons that we knew mated have laid their eggs by now."

Astrid sighed.  "Why do they all lay at once?"

Fishlegs shrugged.  "So that they all hatch at once?"

"Okay, so why do they all hatch at once?" she asked.

"That, I don't know, but maybe so that they're hatching when the food is ready in the spring?" Fishlegs said musingly, and then shrugged.  "But it looks like average clutch size is about five to seven per mother."

Tuffnut scoffed from where he was lounging nearby against his new dragon's side.  Swift, the hot-blooded and overeager bright blue-violet Deadly Nadder, was going to be his mount as part of his sister's dowry for the mail runs through Magnus's kingdom.  Meanwhile, Barf and Belch was coming with them as their personal dragon, and would probably end up staying in Nidaros, pampered and fat.  "Don't count your dragons before they've hatched, 'Legs," he said. 

Fishlegs held up his clipboard.  "Too late."

They all laughed. 

"So we've got them all down in the Broodery at the moment, and it's warming up down there nicely," Fishlegs continued.  "We're a little cramped—okay, a lot cramped, but we can expand out."

"Any problems down there?" Astrid asked.

Fishlegs shook his head.  "No.  We've got enough hands to help with the eggs for now, and we've got the Terrible Terrors and Changewings helping out, too."

There was a sound of two arguing dragons from nearby the training pit, and Hiccup felt himself tense in case he had to break up another fight. 

Then he heard Yngvarr's voice lightly scolding the dragons, followed by the sounds of the dragons purring.  There was a flapping sound, and Yngvarr, mounted bareback on the green Nadder that he'd bonded with, took to the air nearby.  They were followed by the adolescent Timberjack Hatchet, the Scauldron, the Hobblegrunt and the pair of Terrible Terrors which Yngvarr had _also_ inadvertently bonded with over the last several chaotic days. 

A meaningful look was shared between the riders in the clearing, and then Tuffnut coughed.  "So, um, anyone want to update their bets on which one he'll get to keep?"  As Hiccup started to open his mouth, Tuff said, "Except you, Hiccup.  You too, Astrid.  You're not allowed in the pool."

Hiccup sputtered as Fishlegs rolled his eyes.  "What, I don't get banned too?"

"You can't change who'll win with a word," Tuffnut said dismissively.  "Anyway, I wanna go flying with Barf and Belch so he doesn't get upset."  He turned to his sister.  "Coming?"

She grimaced and held a hand to her stomach.  "I feel sick.  Take Magnus."

Magnus glanced at Ruffnut, glanced at Tuffnut, dramatically slumped to communicate who he'd rather spend time with, and then stood.  "C'mon, Tuff," he said, clapping his brother-in-law on the shoulder.  "Let's go for a flight."

As the twins and Magnus walked off, Hiccup could hear Tuffnut asking, "So, have you picked one yet?"

"I'm still deciding…"

Shaking his head, Hiccup took Astrid's hand and the group of them started to walk back to the village proper from the training pit.  Others were moving ahead of them on foot, while more were lazily flying about in the area.

Smiling, Hiccup ran through the list in his head.  Ruffnut had settled on a lazy Hotburple that she'd named Slag, while Tuffnut had Swift.  Both dragons would be going to Norway soon, along with the Gronckle and Whispering Death that their parents had picked and started to train. 

Mark Leosson had found a Gronckle with a sweet, even temperament and named him Eitri, while his brother Roald had found a deep blue Nadder with a playful attitude and named him Cuan.  Eindride was still vacillating between his choices, while Thane Vlademar Gunniovich had found a Hobblegrunt that he'd named Bergljót. 

Yngvarr… well, paralyzed with indecision among the dragons he'd _already_ bonded with was probably the best way to describe that situation.  Hiccup's dad had commented that he would have thought it for a ploy to get more dragons if not for the reality of how Yngvarr was acting. 

Of the freedmen, half of the eight had already picked and bonded dragons, including…

Hiccup sighed.  Wulfhild and Heather.  The two of them had taken a crazy risk in going in after the wounded Razorwhips, and the only reason he hadn't chewed them both out for the risk was knowing that they could easily reply with, _What, and making friends with a Night Fury was a safer idea?_

He was just glad that they were both okay, at least.

Just then, he heard an angry shout, and saw Wulfhild marching across the bridge towards them, Mistletoe bringing up the rear.  Both woman and dragon looked furious. 

"You!" she pointed, and Hiccup felt his stomach drop, until she pushed past them and stalked up to Eindride, who was behind them. 

"You, you—!"

For all that Wulfhild was nearly a foot shorter than Hiccup, the sheer fury she was radiating at the moment made him give serious consideration to backing off, but then Astrid's hand clenched around his and they were turning back and walking over to the confrontation. 

Eindride, surrounded by three dragons and with an angry princess in his personal space, gave a weak smile.  "Yes, milady?"

She slapped him with a scroll of parchment in the chest, which made his eyes go wide in surprise.  "You—!"

"What's wrong?" Hiccup asked quietly. 

She turned and shoved the scroll into his hand, and then went back to glaring at Eindride.  " _Someone_ decided that the best use for the new Dragon Mail was to start gossiping to his father.  So I just got a lecture about how foolish I was to risk myself and my 'beauty', and how no man will want me if I'm scarred," she said furiously, and then thumped Eindride in the chest with the tip of her finger.  The bright red of the cut and stitches on her cheek stood out lividly even as she was flushed with anger.

Hiccup grimaced and unfurled the scroll.  Astrid leaned over and looked it over with him.  Hiccup scowled as he started to read, and Astrid inhaled sharply through her nose, her lips pressed thinly together.  Wulfhild had given the highlights, but she'd left out the bits about Einar's insulting and belittling tone, for starters. 

Eindride crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow.  "He's trying to do what's best for you, Highness.  And he's completely right, too.  That's why you're so angry and taking it out on me.  But I'll just take this as part of my service to House Fairhair."

Wulfhild's hands clenched and she made wordless angry noises at him before turning and hopping on Mistletoe's back.  The pair of them dropped over the side of the bridge and took flight.

Eindride heaved a sigh of relief and muttered something about how the girls here were a bad influence.  Hiccup shot him a dirty look and then shared a look of concern with Astrid.  Then they hopped into Toothless and Stormfly's saddles and went off in pursuit. 

Wulfhild was furious, but Mistletoe was still wounded and neither of them were used to flying together, so Hiccup and Astrid caught up quickly. 

"You okay?" Hiccup called out to her. 

"I, I, I just _hate_ this.  I was doing so well here, I was happy, and now…  now I'm being reminded that I'm nothing more than a piece of royal meat for sale.  And God forbid that I _not_ be a prime cut!"  She glared at Hiccup.  "I'm trying very hard not to blame you two for this!"

Hiccup shared a pained grimace with Astrid.  Yeah… he could understand that.  Einar wasn't safely away on a month's journey.  He was three days away—and that was apparently close enough for him to be an overbearing petty tyrant to their friend.  And that was because of them. 

"Should we leave you alone?" Astrid asked. 

Wulfhild paused and then nodded convulsively.  "I… I would appreciate that."

"We'll talk tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," Wulfhild said, starting to sniffle, her body language turning inward, her shoulders hunched. 

Still sharing a look of concern, he and Astrid banked away from their upset friend and went back to the village.

As the afternoon wore on, Hiccup found himself hoping that Wulfhild would be okay.  She'd become one of his best friends, and the hurt in her voice made him want to give her a hug.  But Astrid wasn't doing much better; she was still moping about whatever it was that had been bothering her since Sunna's Day, and deflected every single time he tried to bring it up. 

As the sun was setting and the two of them were going for a flight, he figured that he would try again.

"Astrid?  Can… can we talk?"

She sighed slowly and said, "Yes?"

"What's wrong?  This isn't like you," he said softly.

She bit her lip and said after a moment, "It's not something that you can help with."

"Then I'll go talk to my dad.  He can he—"

"Hiccup, no!  It's okay."

"But—"

She and Stormfly were banking to land, and he glanced down to see that they were at the cove.

Sighing, he and Toothless went after them.

Landing, he hopped out of the saddle, only to get immediately pulled into a kiss and a crushing hug by his lover. 

"Ast—Astrid," he said, garbled by her kisses.  "What's gotten into you?"

"You have," she said breathlessly.  "You've gotten into my life, under my skin… and I want you."

Hiccup blinked at the raw, pained emotion in her voice, and kissed her back.  If he couldn't get her to talk about what it was that was bothering her, then he'd at least reassure her that he loved her and supported her and wanted her too. 

They didn't notice when the sun went down. 

###

Snotlout and Hookfang were out flying with Jorn, the senior Varangian currently present in Constantinople, as the majority of the Varangians were off with the Emperor as he dealt with an uprising in someplace called Bulgaria.  They were a few hundred feet over the city rooftops, and the hardened soldier sitting behind him was staring at the view with wide-eyed glee.

"The problem is, I don't know what to _do_ with you!  Anything we assign you to will almost be a waste of your potential!"

"What do you mean?"

"Look!  You could be a scout," he pointed to a distant ship coming in under sail, "or a piece of mobile siege weaponry," he pointed at the gates to the city, "or something that gives us some other advantage over the enemy!  Imagine a line of fire that separates two enemy battalions!  Together, they'd be hard to defeat, but alone, we could crush them one at a time!"

Snotlout nodded.  "I see!"  And he did see, so very much.

Miklagård was vast beneath them.  He had never imagined such a hive of people before.  According to Jorn, nearly three hundred thousand people sheltered behind the city walls, and it seemed as if all of them were standing in the streets and pointing upwards as they flew overhead.  The largest city in the known world, and he was the center of their attention. 

Jorn paused in talking about his ideas for the uses of dragons, and then gazed into the distance of the Marmara Sea, holding his hand up over his brow to shield his eyes from the sun.  Then he pointed.  "I see galleys!  Let's go take a look!"

They flew off to the west, and a few minutes later, the fleet sailing across the sea became clear. 

"It's the emperor and Sir Harald!  Let's greet them!"

Snotlout grinned, and directed Hookfang appropriately.  They flew across the miles of seawater to the oncoming fleet, and at the right moment they dove. 

As they landed moments later on the deck of the largest galley, Snotlout basked in the sounds of the shocked and surprised sailors and soldiers.  It was the largest ship he had ever seen, a double-banked beast of a ship, with high castles at fore and aft, and hundreds of oars, and it was just one of a fleet. 

A tall blond Norseman dressed in Roman finery, perhaps a decade older than Sigurd and at least a foot or so taller, was standing there unruffled and dressed in Roman finery, flanked by a few dozen other Norsemen.  As Hookfang bowed and let S…Sigurd and Jorn off onto the deck, the Norseman quirked an eyebrow, which was higher than its partner, and said,  "Jorn, what is this?"

"Miracles from home, apparently.  This fine new recruit brings his personal mount, this loyal beast, to the Emperor's protection.  He has letters of introduction from your nephew's house, and has already sworn oath to the Empress.  We were out exercising the beast and discussing possibilities when we saw you approaching."

Harald Sigurdsson, uncle to King Magnus the Good, veteran of hundreds of battlefields at the age of twenty-six, seniormost member of the Varangian Guard for skill and merit, looked at Sigurd and Hookfang.

And smiled. 

"Well, then! Welcome, young man and valiant beast!  You join a fine tradition of service and honor among the Norsemen!"

###

The door to the chieftain's hut creaked open, and Hiccup's distinctive step- _click_ sounded on the wood.  Like all young men trying to be quiet in the middle of the night, he somehow managed to be louder than if he had simply entered normally. 

Gobber looked up from his seat at the table where he'd been going over figures and permitted himself a nice, deep, throat-clearing cough.

Hiccup whirled, staggered on his peg, and collapsed in a heap.

"Gob—Gobber!  What are you doing here?"

Gobber stood and hopped over to look down at Hiccup, who had managed to land in a tangled heap of lanky limbs and half-on clothing and was struggling to get back to his feet.  The boy _stank_ of mingled sweat, there were a pair of darkening love bites on either side of the base of his neck, and his clothes looked like he had thrown the pieces on in a hurry in the dark after they had languished in a pile for several hours, with the ties either undone or done poorly.  The nail-scratches barely visible on his back above his trousers, as he started to pick himself up off of the floor and his shirt rode up, were also eye-opening.

Rather than commenting, Gobber said sternly, "Working on managing the food supplies with Stoick.  Yer dad stepped out for a bit to use the latrine."  Which, Gobber was fairly certain, was why Hiccup had tried to enter just now.  "But why are yeh coming in so late?  Yeh have a class to teach in the morning."

Hiccup gave perhaps one of the most magnificent blushes that Gobber had ever seen on the young man.  It was worthy of skaldic odes.  He hopped to his feet half-gracefully instead of responding, also trying to hide his blushing face from Gobber as part of the same motion. 

Gobber reached out to steady the lad, and when he laid his hand on Hiccup's shoulder, he felt a strand under his fingers.  He plucked the blond hair off of Hiccup's shirt and held it critically up to the light.  "Mmm.  I don't think that this is your color," he teased.

"Gobber!"

"What?  You still haven't answered my question, lad.  What were you doing out this late?"

Hiccup looked at his feet, and mumbled something.

Waggling an eyebrow, Gobber said, "Lad.  Yer like a son to me, and even though yer an adult now, yeh were my ward, so I think I can ask this."

"…yes?"

Gobber rolled his eyes.  At least Stoick wasn't back yet from the latrine.  "How long have yeh and Astrid been sleeping together?"

"I… um… I…"

"Hiccup.  How long?"

Hiccup seemed to melt a bit and said, "Since we got to Norway."

Gobber couldn't keep the smile off of his face anymore and beamed at Hiccup, who was still looking down.  "So this wasn't a first time?"

"No…  it's why… why I was missing on Washday, too.  We… we… that picnic you packed…"  He glanced up at Gobber, and then did a magnificent double-take.  "Wait, you're not mad?"

"Hiccup.  I'm thrilled for yeh.  So will yer dad.  Do yeh think he or I would be mad you found someone who makes yeh this happy—and I presume yeh make her happy in return?" 

"Well, I could have started a clan war…"

Gobber snorted.  "Hiccup.  I don't know if yeh've noticed or not, but the Hoffersons think the world of yeh.  I think they're waiting for a formal offer, though."  He frowned slightly.  "Yeh _are_ planning on marrying her, right?  This isn't some dalliance—"

Hiccup exploded and pushed past him to the table.  "No!  I'm going to!  I…" he grinned painfully as he sat.  "I actually… I actually wanted to talk with you on ideas."

Gobber sat down opposite and reached out his hand.  "Hiccup.  How much do yeh have in mind?  Because I know that yer dad can help y—"

"I want to give her and her clan complete control over the Dragon Mail and all of the profits from it when we get it up and running," he said bluntly.  "That way, whenever people see mail dragons in the sky, they'll know it's for _her."_

Gobber reeled for a moment and then said, deadpan, "Aye, that's a bride price worthy of note, I'd say."  And so very much Hiccup.  Never do anything small or uncomplicated.  Impress the village about your worth?  Build a weapon to shoot down Night Furies.  Bride price for the girl he loved?  Build a network of dragons that he planned to have criss-cross Europa.  Of course.  "But, lad, that might take _years_ to build up _._   And what if the Mail fails…?"

"That's why I haven't offered yet!  But it's the best thing that I have to offer!"  Hiccup slumped again, and Gobber could see Astrid's teeth marks on his shoulder from across the table, even in the dim lighting.  That was worth a raised eyebrow. 

There was a moment of quiet, while Hiccup sat.  Gobber thought to himself that trying to convince Hiccup that he didn't need to give Astrid the world as her bride price would just have the lad dig in his heels more.  He suppressed a snort as he remembered _Stoick_ pining over Valka in almost exactly the same way.  His nephew, Val's father, had made out like a bandit with the profits from the two dozen dead dragons that Stoick had finally given—and the only reason he hadn't gone for three dozen was that Gobber had arranged for his grand-niece and his friend to get locked in a room with a bottle of imported wine and a bed for an afternoon where she had told him that she wasn't willing to wait any longer. 

He eyed the love bites on Hiccup's neck.  Obviously, that approach wasn't working for this generation. 

And, of course, the lad had tried to sneak in rather than have this very talk with Stoick.  Hiccup was very good at avoiding Uncomfortable Talks with his father… although, to be fair, he was just as bad as Stoick was in that department.  Stoick hadn't initiated things either, and he was supposedly the responsible one. 

Gobber had a brief fantasy of locking father and son into a room with a quill, an inkwell, and a sheet of parchment reading 'Marriage proposal to Astrid clan Hofferson from Hiccup clanheir Haddock' at the top, and nothing else, and not letting them out until they had talked and written things out. 

He drummed his fingers on the table, and said, "Hiccup.  Do yeh have any other ideas?  Because she might get snapped up by someone if yeh don't move."

Hiccup suddenly looked stricken.  "Oh, gods, was that the problem?"  He leaned across the table.  "Gobber, you hear things!  Has anyone made an offer for her?"

Gobber shrugged.  "Not that I've heard, lad."  He tapped his tankard-hand on the table.  "But yeh _might_ want to pick up the pace a bit.  I don't think that a long courtship is really in the cards for either of yeh—and, anyway, it's been a year already."

"Six months," Hiccup insisted.  "Legally.  Since Thawfest."

Gobber fixed the lad with a level stare that made him squirm.  Legally, the lad and lass were in violation of several laws against premarital activity, but then so was Gobber for aiding and abetting.  If they were betrothed already, those laws would still technically apply, but the general attitude would shift from ' _you two are in trouble if you get caught'_ to ' _I remember having to dodge the chaperons during my betrothal period too, that was fun.'_ Then again, given that just about nobody in the village didn't already know that the pair were intimate and nobody had raised a fuss yet… did that make them betrothed or not?  Eh.  Either way, it was time for Hiccup to knuckle down and take that ambiguity out of this whole affair. 

"Okay, fine, a year.  But what is there to give that's good enough?"  Hiccup shrugged and scoffed.  "I mean, I even thought about giving them all of the Nadders from the wild flock!  But, but that just felt… wrong!"

Gobber shrugged.  "Not to mention impractical.  Any other ideas?"

"Well, Fishlegs had this idea for a glassworks with all of the sand that the Boulder-classes are making, but…" Hiccup splayed his arms helplessly.  "Same problem as the Dragon Mail!  It might take years to be profitable!"

"What about giving them rights over that sand?" Gobber suggested.

Hiccup gave him a level, narrow-eyed look.  "Right, because there's _no_ way that people in this village might not find a way to make a _joke_ out of _dragon-shit sand."_

Gobber grimaced.  "Aye… point there."

Hiccup clenched his teeth and hissed out through them.  "You know how tongues wag about the bride prices and dowries!  Remember how they all mocked Hazelnut when she married Aodh, and he could barely pay the minimum?  And people remembered that Dogsbreath had said… said _that_ about her, and they said that Aodh had paid the 'appropriate price for used goods'?!"

"Aye, I remember," Gobber said sourly.  It had been painful to watch, and certain peoples had mysteriously found their blacksmithing orders moved to the bottom of the queue. 

Hiccup kept going.  "I don't even want to _imagine_ what they'd say if the 'Hero of Berk'," his tone was mocking, "paid a 'normal' bride price?  How they'd make her out to be some kind of, of, of—"

Gobber held up his hand.  "I got it.  Yeh needn't say it."

Hiccup slumped.  "Great.  Now I made myself sad."

"Eh, what's to be sad about?" Gobber said.  "I'm sure that yeh'll think of something appropriate."  He smirked.  "One thing yeh've never had a problem with, Hiccup, is coming up with ideas."

Hiccup shook his head.  "Not this time.  Ideas I've got, but I've been trying to actually think it all through, rather than going off without planning it out—which isn't easy without my 'whetstone' to help—and I keep running into one of two problems."

Gobber snorted.  "And why _not_ get Astrid's input on it?  She _is_ the one that helps yeh with yer ideas."

"I've been thinking that I'm going to do exactly that if I can't think of something soon!" Hiccup said despairingly.  "Even if it ruins the surprise!  But with every decent idea I have, I find that either it'll take years, or take more resources than we _have,_ even with the increase in the number of merchants coming in!"

Gobber grimaced.  "Then talk to the lass.  Take the time this Washday, when yeh don't have classes to teach, and talk with her about what to give her—and what she'll find acceptable.  I'll cover for yeh both, so long as yeh promise yeh will spend the time talking and not…" he quirked an eyebrow at Hiccup's state.

Hiccup blushed and nodded.  "I'll… I'll do that."

With a pat on Hiccup's shoulder, Gobber stood and made a shooing motion for the door to the house.  "Get yerself cleaned up.  Yeh have a busy day tomorrow, and if yeh show up looking like that, the Hoffersons will be honor-bound to make a complaint." 

Hiccup nodded tiredly; before he could shut the door, Gobber made one last parting shot with a smile.  "I'd recommend wearing something with a high collar tomorrow.  But she has good teeth, it looks like." 

He savored the look of surprise on Hiccup's face for a moment and then turned back to his work. 

"Argh!" he heard as the door shut, and smiled.

###

Hiccup looked on with pride as Magnus's hand touched the Monstrous Nightmare's snout.  The big golden dragon began to purr, and his friend looked ecstatic.  Magnus quickly pulled out some dragon-nip from the pouch on his belt and gave the big golden-yellow and black dragon a rub on the snout with it, which made the dragon's purr even louder.  The dragon gave the king a claiming lick, and rubbed up against him affectionately.  The two of them began to play, and after twenty minutes and some friendly horn wrestling, King Magnus was mounted on his very own dragon's back for his first independent flight around the enclosed training pit.

It ended about as well as could be expected, with the king laughing as he dangled from the belaying lines that held him to the abbreviated training saddle, the Nightmare playfully hanging upside-down from the chain net.

After an hour of watching a king do his best to tame a dragon, and the dragon starting to get the hang of having a rider on its back, Hiccup let the pair out of the training pit so that the next person could start getting to chase down _their_ dragon, hopefully before the sun set on the day. 

Seamus, the seventeen-year-old carpenter, with flaming red hair and freckled to the point where it looked like he had gotten a spray of blood in the face, was next in the training pit after Magnus, trying to get his Timberjack to settle down.

He had just reached the point of being able to touch the dragon's nose when the town's horn blew. 

Once… twice… three times… 

Incoming ships.  That was hardly unusual these days.  Hiccup paid it no mind, more worried about whatever was bothering Astrid.  Last night… gods, he was glad he _could_ find a shirt that could cover up the marks that she'd left on him.  Whatever in Freyja's name was wrong, he wanted to know, so that he could fix it.  He'd even considered tossing _her_ into the cove's pond, but the odds of him actually _winning_ that kind of grapple were… slim. 

Well, he'd had a talk with his dad this morning about her, and—

The horn blew again, one long sustained note.

_Hostile_ ships.

###

Astrid, hand-in-hand with Hiccup and with half of their friends running behind them, ran across the bridge and up to the village square in front of the mead hall, where Stoick was visible giving orders and receiving reports. 

More dragons that she recognized as belonging to the patrol scouts were taking flight as they ran towards the chief.  If not for the fact that people were _riding_ the dragons and the sun was in the sky, she might have thought that it was another raid, and for a brief moment, she had the strangest sense of bizarre nostalgia. 

Shaking her head, she pushed it away; it might have been a year, but old habits died hard.  People were preparing for battle; herding the livestock into barns, grabbing weapons, and forming up into squads. 

As they reached Stoick, he was saying, "—and send all of the children and elders into the Rookery, and seal the doors!"

People called acknowledgments as he turned to her, Hiccup, and their friends. 

"Dad, what's going on?" Hiccup asked. 

Stoick huffed, and then said grimly, "We have a war fleet ten leagues out, approaching from the south.  Ross estimated a hundred ships, at least.  Thousands of soldiers.  He's fine, but Ragnvaldr got shot down by massed archers as he went to challenge them.  I can only assume that he and his dragon are dead."

Astrid felt her heart twist at the news.  She wasn't close to Ragnvaldr, but the clanless freedman had been a solid member of the tribe, and she had worked with him regularly when planning out the patrol patterns. 

Stoick turned and addressed a group of the traders who had come up behind them from the improvised market ground.  "You lot, either batten down your ships or clear the harbor!  I want to promise you safety, but your best chance might be to run for it to the north or west!"

One of them started asking questions, before his companions took him by the arms and started running back to the market to pack. 

The chief turned back to her, Hiccup, and the others.  "I've dispatched more scouts; their orders are to fly high, avoiding engaging and report back."

Behind her, Magnus sucked in air through his teeth and made an angry grunt.  "Harthacnut.  It has to be him."

"Why do you say that?" Hiccup asked him.

"Who else could it be?  An army that size here?  In _autumn,_ before the harvest?  He must have heard that I was here and panicked."  He looked apologetically at the chief.  "Stoick, I'm sorry.  I brought this down upon your home."

The older man patted the king on the back.  "You didn't.  If I have to blame _anyone_ for that, it's my idiot nephew."

Spitelout, standing nearby and organizing people's armaments, turned and scowled, before saying angrily, "After this is over—"

"We might be dead.  If you want to claim insult on behalf of your son who poked the hornet's nest and left us to deal with the swarm, I'll happily meet you on the _holmgang_ tomorrow _,_ Spitelout.  But for now, uphold your oath and _do your job,_ " Stoick said in a voice of iron. 

The marshal swore and turned, issuing orders to the other riders.

Magnus watched the interplay between Stoick and Spitelout, frowning.  Astrid could tell that he still blamed himself, regardless of what Stoick said to the contrary.

Ruffnut came running up and hugged her husband like she was afraid of losing him, as they all stood in the center of the chaos.  Tuffnut came in close behind, and Magnus's own courtiers were also quickly assembling. 

Magnus looked firmly at Stoick.  "We will join your forces for the counter-attack," he said.

Stoick shook his head.  "No."

"I swore an oath!"

"And you're untrained to ride your dragon!"

"How can you uphold your honor and demand that I not do the same?" Magnus demanded.

"You have no heir, son—" Stoick said, and cut himself off as Ruffnut flushed and Magnus averted his eyes. 

Stoick's jaw dropped for a moment, and then he composed himself and said mildly, "That was fast."

Tuffnut looked at the two of them in incomprehension, and then in awe.  Magnus's councilors wore expressions in a mix of surprise, joy, and fear—the last at the oncoming battle, Astrid suspected. 

Ruffnut stepped forward.  "I only noticed this past Washday… but my courses are late."  She grimaced.  "They might just be late… it happens…"

"But given the circumstances, _you_ are not going out there," Stoick said firmly.  "I don't care if you're legally a part of Magnus's House now, you're still part of my tribe.  No."  He looked at Magnus.  "And you!  No, I am _not_ letting your child grow up with a crown and no father.  I'll get Thornado to sit on you if I have to."

Magnus started to open his mouth as his marshal interrupted him.  "Sire.  He's right.  We are your sworn sword arm.  Let us take the field so that we may protect you."

There was suddenly a rush of air, and Hammeredge clan Ingerman and his Nadder Nailbag landed at the edge of the tight knot around Stoick. "Chief!  I did an overflight and came straight back.  They're eight or ten leagues south, heading straight for us.  About a hundred and forty ships, packed full of infantry or archers."

Magnus grimaced.  "Figure fifty to sixty men per ship…"

Hiccup swore.  "By Thor.  We're outnumbered ten to one.  There are seven or eight thousand soldiers heading our way."

Stoick grimaced.  "And we have only a few hours of light left.  Aye…" he nodded.  "I see his plan now.  Old Viking raid tactic."

Eindride nodded in agreement, grimacing.  "The dawn sneak raid."

"Aye.  Take us unawares; people would be asleep and so would the dragons."  He looked up.  "Well, that's not going to happen.  Ready the dragons!  We're taking the fight to them!"

He turned and looked at Magnus.  "I will go to oversee this fight.  _You,_ " he pointed at Magnus, "And you," he pointed at Hiccup, "are flying with me.  Where I can keep an eye on you both and keep you from doing anything foolish."

"Again," Astrid deadpanned, looking at her lover. 

"Aye," Stoick said, giving her a nod.  "In fact…"  He looked at the three of them.  "I'll have yer oaths that you'll stay out of the fight unless I give yeh orders to."  He crossed his arms resolutely. 

Hiccup and Magnus both protested.  "But—!"

Stoick inhaled sharply and stared at the two young men until their heads drooped.  "If it makes yeh feel any better, the three of yeh—" he glanced at Astrid, "can consider yerselves to be my couriers for orders, plus rescuing any casualties.  Does that make yeh feel better?"

Astrid grimaced, and saw identical expressions on both Magnus and Hiccup, but she nodded first.  "It does, chief."  She bowed.  "I swear."

Magnus and Hiccup looked at her, gaping, but did the same after a moment. 

"Good.  Now mount up.  We have a fleet to deal with."

###

Heather, leading Windshear, looked out at the milling crowd of people and dragons, and thought to herself that this was her chance.  A better distraction than this, she would never have.  And… and it was less risky than actually following through with her half-impulsive idea to confess everything to Wulfhild after dragon training.  While the princess was outside the Hooligan power structure, and Heather could give her revelations in small bits to see how the older girl reacted, she still didn't know _how_ the royal girl would react, despite their fragile, newborn friendship—especially the admission that, despite what Wulfhild thought, no, she _wasn't_ free.  But she was drowning in silence, and, and the idea of confessing to Fishlegs… hurt too much. 

She entered her room in the barracks, leaving Windshear outside, as the dragon was too big to join her.  Grabbing the sheaf of punched parchments from under the bed, she shoved them into a bag and ran back outside, leaving Windshear at the barracks.  She regretted the necessity, but people would _notice_ the Razorwhip…

The chaos of everyone running in every direction, with people shouting, dragons bellowing to each other, the rush of wings, and other assorted commotions was the perfect cover, and no one questioned her.  She ran up the several pathways and stairs to the Ingerman house; Fishlegs' room was on the upper story, and he kept the book there.

She slipped inside without notice and made her way up the stairs to Fishlegs' room.  Opening the door, she swallowed hard.  She had hoped that this room would be the place she'd know happiness… and not where she would betray him.

But she had no choice. 

Trying hard not to look at the rest of the room, especially not the bed, she made her way to his scribing desk against the wall by the window, where the book was usually kept.

It wasn't there. 

She swallowed hard, tasting bile at the back of her throat, trying to keep her dinner down and hating herself.  Then she turned and started to search the rest of the room frantically. 

Parchment in hand, she looked in the crowded bookcase, under Meatlug's sleeping slab…

She turned to consider the bed and froze. 

Fishlegs was standing in the doorway.  Watching her.  His expression was filled with fear and confusion. 

"Heather… what are you doing?"

"I'm, I'm…"

Then she saw the book in his hands; her eyes widened, and she dropped the sheaf of parchment, which scattered on the floor.

And that seemed to be enough.

His face… _broke,_ and he stood straighter in the doorway, blocking it.  "Why?  Why do you want the book?"

Feeling the lies and half-truths of the last few months falling down around her, she felt her heart rip in two, even as she looked around the room for a way out.  "I can explain!  It's not what it looks like!"

"Save it!" he said, a never-before-heard note of anger entering his voice.  "You're the spy, aren't you?  _Aren't you!?"_   He dropped the book on the floor, making the corner of the cover dent, and knocked it back into the hallway with his heel, half-crying, half-yelling, tears starting to stream down his cheeks.  "I _trusted_ you!  I argued with _Stoick and Gobber and Spitelout that you couldn't be the spy!_ "

Her eyes widened and started to fill with tears at the sound of pain in his voice and the matching pain in her own heart, and she tried to dart around him to get the book, and the door.  He blocked her with surprising speed.

She pulled back, which made him start to move forward implacably. 

_"Was it all a lie?!"_ he raged at her.

Swallowing hard, she shook her head.  "No… gods no.  I love you, Fishlegs.  But…" She tried to dive under his outstretched arm now that she had drawn him away from the door, only to have the arm swing around her with berserker speed, pinning her to his side.

She was caught, and an instant later, he hauled her up in front of him, holding her by her upper arms, his fingers clenched like a carpenter's clamp around her limbs. 

"You… you… was any of it true?  _Any of it?_ " he roared.  She didn't know what was worse.  The rage, the disappointment, or the choking despair in his voice, or the tears flowing down his face that matched her own. 

She tried to wiggle free, and found that she had no leverage and no give in his vise-like hands.  She tried to kick him, to scratch at him, to do _something_ to make him flinch, but, even as her nails drew blood, he just held her, his arms held out from his body at full extension.

Exhausted, she went limp, hoping that he might loosen his grip and whispered, "Yes…  I love you.  That's true.  And I'm so, so, so sorry…"

If anything, his grip tightened.  Based on how her fingers were starting to go numb, she would almost certainly have hand-shaped bruises on her arms if she lived through this. 

But… she'd grown up seeing people go into berserker rages—and this was the first time she'd _ever_ seen a berserker maintain control like this. Given how his arms weren't even quivering, he likely could have dislocated her arms from shoulders with a moment's effort.  Even when he had every reason to inflict pain on her for the sake of pain—even when her fingernails had turned his forearms into mince that would require stitches and bandaging, even when his face was streaming with tears…

_He wasn't using any more force than necessary to hold her still._

He probably didn't even realize that he was hurting her with his grip, because if he wanted to actually hurt her, all he had to do was… twist.

And the only reason she could see for him to hold back like that… to keep from inflicting well-deserved pain on her… was that, even after all of the lies… after getting caught in the act of betraying him… he _didn't want to hurt her._

She felt her heart break. 

"I'm taking you to Stoick!" he screamed at her between sobs.  "Try lying to _him!"_

"I—"

"No!  No more lies!"  He turned and started to march for the door, holding her with his arms at full extension, his hands tightening further on her arms, and her shoulders screaming from the motion.

"Fishlegs… you're hurting me…" she gasped, and, despite the rage flowing through his face, his grip loosened.

For a brief, clear instant, Heather saw it unfold like a dream.  Twist free, taking sickening advantage of his innate mercy.  Make a swift kick of her booted foot into his groin.  Even with his control, that would hurt him enough to make him fall to his knees.  A kick to the face to knock him out while he was down.  Maybe kill him if she wasn't careful, or he was unlucky.  Grab the book.  Leave him there, unconscious or dead, at the threshold to his own bedroom.  Close the door so that he wouldn't be found.  Head over to the Broodery, which was being packed with people and supplies, and sneak out with some eggs under some excuse that no one would check in the current chaos.  Load them up in a net and fly off before the battle was joined, and fly west and then south to Vedrarfjord… where she would have to trust a piece of scum like King Adalwin to fulfill his mocking word to her.

All she had to do… was continue as she had.

Or… take a risk.

She twisted in his slackened grip.

###

Astrid looked around her as they flew southward, taking in the battle flock.  A hundred and twenty dragons and their riders, all of which she'd helped train in combat techniques, surrounded her and Stormfly.  Immediately on either side of her were Hiccup on Toothless, and Magnus, on the golden Nightmare that he'd named Brand.  The sun was almost to the horizon, perhaps two handspans above that distant edge, hanging off to their right as they flew southwards, towards the oncoming fleet. 

They were holding together in a tight flock, and Stoick began to give orders for battle tactics, projecting his voice in a booming bellow so that everyone could hear him. 

"Aim for sails, and try to get fires going!" he projected.  "Fire is our friend!  Do _not_ stay going in a straight line for more than a few moments; that's an invitation to archers!  With this many ships, we'll try to nibble at the edges and weaken them!  If _anyone_ tries a stupid glory-hungry stunt like flying up the middle of the fleet within range of their bows, _if_ you manage to survive, I will take away your dragon from under your risk-taking arse!"

Astrid nodded in acknowledgment, even though she had sworn an oath to stay out of the fighting.  Then she looked around at the flock again, trying to bolster her confidence. 

So many dragons… but, really not that many.  They had fewer combat-trained riders than there were ships coming in. 

Hiccup sighed next to her. 

"What?" she asked.

"Our _best_ hope is to break the fleet's fighting spirit and send them fleeing home.  You know what Dad said about dragons versus ships that know what they're doing; if they hold together…" he trailed off ominously.

She grimaced and nodded.  This would be a fight for their lives.

Then she saw the smudge on the horizon.  As they flew closer, the scope of what they were up against became clear.

"God in Heaven," Magnus choked out from next to her, and Hiccup took hold of his Mjolnir pendant and started to pray.  "Odin, help us," she whispered.

Even from leagues away, they could see the overlapping arrowheads of the ships' wakes, and, as they flew closer, the forest of masts that propelled the ships across the water resolved themselves into view—and they could see men furling the sails and taking them off of the masts in preparation to fight. 

As they reached the point where they could see the thousands of men aboard, they could hear them shouting, armed and ready to fight. 

Her heart hammering in her chest, her hands clammy with fear, Astrid hovered above the water with Stoick, Spitelout, Hiccup, Magnus, Yngvarr and Eindride, mounted either on their own dragons or on ones borrowed from the Thorston dowry.  And they watched.

Their defenders flew down towards the fleet to engage.  Splitting into columns, they interwove, trying to get close enough to the ships to spit fire at them.

Astrid's uncle Glenn and his Nightmare Frostbane were at the head of the first column to close.

She watched them die.  Suddenly a shout of _Loose!_ echoed up from the ships, and a cloud of arrows shot out to meet them, even as the dragon breathed fire.  They writhed in midair and fell into the water with a splash even as she cried out in pain and denial.  Worse, it was for _nothing_.  Frostbane's breath mostly fell short of the ship, and the small portion that made contact with the hull was immediately quenched by men who had buckets of water and sand, and thick sheets of leather at the ready. 

The survivors from his column banked away, but three had too much momentum already and flew too close.

One died, a Jorgenson and her Nadder, while the other two managed to survive, although she could see the glinting of the arrow shafts sticking out of their bodies and the motion of the fletching flapping from where she and Stormfly hovered, near where Stoick could see the progress of the battle from above. 

Another column, led by Ross and Leatherwing, had better luck, and managed to set three ships alight in exchange for only a single death of their own—another Jorgenson, Spitelout's younger brother Gallbrute, and his Gronckle Blackfang.  She wasn't certain, but it looked as if the Gronckle's thick hide had repelled most of the arrows—and then one lucky shot had hit the dragon in the _eye._   Gallbrute and Blackfang fell into the water—and then the English made sure that they were dead with followup volleys. 

And again, the men aboard those ships had come prepared to fight dragons.  She watched, hands covering her mouth, as the flames aboard two of the three ships were doused.  The first of the three wasn't as lucky, and she watched with bitter satisfaction as the English abandoned the ship, with some of the men managing to get clear, others burning alive and screaming.

The third column, led by her own father, tried to make a high-speed pass parallel with the fleet, but the arrows kept them at bay, with the dragonbreath fired at the ships either falling short, or not hitting in sufficient quantities to overwhelm the firefighters aboard.  They took no losses there, but more than a few dragons were hit with arrows, and screeches of pain echoed up to her. 

Hiccup started forward, and she called him back.  Reluctantly, her hero did as he was told. 

The fourth column, led by Hammeredge and Nailbag, stopped on the far side of the fleet and hovered, firing Gronckle projectiles at the ships.  That had more success, as Hammeredge directed fire at individual ships to overwhelm them, but Astrid could see that the Englishmen were grabbing the flaming rocks in those leather sheets and throwing them overboard, while other bits of Gronckle fire—probably from smaller rocks—cooled too fast as they flew and did nothing.  One thing that she had never noticed before this moment was that the smaller rocks from the Gronckles flew much faster, but also cooled much faster.  The bigger rocks were much slower, but cooled slower… but since they were slower, the English could see them coming. 

She watched as a group of men aboard one of the ships, each of them carrying shields, worked together to bat away a large flaming rock right before it hit.  It fell into the water with a gout of steam. 

Then one archer aboard one of the ships, carrying a bow at least as tall as Astrid, stepped forward, and calmly started to fire at the hovering dragons. 

And Hammeredge's column wasn't beyond the longbowman's range. 

Dragons screeched in pain as his arrows started to hit, and fell out of formation.  A Hotburple that she couldn't identify from this distance, fell into the water; judging by how it had stopped flapping its left wing, it had probably been hit in the wing joint on the back.  A pair of Thunderdrums broke from the column and went in after the dragon and rider, then started carrying the wounded back to Berk.

Then the twenty Gronckles of Hammeredge's column ran dry, their shots expended—in exchange for two ships burning, and another three scorched but still in the fight. 

Her father and his column tried another pass, but couldn't get close enough. 

Her uncle's leaderless column had disintegrated into smaller squads, and they were attempting single strafing runs of their own.  Another ship was set alight, but she watched in horror as one of her cousins, Sunngifu and her Nadder Feldr, flew up the middle… and died.  Feldr suddenly corkscrewed in midair, screeching in pain, and they crashed into one of the ships.  The soldiers aboard… made it quick.

As they died, she watched Sunngifu's brother, Magni, and his Gronckle Bjorg tried to fly in to rescue her.  They dodged magnificently around the flights of arrows coming to shoot them down…

Until another archer took the time to aim.

Bjorg exploded under her cousin, setting the ship underneath them ablaze in his death and taking their killer with them.

"Noooo…" Astrid whispered.

Stoick looked at her and bellowed, "Astrid!  Hiccup!  Get them out of there!"

"What!?" she called back.

He pointed to the fluttering smaller squads and singles attempting to extract vengeance for the deaths of her cousins.  " _Get them out of there!  They need to retreat or they're all going to die!  Pull them out!"_

She nodded and urged Stormfly into motion alongside Hiccup and Toothless; within a few moments, they were flying close to the fleet, seeing archers pointing bows in their direction, and started to gather up the remnants of her uncle's column as they harried the edges of the fleet. 

Then Hiccup and Toothless dove briefly, making her terrified that they'd been hit by another longbowman. 

Within a few moments, though, Hiccup was back at her side, Toothless carrying her Aunt Cecelia in his paws; she was unconscious and  bleeding, her arm broken obscenely, her clothing dripping seawater.  There was no sign of her Nadder, Spindle, and Astrid wondered when she'd lost track of them. 

They pulled back to Stoick's position, and Hiccup and Toothless flew on to take her aunt back to Berk.  She continued to watch as the remaining columns continued to fight, but the dragons were tiring, and running out of fire.  All of the Gronckles and Hotburples, their most effective fighters in this battle, had run dry, been injured, or died, and Stoick signaled them to return to Berk for rest. 

Ross's column tried to make another run, but they were growing increasingly exhausted, in every meaning of the phrase, and more than half of his group had at least one arrow injury.

And they dipped too close and too low.

Dragons and riders screamed as the archers riddled them with arrows.  Arrows tore through wings, and a few more unlucky dragons were hit in weak spots like their eyes or wing joints and plummeted into the water, injured or dead.  But the worst came from a Nadder that screamed in agony as what seemed like an entire ship's worth of archers all hit it in the span of a few seconds—and then it exploded.  The dragons around it were sent scattering in midair.  Those that were knocked closer to the fleet by the concussion… didn't survive, although they managed to take another two ships with them in their deaths. 

She barely heard Stoick call for the general retreat just as Hiccup and Toothless returned, her mind replaying the ghastly images of her friends and family dying, even as they turned and flew back to Berk, the sun a few fingerwidths above the horizon, turning the color of the water bloody.  Stoick ordered her to set watches above the fleet, and she did so numbly, ensuring that there would be eyes on the English fleet as it sailed closer to their home.

They had lost a tenth of the riders and dragons that had flown out, either dead or wounded to the point of being unable to fly… in exchange for six ships.

She twisted in her saddle, looking back.  The English were busy, setting the sails back aboard their masts.  Just before the distance made the fleet disappear, she saw the sails unfurl behind them. 

The English were coming in pursuit to destroy her home.  And she had no idea how to stop them. 

* * *

 

**A/N:**  "How will this end?"  

*Vorlon voice*  "In fire."

A huge thank you to my beta readers,  **batyatoon** and  **gameofthrawns** for their help with polishing this chapter, and I wish to give a warm welcome to  **mknopp**  for joining my beta reader team.  :D  

If I  _had_ to break my story up into "books", we'd be at the start of the climax of the current one.  So hang on to your hats, ladies, gents, and honorable non-binaries, it's gonna be interesting from here!  

Also, as of this posting... my Scriviner word count has just hit 500,000 words.  I started this fic for NaNoWriMo 2016, so, especially once you count in the editing and revision process, and the supplemental notes that aren't counted in the Scriviner compile and such... I've written a good chunk of a million words this year for this.  I hope that you all enjoy the ride as I have Hiccup and company continue to break history.  

 


	25. ...Hide, And Pray That It Does Not Find You

**Chapter 25:** **…Hide, And Pray That It Does Not Find You**

**_Night Fury:_ ** _Strike-class dragon, Class Exemplar_

**_Overview:_ ** _Nocturnal-optimized strategic bombing and aerial supremacy dragon, capable of multiple mission profiles, with a focus on strategic and tactical raids.  Due to the high speed, agility, intelligence, stealth and firepower capacity of this dragon, nations with confirmed members of the breed (see Night Fury Appendix A for listing) are automatically classified at a higher degree of threat by the Office of Draconic Intelligence, as they offer first-strike capacity, even in the face of aerial countermeasures._

**_Breath Type:_ ** _Acetylene and oxygen plasma charge_

**_Identification:_ ** _Medium-to-large adult size.  Black scales, single wing pair, four legs, grasping paws capable of minimal degree of fine manual dexterity; supplemental tail fins at end of long dexterous tail; wide, flat and blunt head with fleshy ear projections, eyes of green, yellow, blue, or orange coloration, with pupil slits of variable width based on lighting conditions and mood.  No spikes or talons.  Retractable teeth.  Distinctive sound produced when dive-bombing (see Night Fury Appendix B for audio recording)._

**_Strategic Role:_ ** _Front-line combat; materiel and industrial bombing strikes; ground support; aerial supremacy; reconnaissance (HA, BF)_

**_Known Weaknesses:_ ** _The rear tail-fins are required by the dragon in order to maintain flight trim and aerial stability; injury to or removal of these fins will ground the dragon without prosthetics.  Sound produced when dive-bombing also allows alert defenders a window for the deployment of countermeasures._

**_Phenotype Cluster:_ ** _BØFØS6+S4!S5*MØTØT8-_

**_Populations:_ ** _Minimal; breeding lines of this dragon are limited, and are mostly descended from Dragonlord Haddock's **Toothless** (NF-000001a), although rogue family lines are known, and there have been cases of egg theft and abductions over the centuries that have not been recovered, as well as other family lines that have been lost to the Empire due to state secession. _

_—North Sea Empire, Office of Draconic Intelligence, Dragon Breed Profiles (Declassified), 1822 Edition_

"Healer!  I need a healer over here!"

"Keep pressing!"

"Oh, gods, there's so much blood!"

Hiccup felt bile rise in the back of his throat as he looked out at the field in front of the mead hall, which was covered with the wounded—humans and dragons alike—in a makeshift healer's space. 

He saw dragons screaming as men held them down so that the vicious barbed arrows could be cut free from their hide, or pushed through.  Astrid's cousin Nanna was soaked head-to-toe in blood as she worked furiously, giving orders, along with the other healers.  Younger apprentices were running around, some carrying flagons of fortified beer and dragon-nip to help dull the pain of the wounded, while others scurried about with pads of linen or even raw flax to act as bandages.  But half of the returning force was wounded, and the healers were overwhelmed.

Astrid wrapped her arms around him as they watched her uncle Snorri, the muscles of his neck standing out like cords, bite down on a thick piece of rope as another healer used forceps to try to extract an arrowhead lodged in him, a pair of wooden dowels holding the wound open. 

The sun was a bare fingerwidth above the horizon, and the light was bloodred, despite the torches and braziers taken from inside the mead hall to light the field.

A man, his face so covered in blood that Hiccup couldn't identify him, died with a sigh and his sword in his hands.  Despite the healer's best efforts, his artery had been severed by the arrow, and he bled out as soon as they touched the shaft. 

A Nadder suffered the same fate nearby as Hiccup watched, her whimpers of pain piercing the general din and then fading into silence. 

Ruffnut, working among the healers, saw them standing there; she had just closed the eyes of Thistlehair, one of her aunts, three arrows still protruding from the body.  Leaping to her feet, she ran to where Hiccup and the others were standing and tackled Magnus, patting him up and down as if to assure herself that he was alive. 

Off to the side, towards the bridge to the main island, a row of bodies, human and dragon, was growing.  His great-aunt Gothi was standing vigil over them and preparing them.  Should Berk survive… they would be honored for their sacrifice.

But that was an open question right now. 

Behind him, he heard his uncle's voice, intent and emphatic.  "We should have everyone attack together, in one large wave!  Overwhelm them with sheer numbers!  We might lose a few, but the majority would get through and be able to sink their ships!"

Hiccup turned to see Spitelout and his dad standing towards the edge of the field.  His father looked at Spitelout, appalled.  "Are yeh daft, man?  We only have four times as many riders as they have ships!  And that's including the children!  Their first volley would destroy our entire front ranks, and the next volley would wipe out the middle!"

"So send in the Rookery dragons!" Spitelout argued.

"Who haven't been trained and have no understanding of the battle plan?  No, what we'll do is let them get closer and set up ambushes.  We know the local sea conditions around here, and they do not; force them aground, or into the worst passages through the sea stacks.  We can make them pay in blood for every inch with hit and run attacks from hiding!" Stoick said, slamming his fist into his other hand for emphasis.

"So you're saying we should send our people out to die in small groups against overwhelming numbers!?  How is that _better_ than my plan?"

As his father and the marshal argued, their partisans starting to take sides on how they should fight back, Hiccup said quietly to his friends as they stood nearby, "And they're both ignoring the fact that we've lost more riders in the last hour than we've gained this week."

"Aye," Magnus said sadly.  "Attrition is not the way to win here.  The best that Berk can hope for is making Harthacnut pay a butcher's bill atop a pile of his own men for killing all of you."

Ruffnut scowled, her arms still wrapped around Magnus, having not let go since she had run over.  "But how can we fight back?  There's no way to get close enough to hit them with dragonfire without coming into bow-shot!"

Her husband put his arm around her.  "And praying that they run out of arrows before we run out of riders…"  he shook his head.  "No.  I'm sorry to have brought this down on your home, my friends."

"We're not dead yet," Astrid said fiercely. 

A memory suddenly struck Hiccup, as Ruffnut's words echoed in his head.

Something must have shown on his face, as Astrid looked at him and asked,  "Hiccup… what is it?"

He started running off without a word.  Oh, gods, please let him have written it down…

"Hiccup!?" she called after him, her tone alarmed; clearly she was hoping that he wasn't about to do something stupid.  Then he heard her running after him, followed by what sounded like Magnus, Ruffnut, Wulfhild and Tuffnut. 

A minute later, they were in the smithy; he darted into his workroom and started rummaging through the sketchbooks and piles of parchment.  Astrid entered a moment later, and asked, "Hiccup, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong… oh, where is it, blast it…" he muttered, pushing papers aside in a frenzied hurry.  He looked up at her.  "I wrote it down last year, around when Johann visited.  Do you remember?"

She shook her head.  "No, but I'll help you look…?"

"It'll have a sketch on it of a ball," he said, and they set to it.

###

Ruffnut, along with Magnus, Tuffnut and Wulfhild, ran after Hiccup and Astrid.  He was crazy—but it was the kind of crazy that had saved the tribe once before.

Now she found herself praying to Thor, Odin, and most especially Loki that he'd be able to do it again. 

When she hadn't been allowed— _allowed!_ And Magnus was going to pay for that later—to go out on the counterattack, she'd immediately joined in as an extra pair of hands to help with the returning wounded.  Her stepmother and grandmother had trained her in the basics of medicine-making and the treatment of the wounded, and her shirt and skirt were soaked through with blood, both human and dragon.  In all of the years of raids that she'd lived through, growing up, it had never been this bad. 

But at least Magnus was all right, thank the gods.  It was almost funny; there was less blood on him from the battle than there was on her from the wounded. 

Which, she thought guiltily as they reached the smithy, was where she should have gone instead of racing after Hiccup.  They needed every hand available and she'd indulged her worry and relief over Magnus's health far enough.  She bit her lip, and started to turn back.

But as she let go, Magnus's hand on hers tightened for a moment, and he asked quietly, "Stay.  Please.  I…"

Ruffnut looked him in the face, and saw that he looked terrified, and haunted. 

She nodded and gave him a peck on the cheek and they entered the smithy, hand in hand.

Tuffnut was poking around, looking at all of Hiccup's half-built contraptions, while Wulfhild bounced anxiously on her heels outside of the door to Hiccup's little workshop room.  That door was hanging half-open, and Ruffnut could hear Hiccup and Astrid sounding like they were ransacking it. 

She went to stick her head into Hiccup's workroom, only for Wulfhild to catch her by the shoulder and give her a silent shake of the head.  So she leaned up against the wall, while Magnus started to pace.  She could tell that, regardless of what Stoick had said, he blamed himself for this attack. 

Tuffnut yelped as one of Hiccup's devices, which looked like the mating of a crossbow with the inside of the Hofferson mill, almost snapped shut on his hand, making everyone look at him disapprovingly.  He then shrugged and quietly hopped up on one of the tables to sit.  A moment later, there was a quiet hissing noise as he picked up another of Hiccup's creations; it was a bizarre-looking ring about the size of Tuffnut's palm, made of two circles of oak with little oak balls between the two circles that whispered as he started to spin it.

Nobody spoke as Hiccup and Astrid worked in the next room.  It was like waiting for the healer to finish and say whether someone would live or die… magnified by the whole village.

"What do we do?" she asked when the silence became unbearable. 

Magnus looked at her.  "Hope that our friend has a miracle up his sleeve."

Wulfhild, a contemplative expression on her face, looked down and then spoke, "Worse comes to worst… milord brother, I have a thought."

"Yes?"

"Offer them sanctuary in our home," Wulfhild said quietly.  "We have places for them to live among the fjords…"

Magnus blinked, and then, slowly, he nodded.  "Yes."  He turned to his wife, and said, "Ruff… if… if things go poorly in the next few hours, I'm going to suggest to your chief that we load up as much of your village as we can on dragons and fly to Norway."

She looked at him, appalled.  "But this is our home!" she said.  She might be going to leave with him, but this was still _home._  

Wulfhild said softly, "Home is much more flexible than you might think… and Berk's hours as a place to live are probably numbered.  I don't like it either, but I'd rather see you and everyone else here safe in Norway than dead in a pointless—"

"We didn't get chased off by dragons!" Ruffnut said hotly.  "We're not going to get chased off by Anglos either!"

Tuffnut spoke up.  "Plus there are a few thousand eggs sitting in the Broodery."  He shook his head.  "There's no way that we could carry them out with us."

Ruffnut gave Magnus a fierce look of agreement and moved to stand next to her brother. 

Wulfhild shared a look with Magnus, and sighed. 

"If… if that is what you feel, love," Magnus said, "then I accept that.  But I'll still make Stoick the offer."

She was just about to tell Magnus not to bother when there was suddenly a cry of triumph from the pair inside the workroom, and Hiccup ran out at a speed that was dangerous for him with his false foot, carrying a rolled up piece of parchment clutched in one hand, Astrid in close pursuit. 

Giving each other wide-eyed looks, the rest of them followed. 

In the perhaps quarter-hour since they'd left, the chaos by the mead hall had grown.  There was a crowd outside of the darkened mead hall, and the healers were still working frantically by torchlight.  As they pressed through the crowd, it seemed as if the argument over tactics had been settled, as Stoick was pointing at a map of the surroundings of Berk laid out on the side of the staircase leading up to the mead hall.  

"…if they try to come in through the Five Sisters, we can ambush them here—Hiccup!"

Hiccup thrust the paper under his father's nose and started talking fast and low.

His father looked at the drawings quizzically for a moment, and then his eyes widened.  They turned from the group, and Hiccup spoke to his father at length, such that nobody else could hear beyond the intense whispering. 

Then Stoick blinked, nodded, and turned back to the assembled group, on whose faces hope was rising just as the sun was setting.

The Hero of Berk was writing a new chapter in his saga.

###

Markus Ulversson, Danish carl and farmer, called to the service of his king, made a furtive yawn in the late night darkness, with only the waning harvest moon to give light.  Then he glanced about warily for the sergeant in charge of maintaining discipline.  The burly warrior had been free with the whip all day, and while a lash or two would certainly wake him, he'd just as soon manage without that experience. 

The wake was a white line of foam in the darkness, with the stars dancing overhead, occasionally hiding coyly behind the clouds.  The only real light, aside from the three quarters moon, were the ships' lanterns, which they were using to stay together and sail towards this devil-ridden island.  As lookout, he would normally be tasked solely with watching for the movement of the lights in the sterns of the ships ahead, but now, his attention was split, above and below. 

He could see the occasional flying demon, backlit against either the stars or clouds as they drifted overhead, as well as the lights of the ships in front.  In Markus' private opinion, their presence made this entire attempt at sneaking up on the demonic island in the midst of the night a fool's errand.  If the devil worshipers truly did have the number of rideable devil-dragons the king said they did, then, if they were smart, by the time the fleet arrived, the only thing they'd find would be a deserted stronghold and village.  But orders were orders, and one of the other men had put forward the opinion that, at the very least, they could stopper the pit to Hell that was the source of the dragons and deny Lucifer's cultists reinforcements. 

Markus didn't buy that—

There was a sudden splashing noise that made Markus' head whip around.  He looked, but didn't see anything in the darkness.

Huffing out a breath, he continued to think—mostly about how very much he wanted to survive to get home and see his daughter betrothed.

###

Behind Markus's ship, one of the last in the fleet's formation, a long piece of  ornately carved white pine wood floated to the surface, dipping in the waves. 

It was a spear, freshly carved by Woodnut Highbolesson clan Thorston, embellished with runes by Gothi Hiccupsdoittor clan Haddock, and then thrown over the fleet from nearly a mile in the air by Stoick Hamishsson clanhead Haddock, Chieftain of Berk, father of Hiccup Stoicksson, Hero of Berk, at the end of a simple prayer.

Both the words spoken and the runes carved into the spear had one meaning.

This battle was dedicated to All-Father Odin.

###

Earl Godwin of Wessex checked his blade and shield for the tenth time since the sun had set and frowned, wishing that he was wearing something more protective than his dragon-embroidered tunic (chosen with full irony for this expedition), but any armor would weigh him down if he ended up falling overboard for any reason.  The only reason Harthacnut wasn't going to get them all killed was that he'd brought bodies to spare.  But the butcher's bill was already enormous.  Less than a dozen of the dragons and their riders were confirmed to have died, in exchange for over two hundred of their own men.  The mere fact that nearly twenty-to-one losses hadn't already made the fleet mutiny only demonstrated how terrified the men were—of the dragons, and of their king.  But unless the dragon-riders made more mistakes like those who had flown into the center of the fleet before sunset, both England and the Danes would be a long time recovering from this conflict. 

He scoffed slightly.  In an effort to destroy a danger, Harthacnut might well have invited others to attack a weakened realm, the cream of its warriors spent on this expedition.

Well, if they were lucky, maybe they might be able to capture some dragons of their own and learn whatever secret magics were needed in order to ride them.  That, and the risk of Harthacnut coming out of this unscathed and dragging him into a civil war, was the only reason he hadn't ordered his own earldom's ships and levies to turn around after the earlier clash, or even stop for the night. 

Indeed—

Godwin froze as suddenly, out of nowhere, the shriek of the damned was heard, echoing across the water.  It echoed and echoed, rising, louder and louder.  Men around him began to shudder in terror at the sound, and one man cried out in fear, as it reached a peak and then—

There was a rush of air over Godwin's head as the screech passed over him, and then, in a flash of royal purple and a concussion like thunder, the ship of Thingmen adjacent to his own _exploded._

Godwin heard himself cry out as the remains of the ship rained down on the water and the adjacent ships.  A piece of wood, scorched and smoking and otherwise unidentifiable, landed at his feet. 

A piece of a man, also scorched and smoking and otherwise unidentifiable, landed not far away. 

Taking a deep breath, Godwin bellowed, "Clear for action!  By God, clear for acti—"

There was suddenly light, surrounding the fleet.

He stared.  Out over the water flew a line of dragons, their bodies alight with hellfire.  Godwin could see men riding some of them.  Oddly, though, the screams of the damned that he had already heard were not coming from _them._ Clearly, Lucifer's patronage granted them immunity to the fires of his realm. 

From the outer ring of ships, he heard the sounds of bows being pulled and crossbows being cocked, and then there was the hiss of arrows through the air as the sergeants and officers bellowed _Loose!_

But there was no cry of triumph… only the wasting of hundreds of arrows, as it became clear that the demons were circling the fleet outside of bowshot.  

And they were circling.  In every direction he looked, Godwin saw the light of hellfire, entrapping them.

They had no choice but to sail on.  If they stayed in place, they would die.

Then the scream echoed again.  Godwin heard a whimper of terror, and realized that it came from himself as the sound peaked once again—and a ship at the lead of the fleet, crewed by fifty men of Wessex, his own earldom, exploded. 

An instant later, as men all around screamed in horror, terror and agony, two of the neighboring ships burst into flames.  Within a heartbeat or three, the ships were completely alight, flames licking over their decks, climbing their masts and consuming their sails, forming pyres of screaming men that lit the dark night.  Their outlines dark against the fire, men dove from the burning ships, abandoning the officers who tried to maintain the discipline to fight the blaze. 

And as he watched one man run screaming into the water, his outline wreathed in flames, Godwin knew that they were losing.  It was one thing to fight dragons that you could see coming in the light of day, and stand ready for their hellfires and extinguish them before the fires truly caught.  It was another in the darkness of night, with the screams of Hell all around, and when the demons used a spell to set entire ships ablaze in a heartbeat.

Nearby, visible in the light from the circling dragons and the burning ships, he could see one of his own personal guards, Naomhán, cowering fruitlessly behind a barrel.  He was a large Alban warrior, his hair as red and untameable as his temper, and he was obviously trying to hide behind whatever he could find. 

Godwin felt his own terror lash out and he seized Naomhán and hauled him to his feet.  "What is wrong with you!?  Are you a coward!?"

Naomhán shook, the perfect white circles of his eyes almost glowing in the fire-lit night.  "You don't understand!  It's a Night Fury!  We're doomed!  We're doomed!  We have no place to hide, and God has forsaken us!  IT'S FOUND US!"  He started to sob in terror, and Godwin could smell the acrid scent suddenly rising from the man's woolen hose as he trembled in Godwin's grip. 

Godwin shook him, and saw that his terror was spreading among the other men around them.  He threw Naomhán to the deck, where the man prostrated himself and began to pray, begging for mercy from God. 

Deliberately ignoring him, Godwin started to shout orders…

And the scream began to rise again.

###

Terror fluttered in Markus's chest like a flock of birds as the scream echoed across the water.  He kept watch, for all of the good it would do.  They were helpless.  He had no idea what to do, how to fight the screaming demon that killed ships—!

Another flash of purple came from the head of the fleet, and then, over the next several heartbeats, three ships ignited into pillars of flame upon the water—the first towards the front of the fleet, another in the middle, and a third only two ships away from Markus's own.  He heard something shatter, just before the ship nearby was awash in flames. 

He could feel the heat on his cheek from where he stood, and bloodcurdling screams echoed across the water.

###

Godwin flinched as two ships died near him.  The Night Fury had claimed another, while more were being set alight.  He had heard something shatter like glass or pottery at the instant that the ship were set ablaze—and then there was a rush of air and the flapping of demon wings. 

One of the officers aboard a neighboring ship must have seen it, by some direct blessing of God Himself.  Godwin saw the man point and then scream, " _There!"_ at the top of his lungs. 

There was the _twang!_ of half a hundred bowstrings and a hiss of arrows through the air as the archers and crossbowmen aboard fired without question—but its speed was deceptive and its course darting and dodging. 

Godwin watched in fear and horror as the arrows and bolts found flesh to lodge in—but it was the flesh of the neighboring ship's crew, the ship directly ahead of his own,  and not that of the ship-killing demon flying overhead.  It continued on, vanishing into the smoke and night. 

###

Another ship burst into flame nearby, heralded by the sound of something shattering.  The men aboard didn't even bother to fight the flames, but instead dove overboard immediately. 

Markus couldn't blame them in the slightest.  The dragons circling the fleet lit the air with a pale yellow-red light; he'd seen several of them leave or join, but there were still hundreds of them flying around the fleet. 

By now, he'd realized why they were there—not just to taunt the archers into wasting their shafts, but to illuminate the fleet in the midst of the night… so that they would be easy pickings for the death from above.

Then one dragon left the circle.

Then another.

And another.

Within a minute, there was a hole in the circle, perhaps seven or eight hundred paces wide, near Markus.  Pointing south. 

Whether it was intentional or not, there was a way to escape!

He continued to look about, watching for more dragons—and then he saw something in the sky.

"Look, look there!" he called out, squinting to make out more detail.  It was… odd.  It looked like a box against the sky, held aloft by fluttering shapes… 

And it was coming closer.

But most of the others were looking for the source of the scream, or eyeing the open gap in the dragons' circle with furtive contemplation.  Only a single man aboard his ship turned to him and called, "What, what is it!?"

He pointed up at the box, now overhead—just as a stone fell from it and smashed into the other man's face with a sound like a water-filled pig's bladder being dropped onto stone from a rooftop.

Markus cried out as he was spattered with the other man's brains and lifeblood—and then another man screamed as a rock the size of a man's fist shattered his arm.

And the box moved on, stones falling from it like rain onto the ships below.  Markus watched as it calmly drifted up the length of the fleet, dropping stones.  Below it, men died and were maimed.  Shields were shattered and bows snapped by the impact of rocks the size of fists and heads, dropped from hundreds of feet in the air.

Then he heard three voices call out, one after another, to _Shoot it down!_ coming from the ships ahead.  His warning had gone out, and the officers were trying to react appropriately to this new threat.

Markus saw the arrows fly up into the air, backlit by the smoke and fire coming from the front of the fleet…

The arrows hissed up into the air… and slowed… and then arced back down, gaining speed as they went.  He could see that they had not come within a hundred paces of the bellies of the dragons holding the box aloft…

But there was more vulnerable flesh below. 

He felt sick as he saw at least one volley hit another ship nearby. The men aboard, already jittery, fired back blindly before anyone could shout a warning or explanation. 

It was chaos, and death, and there was another shattering sound and bloom of light to herald the death of another ship set ablaze. 

###

Astrid and Stormfly, both painted black with soot from the Broodery exhaust vents to blend in with the night, flew high over the fleet below.  In her hands was a soapstone cooking pot, perhaps a foot across; a brand new skirt of thatch reeds having been inserted into holes around the pot's waist, making the cauldron look like a giant shuttlecock from a game of battledore. 

Urging Stormfly into a dive, she took aim at a ship in the front third of the fleet; if not for Wulfhild's suggestion months earlier of games of actual battledore on dragonback, she wouldn't have been able to make such an attack with any skill. A few of the attacks had already missed, doing nothing more than making a splash. But the ship wasn't moving that fast, and she could see it in the light of the fires. 

She wouldn't miss. 

So she aimed, and then let go of the pot, leaving it to hurtle downward as she and Stormfly pulled out of the dive.  The battle plan that Hiccup had conceived of and that she had helped refine was proceeding quickly, in all of its terrible glory.

The pot continued to fall, the thatch skirt keeping it from tumbling.  Inside, a few holes at the front admitted the rushing air, which stoked the glowing coal held in place at the front of the pot to fiery incandescence… and when the pot hit the ship's deck and the soft soapstone shattered on the wood, the glass jars packed behind the charcoal cracked open as well, sending their contents of Nightmare spittle or oil splattering onto the burning coal, igniting them and sending the fire everywhere. 

The ship burned and men died, while Astrid and the other riders who were dropping them on the ships below never needed to come in range of their archers. 

She landed a few minutes later on Berk; the fleet had closed terrifyingly close to her home, and was perhaps a league or two away now, and the light of the false dawn was visible to the east, with the waning moon ready to set in the west. 

Another pot-bomb was passed into her hands, fresh from the teams of crafters who were working on making more as quickly as possible.  Hiccup had devised the system, assigning jobs in the heat of the moment; for each pot-bomb, there was one person carving the holes in the bowl, and the next inserting the thatch, while still others were filling the glass, clay or soapstone jars that had been scavenged from across the island.  Finally, the last team of three plucked the hot coals from a brazier, placed the coal at the bottom of the pot, packed the jars on top of it, and passed the pot off to the riders. 

As she and Stormfly took flight, she saw how frantic the pace was; it had taken them hours to scavenge all of the material that they needed, and now that they were using the new weapon, people were scurrying about much more confidently than they had a short while ago. 

Like an inverted bucket brigade, she could see her tribesmates pass the pots hand to hand, filled them with fire, and sent them out to be splashed on their enemies—and, once again, she was on the fire brigade.  But they needed to break that fleet _now,_ or they would still die when the English landed thousands of men against several hundred defenders.

###

Godwin watched a small formation of three ships, all filled with Thingmen, break off from the main fleet and aim straight at the flaming dragons surrounding the fleet, the drummers aboard setting a quick beat for the oarmen. 

They were clearly intending to punch through the enemy line to the north.

It was beautiful, and inspiring in their courage.

Over the next few minutes, he watched them attempt to bring the dragons into range of their bows, but the dragons pulled back and taunted the Thingmen into wasting their shots. 

Minutes passed, and the dragons let the Thingmen pass through their line, reforming it after they had passed.

Men cheered, and another group of longboats began to split off from the fleet. 

Then there was screaming and a flurry of motion in the pre-dawn darkness beyond the line of flaming dragons, and the sound of splashing.

"God in Heaven…" Godwin blasphemed a moment later.  He watched, his face bloodless, as one of the Thingmen's ships was carried off by a flock of dragons _in a net,_ as if it were the catch of the day.

And he didn't think that it was chance that led them to pass in front of the fleet with their catch.

They passed close enough that he could see men clinging to the net, terrified, and trying desperately to climb out of the way as the ship rolled in the mesh's loose embrace. 

Then the dragons flew off, taking the pleading men with them. 

More ships burned around him, some from whatever was shattering upon their decks, some in blazes of purple fire.  Looking around, Godwin realized that the fleet was being smashed, and not just _smashed,_ but smashed _methodically._   The dragon-riders were starting from the lead third and working their way back along the fleet, with the occasional strike elsewhere to keep complacency from setting in.  Meanwhile the box filled with rocks was leisurely pounding the living hell out of the rear third of the fleet.  Even patches of the water itself were on fire, as if proof of the demonic nature of their foes.

He helped haul a man out of the water and into the ship, the fifth in half as many minutes; the water was filled with screaming, drowning men, who had either jumped clear of a burning ship—or been blown clear by purple fire. 

Some were managing to reach other ships, such as his own, and climb aboard. 

Others were not. 

He saw one man attempt to surface, only to emerge directly into one of the flaming patches of water, and scream before slipping below the surface again.

Reaching out to another hand desperate for aid, Godwin knew that rescuing the men from the water was perhaps one of the least useful things he could be doing, but he couldn't bring himself to face more than this.  He was over forty years old, a companion of King Cnut himself.  He was no stranger to the terrors of a battlefield, but this…

The hysteria had spread throughout the fleet from those who had encountered Night Furies before, and he was just as affected by it as his men were.  The dragon that had been described as the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself was showing exactly how it had earned its fearsome reputation, as ship after ship died; it was playing hammer to the sea's anvil, and the English and Danes were clearly not up to temper. 

And so… they cracked.

###

"Stand back!  Back!  I'm warning you lot, it'll be fifty lashes—!" the officer in front of the tiller of Markus' ship shouted, holding his sword in front of him.  Behind Markus, the sergeant clubbed and whipped men back into position, his own hysteria lending a frantic edge to his exhortations to do their duty.

The officer didn't complete his threat, as suddenly an arrow sprouted from his eye and he fell bonelessly to the deck. 

The archer, a Cornish man, stepped forward and said in a flat tone, "He must have been hit by one of the misaimed arrows of our fellows.  Come, help me get him down."

"Aye, with him gone, we have to retreat!" an Anglo said, half-hysterically. 

Another Anglo nodded in wide-eyed, frenzied agreement and said, "Aye, aye, we all heard him!  He was saying ' _Turn back!  Turn back!'"_  

There was a half-crazed murmur of agreement, and Markus and several other men stepped forward and laid the officer out on the deck, while the archer took hold of the tiller post and sent the ship veering into a turn.  The sergeant tried to beat them back and ended up clubbed to the deck by six men, their hysterical fear lending them berserker strength.  They then heaved him over the side, and he landed in the water with a splash. 

Markus swallowed as they approached the opening in the circle of dragons.  They might very well die in the next few moments. 

But if they stayed, they _would_ die.

All of the survivors aboard tensed as they sailed through the line between the two ends of the dragons' circle…

But nothing happened. 

They all looked at each other for a long silent beat, as the ship continued to drift away from the slaughter behind them, and then one man muttered, "Holy Christ," and burst into tears.  Another gave a cracked laugh; others crossed themselves, or reached to touch the wood of the ship or each other's shoulders or their own faces, with shaking hands.

Then, realizing where they were, Markus stepped forward to the oarlocks and grabbed an oar.  The others quickly followed suit, with every man that could taking up an oar and set to rowing with a will.

And other ships, only a few hundred paces away across the waters, noticed their survival—and four more ships veered away from the fleet, breaking away from the attack against which they had no response and no defense.

###

Standing on the foredeck of the largest ship in the fleet, King Harthacnut felt fear and fury.  Determined not to show fear before his men, knowing that doing so would be the death of his attack, he stood where he was, proudly, sword in hand, glaring furiously at any man who showed more fear of the dragons than they did of him.

Thus far, he had noticed that his own ship had been spared, even though the demon had fluttered overhead multiple times, and he attempted to project a show of his regal bearing in order to inspire his men back to confidence.  If he faltered, so would they.  Was he not appointed by God Himself to lead the realm?  Thus, no matter how much the screams and flames made his own bowels want to turn to water and stain his breeches, he held himself firm—if the men saw God's emissary weaken against Satan's servants, there would be no way that they would hold firm.

And for all of his own intentional hyperbole when he had convinced his vassals that this attack was necessary, he found himself wondering if he was, perhaps, truly battling Lucifer's chosen on earth. 

If the word 'battle' could be used for this slaughter…

The air was smoky from the burned ships, and his ears were assaulted by the sounds of crackling fire and screaming men.  From what little he could see through the smoke, at least twenty ships had been attacked and burned already, and more still had been smashed by falling stones.  One had been cracked completely in half by a falling boulder. 

And not a single triumphant cry of a successful kill upon a dragon or rider had yet resounded through the night to bolster his men's spirits. 

If he showed cowardice now, then his entire attack would collapse, and every ship would turn and flee.  Of that, he was certain.

So when the scream issued forth again to herald the death of another ship and all of the men around him flinched and cowered, he stood, steadfast and undaunted, on the open deck, calling orders to Earl Godwin across the open water between their ships, as if there was no threat to his royal person. 

That was a mistake.

###

 

"Have your men—" the King called across the water in a bellow to Godwin, raising his voice to be heard over the rising scream of the demon.

Then the ship on Godwin's other side exploded in a flash of purple, a black blur swept across the water—and King Harthacnut vanished, leaving his sword to clatter on the deck where he had stood. 

In that moment, Godwin knew that the battle was lost.  The King was lost, snatched up by the demon and probably dead, and the men around him were abandoning ship, expecting that they would be next. 

So he did the only thing he could.

"RETREAT!"

Then behind him, there was the sound of something shattering, and a blast of heat.

Screaming in fear, he ran and dove overboard. 

Treading water, he looked around at the nearby ships.  Even from his low vantage point among the waves, he could see that the fleet was breaking up; ships bearing the sails and signs of the Thingmen were pressing onwards, while everyone else was beginning to come about and flee.

Eyeing one ship from his own earldom, he started to swim, but the ship started to pull away from him, the men aboard paddling for their lives.

###

Dawn had not yet broken, although many of the stars to the east were beginning to fade, as Markus and the other men aboard the longboat rowed with all fervor.  Then there was a splash, followed by the loudest sound that Markus had ever heard, a roar that made the crashing of the surf on the rocks in a winter storm sound peaceful, which struck with such force that he was knocked to the deck.

Pulling himself to a kneeling position, he looked up to see a man, larger than any he had ever seen before in his life, sitting cross-legged on the back of a large blue dragon, hovering in mid-air a dozen or so paces off of the prow of the ship.  The dragon's mouth was open, its jaws ringed with fangs, and Markus could see straight down its gullet. 

The man cupped his hands and bellowed, "Hello the English!  I am Stoick, Chief of Berk!  Your lives have been spared by the grace of my son's mercy!  Now heed me and flee!  If you return again, he will not show mercy a second time!  Am I understood?"

Markus glanced at one of the bows lying forgotten on the deck… and then at his oar, hanging loosely in the oarlock, then back to the bow.  Then, shaking his head, he darted for the oar.  He was joined by every other man aboard.

As they set to rowing southward with a will, he called back to the Chief, "Aye!  We do and we will!  Thank you for our lives!" 

The Dragon Chief saluted them, and then he and his mount dove beneath the waves again.  They heard the roar echo again a minute later from behind them, and the Chieftain's voice echoing indistinctly across the water.

Markus hazarded a glance backwards in the dawning light.  When he failed to turn into a pillar of salt, he squinted, and saw that dozens of ships were following them.

As he watched, one ship tried to attack the chief.

The water around it boiled and foamed… and it was gone. 

But the majority of them were wiser, and heeded the warning and mercy of the chieftain—and ran. 

###

"AAAAAAAH!  Oh, God, save me! _AAAAAHHH!_ "

Hiccup did his best to ignore the noise as Toothless, the tip of his tongue sticking out as he focused on precision flying, blithely dropped the shouting and screaming monarch sprawling into the mostly-empty rock box.  Then he and his friend settled onto the box's wooden lip, as the Gronckles carrying the box sighed at the sudden additional load. 

Having already dropped their entire load of cobblestones onto the fleet below, Yngvarr, Eindride, Roald, and three other thanes stood waiting on the box's wood floor around the other three edges, with swords drawn. 

"Hello again, your Majesty," Yngvarr said with a grin, standing at the center of the group.  "We're a long way from the Göta Älv, but I hope that you might remember me."

Harthacnut looked at him, eyes wide with shock.  Then, with a visible effort of will, he spoke in an even tone.  "I remember a good Christian man, not someone who consorts with _demons,"_ he said, pointing at Toothless.

Yngvarr shrugged.  "Be careful who you tar with that brush, milord.  You've been good to the Church, for certain, but the Church is not the same as our Lord's teachings, _especially_ at the moment.  You've been a far sight away from the Sermon for a while now, and you seem to have mistaken Worcester for Jericho."

More ships below them were turning back to flee south, while the ships flying the standard of the Thingmen continued northward.  A bare ten ships remained in that group moving resolutely towards his home, and Hiccup was confident in his tribe's ability to take them with the cover of the sea stacks.  Maybe if they were smart, they'd surrender once they were surrounded?

Please?

He could hear the screams of the men in the water from up here, and the sound chilled his blood. 

Harthacnut scowled.  "So, what are your plans for me, devil-worshiper?" 

Yngvarr cocked his head and looked at the King of England.  "Well, I suppose we could always drop you over the side and let you swim home to Winchester, but that seems silly."

"You wouldn't _dare,_ " the King of England and the Danes said, his jaw set and eyes narrowed.

"Oh, probably not.  Besides, if I did that, I'd be depriving the Hero here," he cocked his head towards Hiccup, "of his rightful ransom."

Harthacnut blinked in surprise.  "You're going to _ransom_ me?"

"Aye.  _After_ you meet with Stoick the Vast, the chieftain whose home you intended to sack.  That's his son, by the way," Yngvarr said amiably. 

Harthacnut looked at Hiccup as if seeing him for the first time.  Toothless hissed at the shouty man.  Hiccup rolled his eyes and shrugged; he was exhausted and wrung out from the long night and the battle.

A golden Nightmare, Magnus mounted on its back, flew up from the circling dragons below and perched on the wood frame.  The Gronckles carrying the box sighed again, and continued to fly back towards Berk; even two dragons were lighter than the tons of cobbles that the box had originally been loaded with, but it was still an additional weight.

Leaning forward from his seat on Brand's back, Magnus waved at his rival king.  Jauntily. 

"Good evening, my good and _dear_ friend Harthacnut!" he said with a grin that was as wide as it was false.  "Fancy meeting you here!"

"You…!" 

Even in the dim moonlight, a vein was distinctly visible on the older king's forehead, pulsing with fury. 

"Aye.  Me.  Now, you've attacked my sworn ally, killing their tribesmen and loyal mounts, and mustered a force to do so that can only be seen as a threat to raze their village and sow the ground with salt."  His smile thinned.  "Some of these people are now my kinsmen, and I have _every_ right to extract vengeance on their behalf once _they're_ done with you."

Harthacnut froze, as Brand, sensing his rider's irritation with the man, leaned forward and opened wide.

Magnus hauled the dragon's head by the horns out of the way as Harthacnut grew paler.  "Now, now, Brand, no eating royalty.  It's bad for your digestion," he said humorously.

"Now, where were we?  Ah, yes.  So, a year ago, at the river between our kingdoms, we swore an oath that whichever of the two of us was recalled to God first would allow the other to inherit their titles."  Magnus's eyes narrowed and the levity in his voice disappeared.  "I think now that you have attacked my ally, and not only attacked them but you did so when you found out that I was here."  He leaned forward further, practically laying himself down on Brand's neck, and asked softly, "Or am I wrong in saying that?"

Harthacnut, staring Brand's teeth in the face, mutely nodded and then shook himself.  "Feh.  Of _course_ I came when your treachery was revealed!"  He pointed at Hiccup and Toothless with an accusatory finger.  "They had already sacked one of my strongholds!  How could that be anything other than practice and a demonstration for what they could do with _your_ men!?"

Magnus snorted.  "Well, with that, I feel that a solid case for oathbreaking on your part can be made.  I did not trespass on your territory, nor did I come with the intent of conquest.  I was here to make an ally, not an invasion force.  I still am not here to do anything other than get married and train Brand here.  And the fact that _you_ came to kill _me…_ well."  He leaned back and folded his arms in front of him. 

Harthacnut snorted and waved an arm at Hiccup.  "Like I'd believe you?  You're allied with devil worshipers."

"Believe as you like.  You still attacked the place where I was.  Dealing with Viking raiders is one thing, but attacking another crown and breaking an oath such as ours?  Oh, believe me, I will make sure that others find out about this," Magnus said in a level, yet still angry, tone. 

The lights of Berk were growing closer in the distance as the Gronckles carried them home; they were dim, but Hiccup could see the flickers of the bonfires in the mouths of the harbor statues from here. 

"If you say that the oath is null and void, then killing me will gain you _nothing,_ " Harthacnut said with a sneer.

"That's why I'm not killing you.  We're going to ransom you."  He looked up Yngvarr and said humorously, "I thought I told you to tell him that?"

"I'm sorry, your majesty," the herald said with a bow, "But I only said it once.  It must not have penetrated."

"Ah, then.  The fault lies with the audience."

Feeling fatigue starting to pull at his eyelids, Hiccup shook his head to clear it—just as one of the longboats of Thingmen below was captured by one of the net crews.  He heard them screaming even from their current height and swallowed.  "We're going to see who we can fish from the water," he said, and with that, they flew off, leaving Magnus to talk with his fellow king. 

Diving down to the surface of the sea, he and Toothless began to pluck people from the grasping waters of Aegir's domain.  Yes, his father had cast the spear out over the fleet to dedicate their lives to Odin earlier, but… surely by this time they couldn't be counted as enemy warriors anymore.  They had thrown away their weapons while trying to swim, and that made them just people lost at sea who would die if he didn't intervene right now.  And while he knew that that was a gray area as far as the Valkyries and Rán were concerned, it worked fine as a rationalization to himself.  He'd seen enough death tonight.

Dropping them on top of convenient sea stacks around the nearby Isle of Muck, he and Toothless worked frantically to rescue as many as they could.  A few of the other riders stopped on their way back and called out to him. 

"Hiccup, what are you doing?" Suibhne clan Hofferson called out to him.

"Saving lives!" he called back, trying not to look at the limp, moaning man dangling in Toothless's paws; he had horrible burns along his back and face that made Hiccup shudder.  They dropped him on top of the sea stack and dove again.

"But they're Anglos!" Suibhne said, sounding baffled.

"They're _people!_ " he shouted back angrily.  "It's one thing to send warriors to Odin's hall!  It's another to leave others out on the sea to _drown!_ "

"Hiccup, they were coming to _kill_ us!  They killed Magni and Sunngifu and Uncle Glenn!"

Clenching his fists, Hiccup huffed and thought as he and Toothless plucked another man, richly dressed, from the water.  Then he remembered what Yngvarr had said when he'd suggested capturing the king.  "Fine!  Then you don't get a share of their ransoms!"  He pointed at the half-conscious man in Toothless's paws, noting the fancy tunic embroidered with dragons, ironically enough. 

Suibhne paused at that, and then, after a moment of contemplation, urged his own dragon to find people in the water and pull them free.

Hiccup and Toothless continued on, gently dropping the man on top of the sea stack, they immediately set out to find another victim of… of his success… before they could slip beneath the waves. 

More riders came and joined him, and the rock-box crew was sent out to collect the ones from the sea stack.

As the sun rose, they had saved many… and yet others had still vanished into the realm of the sea jotunn. 

And then Gobber came and told him what had happened to Fishlegs. 

* * *

**A/N:**   I wrote the first draft of this chapter nearly a year ago; it has been through three revisions and expansions since then.  I hope that it was suitably intense, but the climax of this story section isn't over yet!

Beyond that, a little story administration stuff.  I'm going to go on posting hiatus for NaNoWriMo 2017 in order to build up my buffer and extend the story draft; my original hope was to have a buffer of 8-12 chapters fully proofed and spend half of my time revising, and half of my time extending the main story draft.  My original buffer got eaten by my move and marriage, and every effort I've made to try to build the buffer back up has fallen flat, between last minute edits and real life (yay, emergency trips to the Bremen consulate!).  So, I hope to remedy that.  As for the hiatus... it will only be for the month of November.  Last year, I cranked out 155,000 words for NaNoWriMo.  This year, I'm aiming for 200,000, and I will be posting daily word count totals on my tumblr (athingofvikings.tumblr.com) and will resume posting on Sunday, December 3rd, 2017.

And finally, if you enjoyed the chapter, please, comments make my day that much brighter.  :D


	26. Aftermaths

**Chapter 26: Aftermaths**

**_Battle of the Sound of Berk_**

   
  
---  
  
**_Date:_**

| 

_15-16 October, AD 1041_  
  
**_Location:_**

| 

_Sound of Berk, ~56.8 N, ~6.3W_  
  
**_Result:_**

| 

_Decisive Hooligan Victory_  
  
  ** _Belligerents_**

   
  
_Hooligan Tribe of Berk_

_Kingdom of Norway_

| 

_Personal Union of King Harthacnut_

●   _Kingdom of Denmark_

●   _Kingdom of England_  
  
**_Commanders and Leaders_**  
  
_Stoick Haddock I_

_Hiccup Haddock III_

_Astrid Haddock I_

_Magnus Fairhair I_

| 

_Harthacnut of Denmark (POW)_

_Godwin of Wessex (POW)_

_Leofric of Mercia_  
  
**_Strength_**  
  
_124 dragon-rider cavalry, various types_

_~300 unmounted Monstrous Nightmares (Stoker-class dragon)_

_1 aerial gravity bomb platform, Gronckle-carried (Boulder-class)_

| 

_146 longships_

_2,000 heavy Norse infantry, armed with bows_

_3,000 men-at-arms (mixed English and Danish), armed with bows_

_3,000 conscripts (mixed English and Danish)_  
  
**_Casualties and losses_**  
  
_19 human fatalities_

_23 dragon fatalities_

_24 humans wounded_

_35 dragons wounded_

| 

_~2,200 dead or missing in action_

_~700 wounded_

_~40 longships destroyed_

_~15 longships captured_

_Capture of King Harthacnut_

_Capture of Earl Godwin of Wessex_

_Capture of Sweyn Godwinson_

_Capture of 15 lesser nobles ( List)_

_691 other prisoners ( List)_  
  
_The **Battle of the Sound of Berk** was a naval/aerial battle in the waters of the Sound of Berk, between the forces of the combined Danish and English fleets and army under the leadership of King Harthacnut, and the Hooligan tribe of Berk, under the leadership of Dragonlord Stoick The Vast and then-Herald Hiccup Haddock.  _

_This battle was the only engagement of the undeclared First Berkian-English War, and featured multiple firsts in the history of warfare, including the first deployment of dragons against naval targets, the first use of dragons in a military setting by humans, and the development of dragon-dropped gravity bombs.  The results of the battle was a decisive Berkian victory, and heralded a new era of warfare._

_—Battle of the Sound of Berk (n.d.) In Wikikenna.  Retrieved September 26, 1847_

Stoick rubbed at his eyes, which were crusty with dried saltwater and exhaustion.  He hadn't slept since yesterday, and noon was rapidly approaching. 

He'd be able to take a nap soon, at least.  The aftermath of the battle had resulted in one completely unexpected consequence—over eight hundred prisoners, between the ships that had surrendered, ships that had been captured, and the men that Hiccup and the others had plucked from the sea. 

As a result, Berk's population had effectively doubled in terms of mouths to feed and house, and these men were enemies.  Worse, he didn't know if he could trust their word not to attempt anything—they were Christians, and he'd heard too many stories over the course of his life of this Christ's followers breaking oaths to the followers of the Aesir.  Magnus he trusted, dear lad, but this Danish king?  Stoick trusted him as far as Hiccup could throw him without Toothless's help. 

So they were putting doors on the dead-end tunnels below the Rookery and some of the village storage tunnels, and were in the process of stashing the captured Anglos and Danes there.  It would take every spare plank and nail that they had, and the carpenters were still working in a frenzy.  According to Gobber's estimates, they wouldn't be done until tomorrow.

For the moment, they had gathered the captives in the training pit and posted guards around the rim, but that wasn't anything resembling a long term solution, for reasons of hygiene if nothing else.  For the moment, it would suffice, as their prisoners were completely cowed.  There was no question that his son's counterattack had shattered their courage; awed whispers and frightened whimpers had been the loudest sounds as he'd stood over the training pit.

Groups of captives were being led off to the blockaded tunnels in collections of twenty, as that was the number of sets of iron manacles and improvised wooden hobbles that they had.  As they were led off, the scribes were busy taking down lists of names and homes of each group.  At the very least, Stoick was going to ensure that their families knew their fates; he knew the pain of _not knowing_ far too intimately to wish it on anyone else.  The captured men assumed that it was for the demanding of ransoms, and more than a few had broken down in tears, assuming that they would be sold as thralls, as there was no way that they'd be able to pay any such fee.

Stoick had kept his face impassive at that; while their exact fates were still to be determined, there was no way before Odin and Thor that he would _do_ such a thing. 

The only serious incident, if he could even call it that, had come from the third group of men to be led off; a tall dark-haired Norseman had shouted and tried to charge at him, trying to demonstrate by bluster that he wasn't scared.  Stoick had rolled his eyes and nonchalantly tossed the smaller man back among his fellows, with an admonition to them to keep their friend from getting hurt. 

Now, standing over the training pit, Thornado at his side, his hands once again folded behind his back and his eyes feeling as if there were hundred-pound weights attached to each lid, he looked out over the assembled captives.  According to Nanna clan Hofferson, nearly a hundred would die of their wounds, while the rest would likely live, assuming they were given adequate care. 

But of those of his own tribe still awaiting the snip of the Norns' shears, there were _four_ , counting the wounded dragon. 

He sighed and turned away from the training pit.  Walking a short distance, he fell in step with the senior men and women trying to bring order out of the chaos that had just been dropped in their laps.  Magnus, thank Nott, had been dragged off to bed by his wife and, if there had been an opportunity to get the girl in semi-private, he would have instructed Astrid to do the same with his son, propriety be damned.  The lad, for all of his genius, was a green warrior, and he was running from the nightmares he'd inflicted, such that even _Stoick_ could tell.  But they would catch him sooner or later—and the longer he took to face them, the worse it would be. 

He took a deep breath, imagined a nice nap once they were done, and said flatly to Gobber, "First, do we have enough food?"

Gobber shook his head.  "Only if Njord smiles on us and has plentiful fishing through the winter in his larder.  But we only planned on enough for us and the dragons.  An extra seven or eight hundred mouths to feed without an extra seven hundred hands to work?  Nah, we're in trouble."

"Well, we'll work on that," Stoick said, and turned to Bladewit.  "Once the scribes are done getting their names and homes, we'll need multiple clean copies made." 

She nodded, her face set in a terrifying smile of satisfaction at the victory.  As far as she was concerned right now, Hiccup, and by extension Stoick, could do no wrong.  Pity that it would be only a temporary attitude. 

He turned to Yngvarr and Ross.  "Lads, once those lists are written up, I'm sending yeh both to Winchester, as we discussed.  We'll see how many will get ransomed straight out."

"And the rest?" Yngvarr asked.

Stoick sighed.  "We'll see.  I have some ideas, and I'd be shocked if Hiccup doesn't as well."

Yngvarr schooled his face into impassivity and nodded—which was impressive, as the man usually wore his feelings on his face. 

He turned to his marshal.  "Spitelout, I have three jobs for you.  First, see how damaged those longboats we captured are; second, make sure that we have full watches set on the prisoners, and third, keep the patrols up, just in case those men who fled rediscover their courage."

Spitelout nodded in acknowledgment.  He'd been quiet ever since Hiccup had unleashed Muspelheim upon the English and Danes.  What thoughts were going on in his head, Stoick had no idea.

They reached the cliff out over the harbor far below, and Stoick sighed.  Twenty captured longboats, although if they were all salvageable, he'd be shocked.  At least two were slowly foundering from the rough handling the capturing dragons had delivered, the caulking between the planks having sprung a multitude of leaks, and others had severe damage to the planking or keels.

Other people came up to them as they stood there, needing him or the others to approve this or offer suggestions for that, and others ran about trying to deal with the aftermath, carrying food, water, construction supplies and more. 

"—and, I think we can open up the Rookery now," Stoick finished.  "We've got the prisoners under control, and we're not going to hand anyone hostages to do something stupid."  He nodded to Chestnut.  "Take care of that?"

The skald nodded and jogged off.

Stoick looked around at the group.  "Well, we've all got work to do.  Let's get to it." 

There was a murmur of agreement.  "Spitelout… a moment, please," Stoick said to his brother-in-law as the others walked away.

Spitelout froze, and then turned.  "Aye?"

Stoick took a deep sigh and said, "Yeh heard what that king in there said.  I owe yeh an apology… but so do yeh to me."

Spitelout grimaced and nodded.  "Aye.  My son did poke the hornet's nest… at my suggestion.  But Magnus was the one that threw the rock to knock it from the tree."  He sighed and rubbed at his temples.  "And your son saved us all from more than a few stings."  He reached out a hand.  "Stoick, I'm sorry."

Stoick grasped Spitelout's hand and said, "And I'm sorry to yeh as well.  Shall we say peace and let this hatchet be buried?"

Spitelout nodded, his eyes downcast.  "My son… he never would have been able to save us from what we just faced.  I thought… I thought that Hiccup's ways would lead us into disaster and ruin, and that he would be a poor chief.  But now…"  he reached out and clapped Stoick on the shoulder.  "Your son just showed the world our strength and cunning.  I will follow him."

Stoick snorted.  "Damn right, yeh will."

Spitelout grinned.  "I do reserve the right to complain when he's being an idiot boy, though!"

Rolling his eyes, Stoick said, "Of course yeh do."  He clapped Spitelout on the shoulder, knocking the smaller man forward a foot or so.  "Now go home and get some rest, and I'm going to do the same."

Spitelout nodded, and they split apart. 

As Stoick walked into his house, one final thought came to the fore. 

Unbeknownst to nearly everyone else, there was one additional prisoner on the island at the moment.

She, at least, had surrendered willingly.

###

Hiccup, his stomach rumbling and his steps tired, drifted into the mead hall in the half-hearted hope of something to eat.  He'd been keeping himself busy all morning and—

"YOU!"

Startled, he whirled, and almost fell over on his false foot, using the nearby wall to steady himself, and looked up to see Magnhild marching towards him, her shoulders set in fury and her hand on her sword hilt. 

Behind her, he could see Karolina and several of the other kitchen staff looking on with trepidation. 

"Uhhh… yes?" he asked hesitantly. 

The elder sucked in an angry breath over her remaining teeth and said, "I want my pots back, boy."

"Uhhhhhhh…"

She jabbed him with a harsh fingerpoke in the breastbone.  "I spent the _entire night_ locked up with my grandchildren and a whole flock of overprotective dragons!"  She jabbed him again in the same spot, which hurt.  "Then I get released when _someone_ got around to unlocking the doors only an hour or two ago and got told that we won, and we have captives to feed!  So I set to work—and find _every single damn pot in the entire kitchen is missing._   And what do _all_ of these disloyal ingrates tell me!?" she pointed an accusatory finger at her staff, who were carefully watching from the kitchens.  "' _Talk to Hiccup!'_ ' _Talk to Hiccup!'_ ' _Talk to Hiccup!'"_   She seemed to swell further in her fury.  "So now I'm _talking_ to you, _boy,_ and I want to know where my pots went, when I apparently have to feed fifteen hundred people!"

Hiccup shot a betrayed look to Karolina and Lopsides from around Magnhild's side. 

They both gave helpless shrugs and ducked into the kitchen.

"Uh… I kinda had to…"

"Had to _what!?"_

"They're gone.  Sorry.  Smashed."

"What do you _mean,_ all of my pots are _gone!?"_   

Hiccup gave her a weak, tired smile that bounced off of her fury without a scuff.  "Uh…"

"No one tells me anything around here!" she ranted, "but when you come running into my kitchens in the middle of the night—without me being there, mind you!—and smash every single pot that I have, I _expect_ that you can at least give me a good answer why!"  She jabbed him in the chest with the tip of her finger a third time, and Hiccup gave a grunt of pain.  She snorted at that. 

Hiccup held up his hands in a warding gesture, but before she could continue to rant at him, Fishlegs stuck his head into the kitchen and then turned around to call, "Found him!"

Magnhild looked at Fishlegs, and then did a double-take as she took in his battered appearance.  "What in Helheim happened to _you,_ boy?"

Fishlegs made a self-deprecating shrug, pointing his spread hands at the pair of spectacular black eyes, swollen nose and lips, bruised throat, and stitched and bandaged arms as if to say, _what, this?_ and then said hoarsely, "A fight with one of the prisoners.  Can I have Hiccup back, please?"

Magnhild snorted.  "At least _someone_ around here can take a punch."  She made a shooing motion to Hiccup.  "Go on, get!  But either get me my pots back—"

_Not exactly an option,_ Hiccup thought sardonically. 

"—or get me replacements, now!  I have a village to feed!  And send me the rest of my useless staff when you find them!  I have work for them to do!"

Hiccup nodded earnestly, and fled.

Falling in step with Fishlegs, he muttered, "'Fight with one of the prisoners'?"

Fishlegs sighed raspingly and said quietly back, "It's the best kind of lie—one that's completely true."

"So… what did happen, exactly?" Hiccup asked as they exited the mead hall.  "I know you and she fought… and she surrendered?"

Fishlegs nodded, and then winced, holding his hand to his throat.  "I… urgh.  Ow."  He coughed lightly and said, "I've been meaning to tell you since you got back," he coughed, "but it's been one thing after another, and you've been so busy, and…" he trailed off and heaved a sigh. 

"Start at the beginning?" Hiccup suggested.

"Yeah… Okay.  Heather… is a spy, sent by that King down in Vedrarfjord, hidden in the group of thralls.  She admitted it."  He closed his eyes and sighed again.  "Admitted it even while holding my head up off of the floor and pleading with me not to die and saying that she loved me."

Hiccup swore softly.

"Yeah, like that.  I… gods, I don't know what to feel.  I'm…"  He threw his hands up in the air.  "I, I, I… argh!  I caught her trying to steal the Dragon Book!  She _admitted it!_ … and then she… kicked me there, which _hurt—"_

With a sympathetic grimace, Hiccup made a pained noise.

"Yeah.  And then she knocked me out," he gestured to his face and throat, "with a kick to the face.  Broke my nose and all this…"

Hiccup grimaced.

Fishlegs continued, "But instead of running for it or anything…"  He slumped.  "I woke up, and she was praying over me to wake up.  And I've _never_ heard anyone praying like that.  And then she kissed me—which hurt—and then she surrendered and said that she'd explain everything, and that she was so sorry…"  He trailed off again.

Hiccup whistled.  "Then what?"

"Well, Gobber, Spitelout, and I managed to get her into the gaol without anyone noticing.  As far as anyone knows… nothing happened, and I got these from fighting with one of the Danes."  Fishlegs sighed.  "So… your dad said something about wanting to tackle this after he'd had a chance to get some sleep." 

"And what about you…?" Hiccup asked worriedly.  "You've… Fishlegs, you've been mooning over her since I got back."

His friend swallowed painfully.  "I… I don't know!  She… It depends on what she says.  I… argh!  I want to believe her!  But, but, but…"  He waved his arms about agitatedly.  "How much of it was a lie!?  Did Hallr really take her from her village?  Or did she get rid of him because he was a threat for some reason?"  He slumped again.  "I don't know." 

Hiccup winced at the pain in his voice.

Fishlegs mumbled, "Did she even like my poems?"

They continued to walk in silence for several more steps, as Hiccup honestly had no idea what to say to that.  Then he reached up and patted his friend gently on the shoulder.  "I guess we'll find out when we talk with her.  In the meantime… can I get some help with the pot situation?"

Fishlegs nodded.  "Yeah.  First, we need your help down in the tunnels; something about that winch you built…"

###

Hours later, Hiccup stared blearily at his sketchbook and made another notation.  This problem was occupying a great deal of his attention at the moment, and that was a good thing.  Bowlmaking for Magnhild was just the sort of problem that was perfect as a distraction.  And they needed more bowls and pots, as Magnhild had decreed what he had managed to scavenge from the captured ships to be 'barely adequate.' 

He had two promising ideas at the moment, one of which would take a great deal more effort than the other but would probably be more fruitful in the long run.  The first and more simple idea involved taking a pole lathe and mounting it to the waterwheels as a power source, using gears of different sizes to speed up the rotation speed.  Then, in order to make bowls quickly, he could create a chisel that was mounted to a form, such that the chisel would carve the shape the form dictated.  That way, Woodnut and the other carpenters could hand the job off to their apprentices.  The downside to that approach would be that it could only make wooden bowls for sure; he wasn't sure how soapstone would hold up on a lathe. 

The other idea would involve a great deal more work, but would probably be more effective in the long run; he already had a prototyped tool for rolling out sheets of metal—it was what he'd used to make the Mangler's bow-arms a year or so ago.  Now he just had to make it _bigger,_ capable of rolling out sheets as wide as his spread arms.  If he could do that, his other idea would work.  Probably.  But that idea involved forging or carving a pattern, either out of iron or stone, with a mirror-image hammer hanging above it.  Put the sheet of metal between the two, drop the hammer, and, boom, freshly forged bowl!

…assuming, of course, that the pattern didn't crack under the impact or something. 

Yeah, he'd want to talk these over with Astrid and Gobber later. 

Then Astrid tapped him on the shoulder.  Hard. 

Blinking, he came up out of his reverie—and heard the clanking of chains. 

Oh. 

Right.

He swallowed hard and clutched at Astrid's hand as he fumbled to put the sketchbook away. 

They were sitting in the questioning room in the basement of Berk's small gaol.  While convicted wrongdoers were typically fined or banished, they still needed a place to hold people before trial, or the occasional captive before they were ransomed back to their people, back in the days when Berk had been just another Viking village and the occasional raiding party was a hazard.

He swallowed hard and focused on the here and now, instead of the night before.  Astrid was sitting next to him on one of the benches; his dad was sitting in a chair sized for him in the center, while Gobber was seated on the far side of the room, and Fishlegs sat next to Stoick, a writing desk and parchment laid out in front of him.

Fritjof and Spitelout entered, flanking Heather, who was manacled hand and foot, with a chain between them.  The two Jorgensons, half-carrying her, placed her none-too-gently in the chair, slid the loops of the chains into the eyebolts set in the floor, and stepped way.  Fritjof took a spot by the door, while Spitelout took a seat next to Gobber. 

Heather had tear-tracks all down her face, and the tunic under the green gemstone hanging from her neck had salt stains and dried snot all over it.  She was staring at Fishlegs with abject horror, and she tried to cover her mouth with her hand, only to be drawn up short by the manacles.

Fishlegs looked away from her and picked up a charcoal writing stick, his hands trembling. 

His dad… _the chief_ looked at Heather levelly as the silence grew, and then said quietly, in a deep rumble, "Heather.  Some months ago, you were brought to this island as a thrall, given to us by King Adalwin.  Given _specifically_ to Fishlegs Ingerman, who had been wronged by Adalwin's men, and the way it was phrased, there was little doubt that you were intended to be taken as either concubine or toy to a young man fresh into adulthood."  He scowled deeply.  "That did not happen.  You were given your freedom, given the opportunity to become a member of this tribe, even the opportunity to bond with and train a dragon.  And then… by your own admission, you spent this entire time spying on us for the man that treated you like an object to be given away.  You attempted to steal from Fishlegs a valuable book.  You assaulted him and could have killed him."  She sniffed and visibly held back tears at this.  "The only reasons I am not having you _executed_ right now for treason is because you stayed, did your best to keep Fishlegs alive, and you surrendered—and because Fishlegs asked me not to."  He steepled his fingers.  "But I want to know why you did these things, and you _will_ tell me."

She broke down into tears and visibly fought for composure.  After a moment, still looking down into her lap at her hands, and said, in a broken voice, "My name is Heather nic Oswald.  My father was a chieftain of a clan in the highlands south of here, Clan Murchadh, also known as the Berserker Tribe."

Stoick made a sound of recognition.  "I know those names."  He leaned in.  "You're Oswald the Agreeable's daughter?"

She nodded stiffly.  "Yes.  As a child, I was sent as a ward to allies of his to be raised from the age of six.  As I assume you know, he was killed by my brother six years ago."  She sniffled as Stoick, Gobber and Spitelout shared looks and nodded.  "Then my guardians—a chief in the clan and his wife—adopted me as their own."

"That's all very nice and everything, but what does… oh, _shite,_ " Spitelout said, sounding like he wanted to spit.  "He, the king, he has them."

She nodded painfully. 

Stoick grimaced and asked, "So, you said that two years ago, Hallr and his men attacked your village, Claonaig.  Was that true?"

She swallowed and said, "We were in the middle of a _blot_ to Odin and were taken by surprise and overwhelmed.  My adopted parents, Murray and Griselda, and I were taken as thralls."

  And what happened between then and now?"

"We were sold to King Adalwin as house thralls.  I was his personal maidservant and cook; he thought it was funny to have the daughter of a pagan chieftain as his personal slave."

A deep, agonizing breath.  "He was always planning on using me as a spy, too.  I was trained constantly in spycraft, and if I made any mistakes, he'd have my parents beaten…" She gave a great hacking sob and continued.  "He was planning on giving me to the king of Dubh Linn originally.  And then you happened.  And he changed his plans.  And now I'm here.  And if I don't come back with dragons, he'll have them tortured to death.  He promised that he'd take his time and see if he could 'make them last.'" She sniffed again, and said, dully, "That's it." 

"Why didn't you say anything?  To me or to Fishlegs, perhaps??" Stoick asked firmly. 

Another sob wracked her body.  "I didn't say anything, to anyone, because he said that one of the others he sent was there to keep an eye on me." 

Hiccup looked at the others, eyes wide, but they were all looking at her.

Stoick leaned in.  "Heather."

She looked up dully and sniffed.  "Yes?"

"Why did you think that we wouldn't listen to you or care?  We freed you and brought you into the tribe."

She swallowed hard and said a bit scornfully, her face twisted into a rictus of pain, "Uh huh.  That's easy to say, chief, but it's one thing for you to be so happy about freeing thralls when all you have to do is saw off some collars and dish out some boiled mutton!"  She hugged herself, the chains clattering around her.  "It's another thing for me to believe that you'd be willing to invade Vedrarfjord on my say-so!"  She went to point at them with a finger, but was drawn up short by the manacles.  "How would you know that I wasn't leading you into a trap!?  How would _I_ know that you wouldn't try to make me into a double agent?  That would just get my parents _killed!"_ she finished with a half-shriek of fury and pain and then folded in on herself, looking down at her lap, her hair hanging lankly over her face.

Hiccup blinked at the pain and fury in her voice, while Astrid hissed in sympathy and clenched her hand on his.  The charcoal stick in Fishlegs' hand snapped with an audible crack, and Spitelout gave a rueful nod.  Fritjof looked on with derision and disbelief, clenching his hand on his sword hilt.  Gobber's face was inscrutable. 

Stoick waited a moment and then asked mildly, "Then why didn't you leave Fishlegs after you attacked him?  You had every chance to get away clean."

She started crying again and looked down.  "I don't know!  I just… I could have gotten the book, and a net full of hatchlings, and flown off before any of you realized!  But… I saw him there… choking on the floor on his own blood… and I couldn't leave him…" she sobbed.  "I knew that… if I ran… and he'd died… I'd tell Windshear to burn me… as soon as my parents were free…"  Another wracking sob.  "And now he hates me and my parents are going to die.  But he'll live… at least I know that… he'll live… and I wasn't sure… about my parents…  Adalwin never keeps a promise… if he can help it."

A chair slid back, and she clenched, not daring to look up.  Hiccup braced himself as well, watching what would happen next.

Then Fishlegs' thick stout arms were hugging her and pulling her as out of the seat as the chains would allow.  And she completely collapsed and started crying into his shirt, great gobs of snot and tears soaking into and staining the furs, the manacles and chains chiming as she shook, completely breaking down. 

Fishlegs sat down on the floor next to the chair, holding his sobbing, traitorous girlfriend in his lap with an expression of extreme confusion and care on his face. 

Spitelout sighed and rubbed at his temples.  "Won.  Der.  Ful.  A teenaged girl spy with hostages."  He looked at Stoick.  "Am I allowed to get upset with her for not trusting us?"

Stoick shook his head.  "No."

Fritjof, a look of disbelief on his face from where he stood by the door, said, "Don't tell me that you believe her!"

Spitelout stroked his chin and grimaced.  "I do.  It explains much, and I can't fault her choice there."  He scoffed and then growled.  "And here I was all set to demand her head on a pike."  He exhaled and glanced at Stoick tiredly.  "But now I'm imagining what your mother would be saying."

Hiccup snorted despite himself. 

Fritjof stared at his friend, appalled.  "But… but… she could be lying again!"

"To what end, Fritjof?" Stoick asked, curling his hands into fists and resting his chin on them.  "She just admitted to having hostages held over her.  She had her chance to escape cleanly in the day's chaos and didn't take it."  He scoffed.  "She would never again have a chance like this one and she threw it away for…" he cocked his head towards Fishlegs, who was softly whispering comforting nonsense words into Heather's ears.  She was still shuddering in his arms but was otherwise not reacting to anything they were saying.  "No, if this is part of some deeper laid plan, it's one that would need the hands of the gods in it."  He looked at Fritjof with a sanguine expression.  "After all, who would she betray us to now?  And what would she have?"

"Uh—"  Fritjof went, and then said, "Her old master."

Astrid shook her head.  "That would be the first place we'd look for her now, and we'd come in force."

"Her old clan?" Fritjof said.

Spitelout shook his head.  "I've heard stories of her brother.  He's insane, is known to be hunting for her, and he's known as 'Kinslayer' for a reason."  He drummed his fingers together.  "Like as not, he'd finish the job and make sure that there aren't any other claimants to the tribe."

"The English!"

"Who came to wipe us out, not steal dragons, and they weren't the ones that delivered her," Hiccup said levelly.  "And, again, why surrender after being caught?"

Fritjof sighed.  "I don't trust this."

Stoick rumbled, "Yeh don't have to.  Yeh have to just hold to yer oaths to me and trust _me._ "  He rubbed at his chin.  "So, now, how do we react to this?"

"What do you mean!?" Fritjof said, sounding shocked.  "She's a traitor.  She made her oath and broke it.  Banish her or execute her."

Stoick looked at the thane.  "Did she break her oath?"

Hiccup thought over what she'd said and then shook his head.  "She didn't.  She was getting ready to, but when it came down to it, she kept it."  He watched a tear drip off of her chin and spatter on the floor.  "Kept it at great cost."

"Aye, I agree," his dad said. 

Next to Hiccup, Astrid clenched her hands and, forcing a casual whistle that Hiccup _knew_ she wasn't feeling, she pulled out the dagger that Hiccup had given her as a courtship gift back at Thawfest, and a whetstone.  "So, I think we need to go pay Adalwin another visit," she said grimly as she started to sharpen the weapon, "and maybe yank every thrall in the city out when we do.  Because that's twice now that this guy has messed with us.  I say we don't give him a chance for three."  She looked at Stoick and Spitelout flatly.  "I'm just the Master of Dragons around here, not the marshal, but that's my advice, chief."

Stoick snorted.  "Aye.  We will definitely deal with this." 

Hiccup looked at the weeping girl enfolded in Fishlegs' arms, as he rocked her back and forth, her body completely limp.  And then he looked at his father, to whom he had argued so strongly before against getting involved in a war.  Hiccup nodded sadly.  "Yeah, Dad.  I know.  We gave him his chance and he blew it.  I'm not going to argue for him again."  He drummed his fingers on the table.  "So… we need to get in there and get her parents out in a hurry, before he kills them." 

"That's my boy," Stoick said approvingly.  "But we'll speak of that later.  Right now, we're all tired, so we'll plan later, after the funerals.  And I think that we have time, as I doubt that there's another spy to report on her."

"Why?" Astrid asked.

"Because why tell her?" Stoick said brusquely. 

Astrid cocked her head.  "Huh?"

Fishlegs, holding a limp Heather in his arms, stopped making crooning noises to her and looked up, saying bluntly, "If there _was_ a person watching her, she might have found them and been able to work around them.  If there _wasn't_ one…" he trailed off ominously.

Astrid blinked and then nodded.  "She'd have to keep looking."  She grimaced.  "Eugh.  And she'd have to keep wondering…"  She made another face.  "How do people think so twisty?"

"Aye.  No argument there."  Stoick looked up at Fishlegs.  "Can you get her settled down?  I think we've asked her enough for today, but if we're to do this, we need to know everything she knows about his defenses."

Fishlegs nodded.  "I'll take care of her."

"Good."  Stoick quirked an eyebrow.  "So… in case there _is_ a spy keeping an eye on her…"

"I thought there wasn't?" Hiccup said. 

"Probably not, but why tempt the Norns?" Stoick said, and Hiccup nodded.  "Anyway, lad… she's sweet on you.  And she's been staying in a longhouse with the other freedmen.  I think it's time she moved out in a non-suspicious way."

Fishlegs was nodding and nodding, until Stoick reached the end of that statement, when he froze.  "What?"

Hiccup stared at his father with surprise, trying to figure out what he was up to.

"I'm saying if you think your reputation around here can stand the hit, I want you to take custody of her, in a way that looks like she's moved in with you.  I will talk with your parents and explain, if you want me to, but she needs to be watched by someone I trust, and she needs to be moved away from the people that might wish her harm."  Stoick pointed at Fishlegs.  "You're it."

"You… you want me to pretend that she's my _concubine?_ "  Fishlegs sounded either insulted or embarrassed.

Stoick raised an eyebrow as Hiccup and Astrid shared a glance. 

"She already confessed to loving you, boy.  Or did you miss that?" Stoick said, nodding at the still twitching young woman that Fishlegs was holding gently in his arms.  She had completely retreated from the cruel world of consciousness, and was… well, not asleep, but there wasn't anybody home in her glassy-eyed, tear-filled stare.  Fishlegs was holding her like she was made of spun glass. 

"Uh…  I'm really questioning your matchmaking methods, sir," Fishlegs said after a moment. 

Stoick laughed.  "Boy, if you two end up pairing up, I think you will be doing fine.  But that's not what I'm asking.  I'm asking you to keep her alive and away from suspicion by those that might wish her harm until we can deal with her situation properly."  He waved towards the two of them with a broad sweep of the arm.  "And the best way that I can think of involves making it look like you two are enjoying yourselves out of wedlock, even if you don't actually do anything.  It will be a scandal.  People will talk.  Your reputation may suffer, as will hers for certain.  But she'll most likely live, because it will be expected by anyone keeping an eye on her for her to try to get closer to you, and unsurprising to everyone else."

Stoick stood as Fishlegs stared.

"So, what do you say?"

"Uhh…"  Fishlegs blinked.  "When you put it that way… yeah."

"Good."  Stoick made to walk out of the door, and looked at everyone.  "As for secrecy…  I will go and talk to the Ingermans now and tell them what they need to know.  As for you all, I'll have your oaths not to discuss it with anyone outside of this room until we've had a chance to discuss it further.  If anyone asks where Heather was during the night, she was occupied with the battle preparations.  Am I clear?"

Everyone nodded and made their oaths. 

"Good.  Now, Fritjof, Spitelout, get those chains off of her."  Before he walked out of the door, Stoick took one last look at Fishlegs and grinned.  Hiccup couldn't tell why, until his father simply said with a smirk, "And who knows?  Maybe you'll find out that it need not be a fake scandal."

His father walked out of the room and shut the door while Fishlegs just stared, his jaw hanging open, turning bright red.  Hiccup and Astrid were just looking at each other with a shared expression of 'did I just hear what I thought I heard?'

They quickly got up and left the room before Fishlegs recovered. 

###

That evening, as Hiccup prepared to go to sleep, he looked over at Toothless, laying on his stone slab with his eyelids drooping and his tongue hanging out slightly.  Today had been utterly chaotic, and they hadn't slept except in short naps since the day before; he was ready to fall right off to sleep by this point.

But he couldn't.  His mind was still buzzing, and he could hear the crackle of fire in his memories, and the screams of men whose ship was on fire.

Whose ship he had _set_ on fire.

_They_ had set on fire.

He had used his friend to kill people.

It had been desperation, but… he had still killed them. 

When the Norns had cut their threads, he had been the shears.  And yes, that was melodramatic as anything, but he had a melodramatic streak—which Astrid had called him out on—for having to do everything for maximum effect.  Last night, as he and she had designed the battle plan, that streak had been a help, as he'd helped plan for maximum shock and hopefully minimum casualties, so that the English would break and run, terrified.  The circle of fire, the coordinated attack runs, the opening in the circle, the methodical destruction of the fleet… it had all been intended to terrify them into running away.

And it had worked at causing terror. 

Too well. 

His vivid imagination, usually such a help, turned on him.  As he tried to drop off to sleep, it gave him the full experience of those moments of terror aboard the fleet.

Even when his exhaustion dragged him down into sleep, he found no respite, as his conscience and imagination collaborated to punish him for his victory.

###

Heather blinked awake.  Her eyes felt like someone had taken dried sharkskin to them, and her whole body ached.  For a moment, she had no idea where she was, and she rubbed the goo from her eyes with the back of her hands.

"Good morning, Heather," a motherly voice said, and she sharply turned towards the voice.

Fishlegs' mother was sitting in a nearby chair, merrily working on a piece of naalbinding, which looked like it was going to be a sock.

Somehow, she had woken up in the Ingerman clan house. 

What.

Putting down the sock, the older woman picked up a covered plate and passed it to Heather, who unconsciously accepted it. 

"Go ahead and eat.  You haven't since yesterday," she said kindly to Heather. She took off the cover, revealing some soft cheese, a small cup of milk, and a bowl of barley porridge laced with onions.  As the smells of the food hit her, Heather started shoveling it down as quickly as she could, suddenly ravenous.

Heather cleaned the plate off, disregarding table manners in her haste to get as much down as quickly as possible, while Fishlegs' mother stitched another row on the sock.  As she licked her fingers clean, the other woman said mildly, "So, I understand that you beat my son senseless and realized that you love him in the same moment."

Heather froze, the food in her belly suddenly clamoring for an exit.

"As courtships go, I have to say that that is hardly the most excessive one I've ever heard.  Most of those are in sagas, though, but given recent events…" still merrily stitching away, she shrugged.  "So, the chief has asked that we keep an eye on you, for your protection.  We said yes, because he is our chief and because my boy loves you."  She leaned in at Heather.  "But if you break him again, I will see you _suffer._   Am I clear?"

Heather nodded mutely. 

"Good.  Now, with that bit of unpleasantness out of the way: once you're feeling up to it, we're supposed to head out and find my boy or Hiccup.  For the duration, until they rescue your parents, you're not to be left unsupervised.  And they need to ask you questions about the defenses around that fort."

She blinked.  "What?"

"I guess you weren't listening at all last night.  Eh, not surprising given your condition when my boy carried you in."  She tied another piece of yarn onto the naalbinding and started the next row of stitches.  "Stoick is planning on teaching your old lord a lesson on what it means to mess with Berk, and rescue your parents and any other thralls he may have as part of it.  He's a good man, our chief."  Unspoken but still heard were the words _and you are lucky that he is._

"I, uh…"

"They'll be holding the funerals this evening, and they're currently preparing for that.  If you are planning on staying," and unspoken in that was the question of where and with _whom,_ "I suggest that you attend."

Heather nodded and whispered, "I'm sorry."

"Dear girl, believe me, I understand what you did.  I may not be _happy_ with you giving my son a beating that nearly killed him," Heather flinched, "but you did it out of love for your parents.  And then," the older woman quirked an eyebrow, "in the heat of battle, you set my son's life above theirs—and yours.  The _one_ thing that I am not questioning is that."  She made another knot in the naalbinding.  "And while I might not approve of you leaving your kin to die horribly—"

Heather whimpered as if she'd been punched.

 "—I'm _choosing_ to look at it this way: when it came time to choose between three people that you loved, you risked your own life to save the one that you could be sure that you could help.  And that is arguably wisdom.  I'm _also_ choosing to overlook the _lack_ of wisdom immediately preceding that."  She gave Heather a flat look that made her feel like she'd gulped water with ice floating in it. 

Heather nodded, looking down, and hesitantly pulled her feet out from under the furs and onto the floor. 

"So… now what?" she asked.

"Now, you are staying with us.  You will be our ward and a member of our household, until such time and circumstance that you can rejoin your parents, or…" and the older woman gave her an assessing look, "you end up joining us permanently."

Heather felt her eyes grow wide.  "He…"

"Oh, he's in a right state at the moment, thanks to you.  But he was a good boy, he's becoming a good young man, and with how he had been talking for the last few months about you, I was already starting to wonder.  He'll come around, if you want him to.  No, it's _me_ that you really have to worry about.  Finding out that you were a spy… well, that didn't help matters.  But it came with you throwing everything away for his good health, so I suppose I can forgive it."  _This time,_ Heather heard distinctly.  "You not having a dowry complicates things, but you have a dragon, and a rare one at that, if I understand right.  A little work, and I'm sure you can make it work out."  She tied in another piece of yarn.  "But that is for later.  Right now, you need to get up, and we need to get going to find my son or Hiccup.  I've spent enough time this morning watching over you.  If anyone asks me or you, you're sleeping with my son out of wedlock, and I'm officially amused at how he landed a beauty like yourself on pure merit."  She finished the row and started the next. 

Heather blinked and, surprising herself, blushed without needing to force it.  "Ummm…" 

"Apparently no one is surprised."

"I… uh…"

"Need to get going.  Your dragon is in the Rookery, and my boy and Hiccup should be in either the mead hall or the chieftain's hut."  She stood, putting the sock aside, and, as always, Heather was reminded of where Fishlegs got his build from.  "Come.  Put on your shoes and let's go."

 

###

The stone ships were placed atop the barrow hills, the pyres were lit, and, for the first time in Berk's history, dragons were honored along with men in death.  Before, when dragons had been burned on this field, they had been as sacrifices for the men who had paid their lives in taking them down with them.

Now, they were being treated as warriors in their own right. 

Hiccup watched the bodies crisp and burn in the flames as Astrid stood next to him, the two of them holding hands, not caring what anyone might say at the public display of affection.  The assembled tribe watched as their defenders' mortal remains and personal effects were reduced to ash.  While their souls had already been taken up by the Valkyries, assured of a swift trip to Valhalla, having died on the field of battle against a foe in full glory in the defense of their families and tribe, they would arrive bereft of anything but what they had worn and carried with them.  Now their kit and beloved personal goods were being sent along, so that all would know of their glory on the fields of Valhalla, that they were so greatly beloved of those left behind that they were worthy of such sacrifices—and so that they would have no earthly attachments that might draw them back as a greedy draugr. 

And people were giving him looks out of the corners of their eyes.  He heard whispers that it was thanks to him that the entire tribe was not being burned or left to rot, or even rise as the hungry dead.  That he and Toothless had beaten back the entire fleet singlehandedly, the rest of the dragon-riders having been his tools. 

The honor was his.

And the blame.

As he watched, Hiccup heard the crackle of the flames of the pyres… and heard the crackle of burning ships and the screams of their crews.

Because that was his _honor,_ too. 

###

As evening proceeded into night and the funerals progressed into a feast in honor for the dead, Astrid went looking for Hiccup, who had disappeared midway through the feast.

She found him almost immediately, in his house, sitting at the table in his father's oversized chair, a flagon in hand, a small tapped barrel lying on the table's edge, drinking resolutely, his eyes looking into the distance.  Toothless was sitting nearby, wide-eyed with concern; as she entered, he whined worriedly at her, jerking his head towards Hiccup with an air of fear. 

"Hiccup?"

He put his flagon down and looked up at her.  After a moment, to her shock, she realized that he was _drunk_ , to the point of trying to reach for his flagon again and missing.  Hiccup _never_ drank to excess, even at Viking feasts where that was what you _did._

"Hiccup…?" she said softly as she approached him carefully, like trying to walk up to a cranky dragon.  "What's wrong?"

"Keep hearin' 'em scream," he said dully, managing to grab his flagon on the fifth try.

"Who?"

"People in the water… people in ships…" He waved an arm widely.  "Wasn't so bad yesterday… so much t' do…" he took another draught, "but whenever was quiet…  could hear 'em…"  He blinked slowly.  "Screaming."

He looked up at Astrid, unshed tears in his eyes.  "How many, love?  Five hunned?  Thousand? Two?  Was my idea… Used my friend t' kill people…"

She looked at him, her heart twisting a bit, and then sat down in the chair, which was still big enough to fit both of them even after the last year of growth.  She pushed away the flagon, which was filled with fortified beer.

"Hiccup."

"Yah?"

"That's enough."

"Okay."  He looked at her, eyes bleary.  "'nuff beer?  'nuff killing?  'cause we were…" he hiccuped, "plannin' on doin' more."

Molding herself against him, she sighed and stroked his neck.  She should have seen this coming, of course, especially after seeing him rescue people from the water—and not for their ransoms.  Of course her kind and peaceful beloved was recoiling at what he'd wrought.  "And this is why you're a good person, love."

"Huh?"

"Here, I'm happy to have a nice, straightforward problem that I can solve with my ax.  We have an evil man, and we're going to deal with him."  She kissed his temple.  "We had an attack on us, and you _saved the village again._   You even went back and rescued people from the water who were planning on killing us."  She kissed his forehead and started rubbing at his temples.  "But you're mourning the people that you _couldn't_ have saved."

"…hear their screams…"

She pulled him into her lap, laying his shoulders across her legs.

"It's okay, love.  It's okay."

"Didn' wanna kill anyone…"

"And you look for the peaceful way.  I love that about you."  He mumbled something about loving her too, and she stroked his cheek.  "The fact that you can feel this way… honestly, Hiccup, I'm kind of in awe.  You really are blessed by Baldr and Odin."  She grimaced.  "I'm jealous, really."

"Huh?" he struggled to sit up and looked at her incredulously.  "How…"

"Hiccup…If I have a patron, it's Freyja or Sif, and that's on principle alone, being a shieldmaid.  I'm dedicated to them, sure, but I doubt that they've really _noticed_ me.  Whereas you…" she started ticking off on her fingers.  "You have a mind like Odin's, honor like Tyr's, hands like Wayland, and bring peace like Baldr."

Hiccup's eyes grew comically wide.  "But I don't wanna get stabbed with mistletoe!" he started flailing a bit in drunken panic.

She held him and laughed a bit, tears in her eyes making them glisten.  "Okay, maybe not the best comparison.  But you're a _good person,_ Hiccup.  And I love you for it.  You don't kill, unless you absolutely _have to._   And look at what that's done."  Her eyes narrowed.  "Do you doubt for a _moment_ that the rest of us would have let that fleet escape if we'd had Toothless as our mount?  There are _still_ people in the mead hall saying that we should have burned them all to the waterline, and half the reason your dad has guards in front of Harthacnut's cells is because he wants to keep people _out._ "  She kissed his forehead.  "And you… didn't.  You just…let them go.  Because you wanted to keep them alive.  Not because you knew them."  She kissed his nose.  "Not because you wanted to save them for ransom… but because you didn't want to kill."

"But so many…"

"Hiccup… I want you to answer this.  Okay?"

He nodded, blinking.

"Would the screams be worse if they were the screams of the village being sacked because you _didn't_ blow up those ships?  If the same number of people had died, but we shifted it to our village instead?  Would they be worse?"

He blinked and moaned, falling back into her lap.  "'at's gonna be my nightmare t'night.  Thanks."

"No, it won't."  She huddled next to him.  "I'll be here.  I promise.  I'll watch over you, and ward your dreams."  She stood and hauled on his shoulder, pulling him out of the chair.  While he was taller than her now, he was still thin like a reed.  Working together, she and Toothless hauled him up to his bed.  She went and got a bucket to place next to the bed, for when he would inevitably be sick in the night, and forced him to drink as much water as he could handle.  As she pulled the furs up over him, she considered for a moment shucking her clothes, lying down next to him, and holding him in her arms, but decided against it; the bed was narrow, and it would be hard to help him aim for the bucket if she had to spend the time yanking her arm free from under him.  So she drew up a chair next to the bed and stroked his hair as he drifted off to an uneasy sleep.

She sighed and put a little braid in his hair as he slept.  He hadn't come to her when there was something bothering him.  Again _._  

She slumped.  Then again, she was hardly blameless there either.  He'd even _offered_ to help her with the marriage issue, and she'd deflected. 

"What a pair we are, aren't we?" she said quietly.

She sighed and put in another braid, relishing the feel of his hair in her hands.  Well, at least he was doing better than she was; he hadn't turned her down when he'd been hurting.  But it would have been nice if he had, perhaps, found _her_ instead of the barrel of beer. 

She raised an eyebrow, amused, and blushed slightly as a few memories from Nidaros came up; she'd had a nightmare one night, where Toothless _hadn't_ come to the rescue against their attacker.  When she'd woken up, Hiccup had held her until she'd stopped shaking, and then assured her that he was quite alive.  They'd eventually gotten back to sleep after that affirming lovemaking in the dark.

And… while the death and devastation wasn't anywhere near the same scale, she just wished that she could have been there for him tonight.

But, no, he'd gone and gotten drunk.  He'd done the Viking thing instead of the Hiccup thing. 

She exhaled sharply, puffing up her bangs, and stroked his cheek fondly.  Well, he might be an idiot at times.  But he was her idiot. 

An hour or so later, she heard footsteps on the stairs, and Stoick stuck his head into the room.  He saw them and his eyes widened; she held a finger up to her lips before he could say anything.  Hiccup had finally settled down into something resembling real sleep only a few minutes earlier, and she didn't want him disturbed.  He nodded, and made a 'come here' gesture and turned to go downstairs.

Nodding, she padded across the wood on bare feet, and crept down the stairs after Stoick.

"Is he all right?" the chief asked.

She shook her head.  "He's… he's drunk.  Badly drunk.  He said that he could still hear… screams from the battle, and he tried to drown them out with beer."

Stoick glanced at the barrel on the table and grimaced.  "I see."  He sighed.  "I was afraid of that."  He rubbed at his face with his hand.  "At least this time, it'll just be a hangover worthy of the gods, and not that death-sleep…"

The two of them shared a look, remembering the week of endless death watches over Hiccup after the battle a year ago.

"Lass…" Stoick rumbled.  "You'll… you'll stay with him?"

She started to nod, and then realized how… open that question was.  But the answer was the same regardless.  "I will."  She met his eyes and nodded slowly.  "I will."

Part of her wanted to ask him right now if he found her to be a worthy wife to his son, but the rest of her rebelled against the impulse.  This was not the time for such questions. 

Then there was a retching noise from above, and, without so much as an apology to the chief, she darted up the stairs two at a time.  She managed to get the bucket in front of Hiccup before he made a mess.  Behind her, she heard the door close, as Stoick returned to the funeral feast.  

It was a long night, and Hiccup woke in a mindless panic more than once, or screamed in his sleep, or wept uncontrollably, or rolled over and vomited into the bucket.  Each time, she held him, or woke him and comforted him, or dried his tears, or gave him water to wash his mouth out.  It was agonizing, painful, and interspersed with long periods of worried boredom, and she didn't begrudge him an instant of it.  She was just grateful that she could help him, and marveled at the heart of a man who could mourn for his enemies.

###

Wulfhild gave Mistletoe a quick rub on her scales, making the silvery dragon give a shiver and a happy chirp, and then left her friend to a meal of smoked herring and cod in her room in the guest house, closing the door behind her and heading for the stairs.  She was glad that she'd managed to get Mistletoe out of the Rookery, after the injuries she'd sustained during the egg-laying; thankfully, her friend was healing up nicely, with new scales growing in, although she and Brand did _not_ get along.  It was going to be interesting with both of them back in Nidaros. 

And by "interesting", she meant that she was occasionally idly contemplating arranging to have the two dragons be in the same space as Einar and clearing the area.

It was only an idle fantasy, but the idea still made her smile, even with the cut on her cheek.  They'd removed the stitches a few days earlier, and, well… she was sticking with her earlier statement after looking at it in a mirror.  The bright red healing wound as wide as her palm would add _character_. 

It wouldn't doom her to life as the wife of some rural baron out in the back end of the Holy Roman Empire. 

She was still beautiful, and she had a dragon, and a royal bloodline, and powerful friends.

…friends that she might never see again in another month or two.

She swallowed at the thought as she reached the ground floor, and then felt grateful that Dragon Training was currently on hold in the aftermath of the attack for the funerals and dealing with the prisoners.  Yngvarr and Ross had travelled back and forth between Winchester and Berk twice already, negotiating ransoms.  Every day that it took was another day that she got to stay.

Then, as she walked out of the house, she felt shame at that gratitude.  People had died, people that her friends had known all of their lives.  Taking any form of joy at their passing… what kind of sinner was she?!

Wrapping her arms around her chest, she walked up the hill towards the chief's house, upset with herself.  Hearing voices inside, she politely knocked. 

The conversation stilled and a moment later, she heard Hiccup's voice call out, "Who is it?"

"It's Wulfhild!" she called back.  "Can I come in?"

There was a brief burst of conversation inside.  Without really intending to, Wulfhild heard the voices, muffled but identifiable, and blinked.  "Heather?  Are you in there?"  She hadn't seen the other Razorwhip rider since the battle, although gossip had it that she'd moved in with Fishlegs and the two of them were…

Well, suffice it to say that, once again, Wulfhild was finding herself envious of her friends and their relationships. 

Inside, there was a pause, followed by another muffled conversation, intent, much lower in tone, and longer.  Then Hiccup's voice called out, "Come in!"

She opened the door, to find Hiccup, Astrid, Fishlegs, Heather, and Stoick standing and sitting around the table.  Their mood was somber, and Heather had fresh tear tracks half-wiped away on her face, which made Wulfhild blink in surprise. 

"Is everything all right?"

Stoick looked at her assessingly, and then said, "Lass… Your Highness.  I have a question to ask yeh."

Blinking at the formality in his tone, she bowed and stepped over the door's threshold, closing it behind her.  "Yes… you may.  What is it?"

Stoick looked at the others in the room for a moment and then turned to her.  "I need to ask yeh to hold this in confidence."

She nodded.  "So long as it doesn't put my brother or my kingdom at risk, yes, of course."

"Yes… Magnus.  Yer brother holds his honor in high regard.  Do yeh think that he would be offended if, if there was a threat and… argh, I'm not cut out for this dancing."

"May I?" Heather spoke up, her voice sounding a bit scratchy. 

Stoick glanced down at her and then nodded.  "Aye, go ahead lass."

Heather turned to look at Wulfhild.  Meeting her gaze, Wulfhild sucked in a shocked breath at how _tired_ Heather looked.  "Remember when we were getting Windshear and Mistletoe, and you said that we both knew what it was to be under the control of conscienceless men?"

Wulfhild nodded wordlessly. 

"Well… I wish that I'd been brave enough to tell you everything then, but, but," Heather looked down at her hands, shame on her face, "like you, I'm _still_ under that control."

Stoick rumbled, "But we're aiming to fix that—and I need to figure out how yer brother is gonna react."

Blinking, Wulfhild stepped over to the table and took a seat.  Extending her hands across the table to Heather, she said, "Tell me everything.  I won't judge."

###

Sn… _Sigurd_ ran through the halls of the Bucoleon palace, which were used as the Varangian barracks, on yet another errand for Jorn, Kristoffer and Harald.  He had been assigned to Harald's personal unit before the fleet had even docked in Miklagård and was being personally apprenticed by the senior Varangians as their aide.  Unlike the others from his cohort of arrivals, who were being drilled and trained elsewhere, he was getting the sort of personal attention that he deserved.  It made even running errands and having to stand at attention in the corner while the senior officers talked just another indicator of his importance. 

Kristoffer had even explained it to him the other day, when he'd been starting to feel a bit resentful.  The Guard was a combination of the training of the Romans, focusing on working together as a disciplined whole, with the ferocity and strength of the Norse.  So he had to be trained, and even Harald, who was a prince, had undergone the same training when he'd first arrived.  And that meant that Sno… _Sigurd_ had to get that same training.  Otherwise, he wouldn't be useful as a Varangian, and the others in the ranks would resent him for favoritism.  So he had to show them all his competence and discipline in order to win their respect.  And that included running errands and standing at attention while waiting to be called. 

But, as Kristoffer had pointed out, he was still on Harald's private staff.  They were trusting him like they trusted no other new recruit. 

Then Kristoff had challenged him to show them all that he was worthy of that status.

And there was no way that Sigurd was going to back down from _that._   And the respect was coming anyway, although it was from Harald's emblem on his tunic.  Men moved aside and saluted as he came through, and the staff leapt to attend to what he needed.  Thankfully, most of them spoke Norse; he was starting to pick up a few words here and there of the native Greek, but it wasn't something he was focusing on. 

Listening in at the meetings was fascinating, too.  Harald had justified snapping up S—Sigurd on the grounds of replacing the losses from the expedition they'd just returned from.  Apparently Harald's group was so elite that he was not only personally trusted by the Emperor, he was sent all over the Empire dealing with the threats that the normal Army couldn't handle.  From what he'd overheard, the uprising had been decisively crushed, and they even had the rebel leader, Peter Delyan, in custody.  He'd been betrayed by his own kinsman, Alusian, which made Sn—Sigurd uncomfortable.  But Alusian had helped bring the rebellion to an end, which Harald seemed to approve of. 

For now, they'd turned Delyan over to the council of elders—they called it the Senate here—to argue over his fate, while Alusian was being rewarded.  And Harald was turning to other matters—like the dragon and the rider who were now under his command. 

Sigurd had taken him out for three flights so far, and Harald had enjoyed every minute of it, even spontaneously composing a poem as they'd flown above the city.  They'd even had a whole meeting entirely devoted to testing what he and Hookfang could do; he had been an active participant in that one, and it had been intoxicating to have these celebrated senior warriors, trusted by an entire empire, hanging on his every word!

And the barracks were gorgeous, with silk, polished stone, beautiful statues, and treasure lying about everywhere.  It had once been a palace for one of the old emperors, five centuries ago, and was now the home of the Varangians.  Hookfang had been settled out on one of the balconies adjacent to Sigurd's sleeping barracks; happily, Gudmund, Gunnar, Hrafn and Ketilbjorn had also been assigned to that room.  Unhappily, so had Thorred and Kormak.  But they were all being pushed to their limits in their training and drilling; at the end of the day, everyone pretty much collapsed straight into their pillows.  Kormak hadn't even picked a fight with him yet. 

Dropping off Harald's orders at the quartermaster's office—something about wanting to request, wait, no, _requisition_ a Greek Fire unit for the upcoming tests—he hurriedly returned to the small side room that Harald and the others used as an office.  

Walking back into the side room where Harald was working, he saluted and reported, "Message delivered!"

"Good.  Stand over there and remain at attention until I call for you," Kristoffer said.

Sigurd took the indicated spot and stood at attention as he had been taught the other day.  Back straight, hands behind his back, looking forward.

And he listened. 

Harald was listening to a report from another Varangian, his face impassive.  It was mostly in the Greek tongue, and he didn't understand any of it, even the parts of Norse that slipped through.

After a while, the other Varangian was dismissed and Harald turned to his officers, paying Sigurd no attention—but not telling him to get out, either.  And, as Kristoffer had explained, that alone was a sign of respect. 

As was Harald speaking in Norse. 

Drumming his hands on the table, Harald said contemplatively, "The emperor has gone into seclusion and taken Holy Orders.  They say he will pass any day now.  John the Eunuch has forced Zöe to adopt the emperor's nephew as her own son while we were away in order to keep power in his hands, and the Emperor has agreed.  It looks as if within the next season we will again get to engage in _polutasvarf."_

Sigurd's eyes widened and he fought hard to compose himself as his commander spoke.  He had no idea who this John the Eunuch was—and they couldn't possibly mean that literally, right?  It had to be some kind of sarcastic nasty title that they only used in private, which made him feel proud at the show of trust—but the idea that he had arrived just in time to engage in the fabled palace looting?  That was _amazing._  

"It'll be a change," one of the other officers observed.  "Before, it was the Empress and her husband.  Now, the Empress and her adopted son?"

"I'm sure she'll be happy to have _anyone_ to call her own blood," Harald observed caustically.  "We've all seen that much.  Who knows?  Mayhap this boy, as a son instead of a husband, will last longer, given how hard she tried to have children of her own."

"Aye, aren't you eying that bedchamber, Harald?" one of the officers said in a jesting tone.

Harald gave the man an unamused look.  "I've managed to keep myself out of her bed long enough, thank you very much.  I want to go _home_ one day, not end up face down in the bath with a silken cord around my neck because I couldn't sire children on her."

Sigurd's eyes bugged at that a bit, but before he could regain his composure, Kristoffer turned and said to him, "Sigurd!  We need more wine.  Go call us some servants from the kitchens."

Sigurd saluted and ran off.  He'd learned where the kitchens were the second day he had been here.  And wine was interesting.  He preferred ale, but the red stuff was growing on him. 

As he ran down the hallways, he found himself thinking about home, involuntarily prompted by Harald's comment.  The leaves would have fallen from the trees by now, if he wasn't mistaken—it was just so much warmer down here that he hadn't realized how late in the year it was already—and the village would be preparing for the long, cold winter. 

Reaching the kitchens, he directed a pair of workers to get a jug of wine and deliver it to Harald's office, and found himself wondering what his father was doing. 

As he returned, heading up the stairs to the office chamber, he put the thought out of his mind.  He was here, a warrior in the service of the Roman Empire, a trusted personal aide of a senior commander.  His future lay before him, and it was time he started to look forward, not back. 

He reentered the room, told Kristoffer that the wine was coming, and took up his position by the wall again.  Hands clasped behind his back, spine straight.

He would show them all that he was worthy. 

###

Wulfhild stared at Heather, speechless.  She'd heard some terrible stories over the years.  Her uncle's habit of locking his opponents into their own houses and burning them down still topped that list.  But as savage as that was, she found herself pondering the sort of person that could look at a shivering and terrified thirteen-year-old girl and see a future spy to keep on a leash, who would use torture not as a weapon of intimidation but as a _tool,_ and who would brutalize that girl into a half-mad spy like a sculptor with his chisel.  The brutality was familiar, but the dispassion underneath it chilled her. 

It wasn't anyone that she would care to meet, that was for certain. 

Heather was looking down at the table, her face ashamed.  Fishlegs sat next to her, and… their body language was interesting.  Especially taken in contrast between Hiccup and Astrid; those two were sitting comfortably next to each other, casually touching, holding hands, handing things off between each other without asking or looking, communicating with a glance, and practically shouting _we're in love._  

Heather and Fishlegs were also sitting right next to each other comfortably… but every time Fishlegs met her eyes, she flinched away, guilt on her face.  They both hesitated or twitched when they touched one another, and when Fishlegs had given a hiss of pain at one point during the tale, Heather had frozen, a look of such pain on her face that for an instant Wulfhild had thought that _she_ was the one making the sound.  And yet, they also had moments of casual intimacy—like when Fishlegs had reached for one of the parchments and quills on the table and she'd handed them to him unasked. 

And if there was anything that had become incredibly apparent to Wulfhild over the course of the last few minutes, it was that Heather desperately needed friends… and that, if Wulfhild wanted to be true to the person that she wanted to be, to the person that God had commanded her to be, she _would be that friend._ For whatever support that was worth.  But Heather's strength in the face of her own horror humbled and awed her, and the parallels between them were such that she could not help but empathize. 

And if this didn't count in the eyes of God as visiting the imprisoned, then she'd be very disappointed in Him.

So she reached across the table and wrapped both of her hands around Heather's comfortingly. 

"I think that my brother will be very annoyed if you leave him out of this," she said to Stoick, answering his question as she gently patted Heather's arm.  "And I also think that giving him a chance to indulge his taste for dramatic heroics…"  She shrugged with a helpless smile.  "He'd be ever so pleased.  What do you have planned?"

Hiccup inhaled deeply and then let it out through pursed lips.  "We're still figuring that out.  I, I have some ideas for things that might help, but…"

Heather looked at him in fear.

Wulfhild leaned in.  "Hiccup's a genius, don't worry.  He'll figure out a way."

"And if I don't, Astrid will," Hiccup said, patting his girlfriend's arm.

"I know, I know… but… I'm scared," Heather said quietly.  Fishlegs patted her gently on the arm.  She sighed.  "It's out of my control now, and that's really really scary."

"Lass," Stoick rumbled.  "We'll do what we can."

"I know!  And they have a better chance with you than with him!  But…"  She sighed and slumped, her head hanging over the table.  "I'll be good, promise.  What else would I do?  Sneak off, load up a carry-box full of eggs and fly off to Vedrarfjord?"

###

Standing on the rooftop of his fortress, Adalwin looked out over the city towards the north.  A dragon and another group of dragons were visible in the distance, flying in towards the city. 

Next to him, the lookout was visibly doing his best to hide his terror; he'd almost drowned when Haddock and his dragon had dropped him in the water during their visit. 

He thumped the man solidly on the back.  "Good job!  We're ready for them!"  He leaned over the side of the roof and gave a sharp whistle.  The people in the courtyard all looked up, and he called, "Hello everyone!  We're about to have guests of the leathery flying variety!"  He brought his hands together in a booming _clap!_   "Time to lay out the proper hospitality!"

A few people chuckled half-heartedly, and they all set to work.  He and his men had spent a great deal of time and effort planning on what to do if and when they clashed with the dragon riders again, and today they'd likely be testing them all.  Unless, of course, the dragon coming in belonged to the girl. 

Well, they'd still end up testing _some_ in that case.  But he could load the dice in his favor easily if she was the rider on the back of the growing winged shape.  And—he squinted—it looked like there was something being carried by the second group of dragons: a box, hanging down below. 

Below him, in the courtyard and around the walls, his guardsmen scurried about, putting preparations into effect.  Several large fishing nets were stretched tautly between the keep and the walls in order to close off the courtyard proper.  Over by the armory, the bowyer was stringing bows as quickly as he could manage with freshly waxed bowstrings.  A pair of young guards ran about, hanging weighted nets and bolas from hooks set into the palisade logs, and every spare member of the staff was fetching water from the river or filling buckets from the cisterns to place at strategic points. 

He sauntered down the stairs confidently.  Finding a guardsman, he put one of his contingency plans into motion, in case the girl was returning.  Then, as the man hurried off, Adalwin proceeded to casually amble around the courtyard, critiquing this and that among the preparations.  He could tell that his air of confidence was doing a great deal in helping with his people's nervousness. 

A few minutes later, the shapes turned into a large, silvery dragon, ridden by a young woman, and followed by a dozen more riderless dragons working together to carry the large crate that he'd spotted. 

She hollered down to the fortress.  "Adalwin!  Adalwin!  I'm back!"

He stepped out from under the courtyard's overhang and casually called back up to her.  "Well, if it isn't dear old Heather?  How was Berk?  Did you enjoy your time with the boy?"  Inside, he was crowing.  The dragon the girl was riding was a gorgeous specimen, and he had a moment where he pictured how he would look riding upon it's back. 

"Shove it, you horrid old man," she shouted back down.  "I want my parents.  Where are they?"

"Why don't you land and we can discuss it?"

"Do you think I'm stupid?  No, the only way you're getting these dragons is if I get back my parents."

"Hmm.  And what's in the box, I wonder?"

"Eggs and stuff.  The Hooligans use them for carrying heavy loads—I just borrowed one."

"Borrowed, eh?  I like that!" 

A pair of guards came up, dragging along an emaciated man and woman, dressed in rough homespun and thrall collars.  At a signal from Adalwin, the guards drew their swords and immediately held them to the pair's necks. 

"Oops," Adalwin said mockingly.  "Well, kid, here are your parents!  You had better surrender quick, or they might get a bit shorter!"

"Mom, Dad!" Heather screamed, moving her dragon in closer.

"NOW!" shouted Adalwin, and a dozen guards on the wall's battlements popped up from hiding and launched bolas and nets skyward, entangling the Razorwhip and its rider many times over.

They hauled on the ropes and dragged the dragon downward.  It struggled, but it was so entangled that it could barely stay aloft.  For a brief moment, Adalwin was afraid that it would fall out of the sky completely and smash onto the ground, which would be a horrid waste. 

Instead, it managed to get one wing and part of the other free and started to try to fly off, flapping madly, but not before Adalwin's men passed the net and bola lines and hauled.  Other men pulled open a gap between the nets below and they dragged the struggling dragon down into the courtyard. 

Much to Adalwin's delight, the other dragons carrying the box followed docilely, and flew into the trap of the courtyard as the nets were opened and then closed behind them.  For a brief moment, as the shadows of the netting fell on it, an odd motion caught his eye, but when he looked back, he only saw the straight planks of the box, and dismissed it as a trick of the light from the flapping of the dragons' wings.

Adalwin strode forward triumphantly to where a dozen guardsmen were dogpiling the silvery dragon and the girl.  Behind him, the girl's parents were being manhandled along by the pair of guardsmen.

Stopping a few dozen paces away, he took in the moment and basked.  The girl and her dragon were caught in at least four nets, the eight dragons with the box were hovering right below the level of the net, and the box itself was gliding over the dirt of the courtyard by perhaps a hands-width.

He motioned to the two guards with their prisoners; they moved off to the side as he had indicated, and then pushed both of the girl's parents to their knees and held their swords up in the air as a blatant threat. 

Spreading his arms widely, he then clapped them together with a deeply insincere smile on his face, looking down at the struggling girl and dragon.  "Well, well, well, young Heather.  Welcome back _properly_ now.  It's so good to see you, down here where you belong, instead of up there where I have to crane my neck to talk to you."  His smile turned feral.  "I look forward to long discussions between us while you tell me _everything_ I want to know about riding these beasts." 

She stopped struggling and sighed, calming the dragon with a touch.  Once it stopped struggling as well, she said plaintively, "Please.  I did what you asked.  I brought you dragons, and eggs.  Please, let me and my parents go."

He stroked his chin in mocking thought, and then shook his head.  "No."

_"No!?"_

"If you had done as I had instructed, maybe I would have, but you tried to bargain instead.  You forgot that you _work for me._   You _belong_ to me, thrall.  You forgot your place, and now, I think, you need to be reminded of that."  He snapped his fingers and pointed to the girl's parents.  "Take them below.  We'll need them for incentives."

The guards grinned, sheathed their swords, and went to haul the prisoners to their feet.

There was suddenly a thunderous THUMP as the box dropped the few inches to the ground.  The walls of the box wobbled and unfolded like a flower, revealing not a stack of eggs… but two dozen fully armed, armored and shield-carrying Vikings.

All of whom immediately yelled and charged at Adalwin's men… who were mostly armed with non-fatal weapons that Adalwin had devised for taking down _dragons—_ not humans. 

Almost at the same instant, the men who had been restraining the girl's dragon, startled by the sudden appearance of the Vikings, screamed as the dragon whirled on its paws, ripping free from their grasp, and flung out a spray of shiny metallic scales from its tail, shredding the net… and some of the men. 

Adalwin flinched as the dozen dragons that had been carrying the box all took aim at the two guardsmen by the girl's parents.  The guards screamed as six small flaming rocks apiece battered them away from the prisoners, singing their clothes and setting one of them on fire.  Six of the Vikings immediately ran over to the two dazed thralls, surrounding them.  One of the six, a tall blonde shieldmaiden with a savage smile, gutted one of the two guardsmen with a swing of a massive ax when he got too close. 

Adding insult to injury were a dozen smaller dragons, eight the size of cats, four the size of large wolves—and where _they_ had been hiding, Adalwin had _no_ idea—all of whom started to fly about, spitting fire and acid at his guards. 

_Well,_ Adalwin thought to himself, _this… is a problem._

* * *

 

**A/N:**  Just a reminder, I will be posting up through chapter 29, finishing out the current arc/"book", through the end of this month, and then going on hiatus for the month of November in order to participate in NaNoWriMo.  Posting will resume on December 3rd, 2017 with chapter 30, and you'll be able to track my NaNoWriMo progress over at my tumblr, athingofvikings.tumblr.com; I'll be posting my daily NaNo word count there.  


	27. A Humble Proposal

**Chapter 27: A Humble Proposal**

_…within half a year of the battle with the Green Death, the first recorded attempt at theft of dragons from Berk occurred, instigated by the then-petty king of Vedrarfjord, known at the time as Adalwin ua Imir, in southeastern Éire.  This first attempt failed, but Hiccup clan Haddock appealed for moderation on the part of his tribesmates and likewise failed to end the threat decisively.  This allowed Adalwin to insert a spy into Berk, Heather nic Oswald clan Murchadh, then age fifteen.  Trained in espionage from the age of thirteen, her orders were to infiltrate Berk, steal dragons, and exfiltrate back to Vedrarfjord._

_While not all of the legends about Heather clan Murchadh (later clan Ingerman) are accurate, the broad strokes of those legends are generally on point.  Due to emotional attachments to Berk, specifically that of her future husband, Fishlegs clan Ingerman, she defected to the Hooligan tribe.  And, as her first action on behalf of her adopted society, she aided Berk in a Trojan Horse-style infiltration of Adalwin's keep for a retaliatory decapitation strike against her former masters._

_The attack was a mixed success, with only some of its objectives achieved, and resulting in numerous unintended consequences.  These included…_

_—Origins Of The Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631_

Fishlegs stood behind Astrid in the carry-box as she peered carefully out of the disguised peepholes drilled in the knots in the wooden planks.  His heartbeat was hammering in his ears, his palms were sweaty, and he clutched his ax and shield tighter, terrified of what was about to happen.  It was incredibly cramped in the box, and it smelled like nervous sweat and bad breath. 

Then Astrid called _"Brace!"_ and yanked the quick-release cord. 

The roof of the box detached cleanly from the sides, just as Hiccup had designed and they'd practiced for, and fell the few inches to the ground with an overwhelming THUD, as if someone had, well, dropped a giant box packed full of Vikings onto a dirt floor.  Above him, the Gronckles, Meatlug included, were already doing as they'd been instructed and blasting the guards away from Heather's parents with rapid fire small rocks.  The walls of the box folded away and, with a yell trying to hide how terrified he was, he charged out of the box with everyone else. 

Astrid, Spitelout and Hiccup had planned out the attack as best they could, breaking people down into teams.  Astrid led the team towards Heather's parents, and quickly surrounded them in a wall of shields and blades.

Fishlegs, Fishwings, and Horsefeathers ran towards Heather and Windshear; their job was to get her free of anything that might be restraining the two of them.  Windshear had already shredded half of the netting holding them, and Heather was working on detangling herself as quickly as she could manage. 

Behind him, he heard Astrid shout, "We've got them!"

Fishlegs averted his eyes from where she was standing, as there was suddenly the shockingly bright light coming from the odd cylinder that Hiccup had given her; while the day was slightly overcast, the bright white light still cast sharp shadows for the few seconds that it lasted before sputtering out and a number of the guardsmen cried out that they couldn't see. 

Heather and Windshear freed from the netting, he met her eyes for a brief moment, and then her eyes widened. 

"Look out!"

He whirled, and an arrow hissed through the air where he'd been standing and hit Windshear, skipping off of her scales and making her roar.

The archer nocked another arrow and took aim, only for a Terrible Terror to land on his head and claw at his face. 

He screamed in shock and pain, and the arrow went wild as he dropped the bow to protect his face.

Behind the screaming archer, Fishlegs could see the other three teams at work.  The suppression team, making up more than half of their number, including the dragons, were working at taking out the guardsmen of the keep.  Working as a disciplined unit, they were holding the courtyard and offering an additional, threatening target to the guardsmen, who outnumbered them.  The dragons distracted and harried the guards as they tried to come together, like that one Terror that had helped him, while the Gronckles were blasting holes in the netting and covering the smaller dragons.  The Changewings and Terrors were working to clear the palisade walls of guards.  Those men were well entrenched behind new crenelations, and needed to be kept occupied, otherwise they could rain arrows down on the people below. 

The final team was much smaller—Stoick, Spitelout and Fritjof. 

They were going after the king. 

In the distance, Fishlegs could hear Toothless' diving whistle starting to build, panicking more than a few of the guardsmen, but he paid them no mind.  He saw the king dart into the central keep as Stoick and the two Jorgensons were blocked by guardsmen, and felt a surge of rage. 

As Heather and Windshear ran towards her parents to help cover them, Fishlegs, his teeth set in fury, ran to help his chief. 

The archer that had shot at him had dropped to the ground, his face covered in claw marks from the Terror, who had flown off deal with another guardsman; as Fishlegs ran past, the man tried to stab him with an arrow or knife from where he was lying, but Fishlegs blocked the lunge with a fluidity that he would never have believed himself capable of.  He whacked the man with the metal edge of his shield and sent him sprawling in the dirt.

His brother and sister were running up behind him, and the three of them made a wedge, with him at the point.  Screaming, they barreled into the line of guards holding off Stoick, Spitelout and Fritjof, their numbers and the momentum of their charge helping break the enemy's line.  Spitelout and Fritjof took immediate advantage of the moment and dropped two of the guards, while Stoick stepped forward and sent one flying with a swing of his warhammer.  The man flew into the wall and slumped to the ground, his chest visibly caved in. 

Behind them, there was a flash of purple as Toothless blasted a wide hole in the net.  Hiccup was leading a formation of their dragons, including Stormfly, Thornado, Nott and Delling, Toast, and Inkpot, and they quickly started to clear the walls in earnest.  Meatlug and the other Gronckles, flying in a tight flock, joined in, and started to ram the guards off of the walls. 

"Inside!  He ran inside!" Spitelout yelled. 

The doors were barred from the inside, and made of stout lumber.  It would take an ax time to chop through.

Fishlegs glanced around and saw a shuttered window on a higher floor.  He signaled Meatlug, and a moment later, his boots were kicking in the thinner wood of the shutter.

Dropping inside into what looked like a bedroom with a large bed and an empty arming stand nearby, he told his dragon that she was a good girl, and ran to the door.  From outside, there was a cheer, and he grinned.  Heather and her parents were safe, and now Astrid and her squad would be hunting through the fortress for other thralls to free, starting with the outbuildings.

Opening the door, he found a hallway, with a staircase nearby, and ran down, past a collared servant who was cowering on the landing.  Finding the main doors wasn't hard, as the staircase led to a main hall.  There was a single guard with an ax waiting, looking nervous, and staring at the door, which was shuddering from Stoick's blows. 

Fishlegs tapped him on the shoulder, and as the guard whirled, slammed him into the door with his shield. 

He slid to the floor, dazed.  Fishlegs kicked his ax away, called out through the door that he was there, and quickly slid the door bar free. 

Stoick, Fritjof and Spitelout burst in, followed by Fishwings, Horsefeathers, Astrid and her team; he could see the suppression team bringing the courtyard under control, and herding the remaining guards off, while the doors to at least one of the outbuildings hung splintered from their hinges.

"There are thralls upstairs!" he shouted over the noise.  "And I didn't see the king!"

"Good job, lad!" Stoick said.  "Astrid!  You and your group sweep upstairs!"  He pointed with his warhammer to the stairs.  "We'll take down here!"  He pointed to Fishlegs, Fishwings and Horsefeathers.  "You three!  You're with me!"

They strode down the main hallway leading away from the entrance, quickly finding several other rooms, including a kitchen populated by cowering thralls. 

"Did the king come through here!?" Stoick demanded; one nodded, pointing.  "Thank yeh!  Get outside!  We have people waiting for yeh!"  He pointed to Fishwings.  "Get them out of here!"

She nodded and started directing the thralls out.  Stoick had been very clear on that point; the keep was made of wood.  Dragons breathed fire.  And accidents happened. 

They entered the larder, filled with food for the upcoming winter; there was another doorway at the back, slightly ajar.

Spitelout moved forward and pushed it open, revealing a narrow hallway, filled with smoked hams and small game hanging from hooks; there was another door at the far end, and standing in front of it was the king, along with two guards and a pretty young woman, a thrall collar on her throat. 

Fishlegs clenched his teeth at the sight of Adalwin; he was dressed in rich robes over battered metal armor.  Tall, dark-haired, and grizzled, with a neatly trimmed dark beard in braids down to his shoulders.

The king, seeing them, grabbed the girl and dragged her in front of himself as a shield. 

"Well well.  I'm impressed.  I take it the girl blabbed?" he said in a oily voice, and Fritjof startled. 

"You…  I _know_ you!"

"Hmm?  Oh, hello Fritjof.  Nice to see you again.  Still doing the bidding of others, I see," the king said, as if they had merely met on the street as casual acquaintances.

Fishlegs tried to push forward as the two guards advanced towards them, but the hallway was too narrow, and his shirt got caught on one of the ham hooks.  Stoick, who was himself behind Spitelout and Fritjof, was too wide for the two of them to pass by each other. 

Fritjof pointed his ax at the king and shouted in a tone of incredulous anger,  "Alvin!  It _is_ you!"  He threw his ax in a fury, screaming, "Die, you backstabbing bastard!"

The king dodged to the side as the girl screamed—the ax passed right over her head, and would have sunk into Adalwin's face if he hadn't dodged.  

As the ax stuck in the door behind Adalwin, he threw his own knife at Fritjof.  He tried to block the weapon in turn, but he was hampered by the corridor's narrowness.  With a meaty thunk, the blade sank into his shoulder, and he screamed. 

There was a sudden roar and crackle of flame from somewhere up ahead; it didn't sound like dragonfire to Fishlegs, more as if a pot of oil had been ignited. 

As Spitelout tried to push forward to protect Fritjof from the advancing guards, the door behind King Adalwin—Alvin?—opened, and he stepped back and through, pushing the girl forward into the hall.  She yelped in surprise, and then the door closed with a slam that set all of the hams and game on the walls bouncing on their hooks.

There was then a sound of a wooden bar being dropped behind the door, audible even over the growing sound of the fire, and both Fishlegs and Fritjof shouted cries of anger and denial. 

Fritjof fell back, trying to protect himself with his shield as the guards advanced, while Stoick pressed forward.  "Your king abandoned you!  Drop your weapons and we will accept your surrender!" he boomed to the two guards.  They sneered in response and stepped into Stoick's reach, their blades at the ready.  Stoick simply took his shield and _rammed_ forward, knocking the first man into the second, making both trip over the girl, who screamed, and then knocking them to the ground. 

Stoick started hacking at the door with his ax.  "Take them prisoner!" he said, pointing at the men on the ground.  With a shrug, Spitelout stepped forward to smack the two men on the ground into unconsciousness with the flat of his ax.  Fishlegs stepped forward and started to help with the door, which quickly cracked and shattered under their onslaught, releasing a cloud of black smoke and blast of hot air into the hallway. 

Behind them, Spitelout called through the roar of the flame, "I'm dragging them out!"

Stoick kicked the remains of the door down, revealing what looked like another storage room, filled with sealed pots. 

Fishlegs followed him in.  The room was awash in light and smoke from fire in an adjacent room to the left; there were pots of what smelled like lamp oil visibly roiling with flame, which was also licking at the walls.  Fishlegs felt his face burst into sweat from the heat.  He looked around; the door on the right-handed wall was also hanging open, and he could see a body lying on the floor in that room.

But other than the body, there was no sign of the fleeing king. 

He and Stoick ran into the right-handed room, and, coughing, dragged the body out, just as the flames found the corridor of hams.  Glancing at each other, they braced themselves and ran down the flaming corridor, carrying the body on their shoulders.  There was something sharp and hot and wet digging into Fishlegs' shoulder as they ran, coughing and their eyes tearing up from the smoke.  They reached the kitchen, their clothes and hair smoldering, the hem of Stoick's tunic starting to burn and flicker, then Spitelout tossed a pot of water on them.  Fritjof slammed the door behind them and they ran out as quickly as they could as the fire began to spread out of control.

Reaching the courtyard, they found that the dragons were dumping water on the keep, but they were barely keeping the blaze contained. 

Stoick heaved the body off of Fishlegs' shoulder, and there was a sudden sharp pain.  He turned and looked, seeing a bloody but shallow gash along his shoulder.

It had been caused by the knife sticking out of the body's throat; he'd been cut by the two or three inches extending out from under the body's chin, the quillon of the guard having kept it from cutting him worse.

The rest of the blade extended out past the body's neck in the back.

###

Astrid watched, leaning up against the remains of the keep's palisade wall, as Toothless landed lightly in the courtyard of the smoking and smoldering keep, and Hiccup hopped off and walked up to his dad.  The fire was out, and the Hooligans had taken possession of what was left of the keep, and ferried over the rest of their people, such as the healers, from the longboat that they'd landed further up the coastline, north of Veisafjord.  It was all going according to plan—too well, really—and she wondered if the other shoe was in the process of dropping, and if it would hold off until Magnus arrived with the rest of the fleet.  He'd been indignant at not being allowed to come along on the strike, so they'd put him in charge of the longships that would arrive this evening.  The ships were largely empty so that they'd have enough room to take every freed thrall back with them, and needed protection from pirates, brigands, and the remains of Harthacnut's fleet. 

Now they just needed to hold the city until he arrived. 

Hiccup was talking animatedly with Stoick,  looked a little shocked, and she walked over to find out what was happening. 

"—and they were all waving their arms, trying to get my attention and—" she heard as she got into earshot. 

Stoick held up a hand.  "Hiccup.  What happened?"

"Umm… the city surrendered.  The whole city.  I think that they're hoping that we don't sack it."

Astrid blinked in surprise.

Hiccup shrugged sheepishly.  "I got waved down by the wall garrison and a bunch of the clan heads.  Said that they wanted to talk terms."

Stoick sighed.  "We're not settling in.  We're here for that king and every thrall that we can pull out of here."

"Well, they're coming," Hiccup said, still sheepish. 

There was a clattering noise from off to the side, and they all looked involuntarily.  Astrid had a momentary flashback to her youth and the smell and sound of a burned building settling on itself. 

This time, however, the dragons were helping clear the rubble.  A pair of Gronckles lifted off, carrying a smoking piece of timber, each of them holding one end in their jaws. 

Hiccup crossed his arms and sniffed at the scent of woodsmoke.  "So what happened?"

"Bastard got away, we think, but how he managed it, we don't know," Astrid said, irritated. 

There was a snort from nearby.  "If I had _any_ doubt that it was Alvin—not that I did, given the knife throwing trick—that erased it."

She, Hiccup and Stoick turned to see Fritjof, shirtless, sitting nearby on one of the tables that they'd hauled out into the courtyard.  The survivors from the keep's garrison were seated on the ground behind him, Windshear and several other dragons and riders keeping watch over them.  Her cousin Nanna was stitching up the knife wound in his shoulder, and he gave an awkward half-shrug that made her swat at him and quietly admonish him to hold still.

Stoick cocked his head.  "I take it that yeh knew him?"

Fritjof grimaced and nodded.  "Ayep.  'Cept he wasn't 'King Adalwin ua Imir' at the time.  Alvin.  Alvin the Treacherous is what us sea raiders called him, and he earned it."

Stoick whistled as Nanna finished her stitches and walked off with a huff to see to the next patient.  Thankfully, none of their people had been killed.  Indeed, Fritjof was their worst injured with that knife wound.  Among the guards, most of them would survive, but according to Nanna, one of the two that Spitelout had taken prisoner would never wake up from the head wound Spitelout had inflicted.

"What did he do to earn _that?"_ Astrid asked.

Fritjof rolled his eyes.  "Well, he managed to finagle his way into a kingship with no blood right and a dynasty that I _know_ he didn't belong to.  How do _you_ think he got here?"  He snorted.  "Knives in the back."  He twisted, showing a silvery scar on his back perhaps four inches long.  "Escape routes.  Whispers in the dark.  Bribes in the night.  Burn bridges after him—and if he could catch the men chasing him on the bridge, more the better."  He gave a long, angry exhalation.  "I was one of the lucky ones.  I lived once he was done with us.  Headed to Berk shortly after that."  He nodded to the body that Fishlegs and Stoick had carried out.  "Most of my friends ended up like that."

Astrid glanced at the body; it had been identified as Abban, one of Ad… _Alvin's_ personal cronies.  According to the captured guards, Abban had been put in charge of the keep's lamp oil supplies the summer before last, when the prior man had suffered an… accident. 

And the knife in Abban's throat had been shoved there with such force that it had taken Stoick actual effort to pull it free.

Heather and her parents walked over at that point; she had one of her arms wrapped around each of them, heedless of their smell.  "Chief… I know that you're busy and everything…"

Stoick grinned.  "Aye, let's handle this.  Yeh are Murray and Griselda of Clan Murchadh, chieftain and chieftess of Claonaig, aye?"

They nodded numbly, staring up at Stoick, a reaction that never failed to amuse Astrid.  They both needed a bath and food; Murray's cheekbones jutted out from his face like knives, and Griselda was gaunt, and both of them had premature gray in their hair.  According to Heather, they were younger than Astrid's parents by years, and if she hadn't known that, she would have put them at the same age, if not older. 

Stoick continued, "Yer daughter did much, and risked much, to rescue yeh.  If yeh wish, I offer yeh admittance to my tribe, the Hooligans of Berk.  But I don't need an answer now."  He turned and made a shooing motion to Heather.  "Get them fed and cleaned up, and those collars off of them.  We'll be having the _frelsis-öl_ back on Berk once we've finished here and Magnus arrives."  He smirked at Heather.  "Turns out we've got _lots_ of collars to cut and boiled mutton to dish out." 

Heather flushed magnificently, from her cheeks to the tips of her ears, and led her parents away. 

Once she was out of earshot, Fritjof asked sourly, "So, Chief, how much of this was because you were doing what Thor and Freyr would want, and how much of it was because that girlie stung your pride?"

Before Stoick could answer, there was a call from Fishlegs over by where he was supervising the cleanup of the burned timbers.  "We found something!"

Astrid gave Fritjof an irritated look as she turned and ran over to Fishlegs' position.  She really didn't like the Jorgenson thane on his own merits, and him being Spitelout's best friend wasn't a point in his favor either. 

Reaching the rubble, she turned and started to help Hiccup through the remains of the keep, and they picked their way through the burned timbers holding hands—strictly for mutual help, of course.

It just so happened that he stumbled at one point and she had to pull him into an embrace to keep him from falling.  Of course.  That was it. 

Duty called, though, so they kept the affection to a minimum, and quickly made their way to where Fishlegs was. 

Another log was lifted off into the air by a pair of Gronckles, and Fishlegs crouched down to where it had lain as they hopped over the last timbers.  The footing was made treacherous by the remains of a number of broken barrels and crates. 

"If I'm right, this was where he disappeared.  And look!"  He pointed at the floor.

There was a trapdoor, about three feet across, set into the floor.  The wood of the door was charred, and there was an iron ring set into its surface. 

Fishlegs pointed to a set of broken pots nearby, the shards visible under a collapsed ceiling.  "That's where the fire was set."  He pointed to a nearby spot where there was a visible puddle of dried and burned blood.  "And that's where we found Abban."

Hiccup grimaced, while Astrid bent down and hauled on the trapdoor's ring.  It was stuck, so she put her ax down and hauled with both hands; thankfully, the iron ring was merely warm, not hot.

With a squeal of stressed metal on stone, the trapdoor opened, revealing a shaft with a wooden ladder.  Without hesitation, she grabbed her ax, hopped on the ladder and started to climb down. 

Hiccup made to follow her, but she shook her head, her foot on the fourth rung.  "The ladder is too slippery for your foot.  You stay up here!"

He frowned.

Then, as she dropped below the ground level, Fishlegs started climbing down the ladder as well. 

"Oh, come _on!_ " she heard Hiccup say, exasperated. 

She rolled her eyes and considered this payback for his 'sky-diving' a few weeks back. 

She reached the bottom of the shaft a a minute or so later; it was deep underground, perhaps ten to twelve yards.  She dropped off of the ladder into chest-deep chilly water with a splash; it was dark, with the only light being what could make it down the hole. 

"Send down a torch!" she called up the shaft.  "It's dark down here!"

"In a deep hole underground!?  No, really?" Hiccup called back. 

"Just get me something to use for light, smartass!" she called back up with a smile as Fishlegs reached the bottom of the ladder and jumped into the water.  The wave from his splash nearly knocked her off of her feet, between the slick stones and mud underfoot and the force of the water.  Groping blindly in the dark, she flailed, and hit something soft and squelchy and half-firm floating in the water.

She pulled it over to the slightly brighter patch by the ladder, and peered at it in the dim light.

Captain Ragnell's dead, staring eyes looked up at her accusingly, and she gave a cry of disgust.  

"I'm coming down!" Hiccup called from above.

"No, you aren't!" she called back up.  "Besides, he's not down here."

"Then what's wrong?"

"What's left of that captain is!"

###

Hiccup, followed by Toothless, Stormfly and Meatlug, found Astrid and Fishlegs, soaked and muddied, on the banks of the nearby river maybe a quarter-hour later.  The body of the captain, his throat slit from ear to ear, lay on the muddy bank not far away. 

Astrid pointed at a neatly hidden hole leading back into the bank, obscured by river rushes and tall grasses, which were bent and battered.  "I bet that was the well, once."

Hiccup shook his head.  "No bet."  He bent to look at the rushes and grass, and grimaced as he saw boot prints and the signs of a small boat having been dragged out and into the river.  He slumped.  "Fritjof wasn't kidding when he said that this guy liked escape routes."

Astrid nodded.  "Yeah.  And I don't doubt that he's already long gone.  It's been hours already."  She stretched.  "Come on.  We should still search from the sky, just in case we can catch him."

Hiccup nodded, and they mounted up.  A quick run up and down the river proved fruitless, though, as there were no boats with renegade kings on them within several miles. 

Passing by the city, however, made Hiccup notice something potentially alarming. 

There was a large group of people walking up the street to the remains of the keep. 

He signaled to the others, and, after a brief discussion mostly consisting of waving their arms about, they converged on the keep, just ahead of the assembled mass of people.

As Toothless landed next to Stoick and Thornado, Hiccup saw Heather's parents sitting huddled at the table that Fritjof had been treated on.  Bowls of simple broth or gruel brought over from the longboat steamed in the autumn air, and they were eating carefully—and feeding a toddler.  Heather was standing over them protectively with Windshear at her back.  Nearby, at another table, a girl about their age was clinging to a young boy—her brother, by Hiccup's guess—and trying to eat at the same time.  Other freed thralls were standing about in a daze. 

"Did yeh find him?" Stoick asked.

Hiccup shook his head.  "There was a boat at the river.  He's long gone."

Spitelout swore, and a number of the thralls flinched and cringed.

Stoick snorted, his eyes narrowed.  "Aye, like that, but with bells on it."  He sighed.  "So what's the problem?"

Hiccup pointed to the gates to the keep.  "There are a few hundred people coming this way."

 Shifting his gaze to the gates, Stoick snorted.  "Well, let's go welcome them, then."  He made a sharp, short whistle, and waved his arms.  "Hooligans, to me!  Mount up!  We want to make an impression!"

A minute or so later, Hiccup, standing at his father's side with Toothless, Astrid and Stormfly at his own side, watched as the gates were opened.

On the other side were hundreds of people—the majority of whom wore thrall collars, while others were richly dressed, wearing badges of office.

Hiccup recognized a few in the lead as the men who had surrendered to him earlier.  It looked like they were taking his statement that the Hooligans were here for the thralls at face value.  As a dozen and more of the richly dressed men stepped forward and bowed to Stoick, Hiccup told that to his dad in a whisper. 

Stoick rolled his eyes.  "Aye, of course.  They're expecting us to start sacking the place and are trying to bribe us."

Hiccup shrugged and said quietly, "Vikings.  Occupational hazard."

Stoick grunted in agreement and stepped forward.  "I take it that the lot of yeh are the clan heads and leaders of the city?"

They nodded, still bowing.  A few of them were trembling in fear, while others were clenching fists or stealing glances of awe. 

One of them, a man in his fifties or so, one of the few brave enough to wear jewelry—specifically a gold necklace and a silver cloak brooch—stepped forward.  He managed the motion gracefully while staying in the bow.  "I am Odhrán mac Marcas.  I spoke with yonder rider—" he nodded towards Hiccup, "—earlier.  He said that the tribute that you would demand in order to keep our city safe would be our thralls.  So here they are.  How many will you need each year as Danegeld?"

Stoick stared at Odhrán, speechless, his mouth hanging open slightly.  Hiccup, despite himself, took a long glance of his own to appreciate the sight.  Then Stoick shut his jaw with a click, and said, "Look here.  I had a dispute with your king—who turned out to be an impostor, anyway.  But he's gone now.  And while I will take yer thralls with me, they are _not_ tribute, and yeh _don't_ need to, to, to _enthrall_ more just to placate me!"  This last was said with a roar that made the crowd cringe.  He sucked in a deep breath and said in a much more level tone, "Other than that, I have no quarrel with yeh.  But I will take every single thrall that yeh have in the city, and if yeh take more, I will _not_ be happy."

Odhrán, still bowing, shared glances of confusion with the other leaders, while the thralls behind them murmured among themselves, mostly in fear.  Then Odhrán, his tone one of _exquisite_ politeness, said, "Pardon me, Dragon Lord," which made Stoick growl and Hiccup cough, "but if you want to destroy us, please do us the courtesy of doing so in open battle so that we may claim glory and honor, and do not condemn us to the wretchedness of a slow wasting."

"What do you mean?  And stand up; you'll give me a crick in the neck looking down at you."

Coming out of the bow, Odhrán said, "If you take our thralls as your battle booty, as is your right by might of arms," the man twitched in the direction of Toothless, Thornado, and Stormfly, "we will not have enough labor to get through the remaining harvest and the winter ahead.  I know not what you need the thralls for, but, unless it is to feed your beasts, my clan would be better off in thrall to you than dying of starvation in the middle of the winter."

Stoick growled.  Hiccup and Astrid shared incredulous glances.

Then Stoick took a calming breath, and said levelly, "I am taking your thralls to free them.  We do not practice thralldom on Berk.  They will be freemen."

The man's eyes widened.  "So you would take the meanest of us and elevate them so, while leaving men of status to starve in the winter?"

Another growl.  "Keep talking, and you might not need to worry about starvation for yourself."

"If that is your wish, then do it.  I would rather be struck down now and have a clean death at the hands of a foreign conqueror than watch my clan wither and die of empty bellies."  He met Stoick's eyes unflinching and stepped closer.  "You seem to be an honorable man.  My life is in your hands.  Take it, if it pleases you.  And, having struck down the head of a clan, I am certain that you would take my family as your own thr… as freemen to your home and see that they are fed and housed."  He lifted his head and exposed his neck to Stoick.  "If my sacrifice ensures their survival… do it."

Stoick stared at the man, scowling, as Odhrán stood there, barely trembling, exposing his neck below his braided beard, his eyes closed. 

Hiccup glanced back and forth between the Eirishman and his father.  The man clearly infuriated his dad… but this would be murder if he did it. 

Stoick, his jaw clenching, opened and closed his fist by the hilt of his warhammer twice, and then…

He looked away from Odhrán.  Turning entirely to the side, Stoick slumped and rubbed at his face with both hands. 

No one in the entire crowd, on either side, seemed to be breathing.  Hiccup knew that he wasn't. 

Then Stoick the Vast, chief of the Hooligan tribe of Berk, took a deep steeling breath and said, seeming to speak to no one in particular, "Would you swear fealty to me and agree to obey my laws and orders with the same honor and devotion if I granted you life and not death?"

"Aye… milord."

Stoick's hands clenched open and shut again, and then he gave a ragged cry of exasperation.  "All right!  I will have your oath, and I make the same offer to any other clan willing to abide by the same."

The clan heads all looked at each other… and knelt. 

Hiccup watched with wide eyes and found that he had put his arm around Astrid's waist sometime during the tense moments.  He found Astrid's hand and gripped it with his own, and she squeezed his fingers. 

Well.

Life had just become more complicated.  Odin was probably laughing somewhere at the irony. 

Stoick turned to his marshal.  "Spitelout.  I know that we've had our differences.  But I trust your honor.  I want you to get this place put back together by the time winter arrives.  I want every thrall collar cut, and enough warm homes and warm food for everyone.  These people just became part of the tribe.  Let's treat them as such."

Spitelout nodded, his eyes widening slightly and his nostrils flaring, but otherwise he gave no outward hint of his surprise. 

Stoick turned to Hiccup and Astrid.  "I want you to ride on ahead home; we're going to need all of the construction dragons we can spare, and we'll need them fast."

Astrid nodded and said, "That's most of them; we were actually starting to run out of work for them to do."

"Good."  Stoick looked out over the city, which apparently now belonged to him.  "Because we have have only a month or so before the snows fly."

###

Hiccup and Astrid stood on the bluffs overlooking the sea, watching the dragons take flight to the south.

"Well, there they go," she said lightly. 

Hiccup shook his head.  "This feels weird."

"Oh?" she said, wrapping her arm around his shoulder.

"Well, we went in to just deal with Adalwin— _Alvin_.  Why didn't we see that we'd end up having to take over the place?"

She shrugged and said, "None of us saw the whole thing with the thralls.  We've been getting by without thrall labor for so long that it didn't even occur to us that they wouldn't be able to survive without them."  She raised her hands up in an exaggerated shrug.  "Oops!"

Hiccup snorted.  "'Oops, we just conquered a city?'  Really?"

"Well, technically, we just threw out the king and ended up having the local clan chiefs swear vassalage," she pointed out with a smirk and a light elbow in the ribs, knowing that she was playing word games again.  "It's different!"

He rolled his eyes at her.  "And the difference is…?"

"The place is still standing?"

He digested that for a moment and then nodded.  "Okay, point.  I'm just still… it feels weird.  We now have a vassal city."

"Imagine how your dad feels," she said, stepping behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist and putting her chin on his shoulder as they continued to stare out at the sunset. 

"I don't have to, milady," he said.  "I heard all about it over breakfast this morning."  He waved his arms around expressively and said, in a deadpan imitation of his father's accent, "'Two thousand Vikings and Eirishmen, and Viking-Eirishmen, which was just a bad idea to start with, all who want me to solve their problems for them now!  What did I do to deserve this?  Why did I agree to this?  Half of them are trying to kiss my arse, and the other half are wanting to take a bite out of it!'"

Astrid choked and started to giggle on his shoulder midway through.  Composing herself with difficulty, she said, laughter still leaking out between words, "Well… it's only been a week.  Less.  Maybe they'll mellow with time like good ale?"

Hiccup turned his head towards her, and said, "Instead of turning into vinegar, like bad ale?"

"Well, that's the hope, right?  Ale's well that ends well?"

He groaned and then laughed involuntarily, and she smirked.  Then she continued, in a completely deadpan tone, "Really, your dad should get a-head of the brewing problems before they have a chance to ferment."

He gave her a look that promised retribution.  She just gave him a wide grin in return. 

Rolling his eyes, he said, "Well, you know dad.  He's barley able to keep up with this kind of wort."

She gave him a gentle poke in the ribs and giggled.  "Well, he has a couple of problem solvers on tap, who are just foaming for something to do."

"What an a-stout observation," he said, waggling his eyebrows.  "Should we stop now, before we end up at lager-heads over this?"

She snorted, gave a mock pout and a real punch to his side, and then laughed and kissed his cheek.  

Still holding him in a hug as they watched the sun go down, she murmured into his ear, "So, what next?"

"Well, we still have to finish off Dragon Training, and there's a king down in the cellars that we need to finish ransoming," he said.  Out of necessity, the New Riders—Magnus's people included—had ended up being put straight to work, mostly paired with one of the Advanced Riders.  As a result, finishing the class had basically been reduced to a formality at this point.  But it was still an important formality, if for no other reason that it would mark the legal completion of Ruffnut's dowry, allowing the dragons to be sent off to Norway. 

"Not what I meant, babe," she said back.  "Once Dragon Training is over, and Harthacnut is gone, then what?"

"Well… I don't know.  Winter's almost here.  Johann's later than usual, and I wanted to talk to him about the Dragon Mail.  Hopefully he'll show up soon.  But once winter gets here… I imagine that things will slow down a bit."

"Good."  She pinched his sides and he gave a little yelp.  "You're starting to put on muscle, and you're growing taller."  She was only able to put her chin on his shoulder because of the slope of the hillside.  "So, babe, here's what _I_ want to do with you this winter."  He smirked, and she gave him another pinch.  " _Aside_ from that!  Although," she grinned and licked her lips dramatically, making him laugh, "I'm looking forward to more of that myself.  Lots more.  But, besides that, I want to start drilling you on weapons, and soon."

"Astrid—"

"No, Hiccup, you need to learn.  I…" she sighed.  "I know you might not think that it'll be useful to you," her eyes flicked down to the false foot, "but at least let me get you trained and drilled in the basic forms, okay?  Just in case there are more assassins out there and I'm not there to help.  Or for the next time we have to fight someone on the ground."  She'd _loudly_ refused to let him join in on the attack on the Vedrarfjord fortress aside from being on Toothless's back.  "I know it's not you, but you should at least know how to use a sword properly.  And it'll help your footwork, too."

He thought it over for a few moments and then nodded.  "Okay.  That makes sense.  I have a few projects that I want to work on in the forge… but, once we finish up Dragon Training, I want to split my time between the forge and spending time with you… and if you want to spend the time working on my sword work, that's fine with me."

She grinned and kissed him.  "Yes.  That sounds great to me."

###

"Heather?  Heather?"  There was a snapping noise.  "Heather!?"

She jumped, blinked, and blushed as she realized that Wulfhild had been trying to get her attention.  Smiling sheepishly, she gave her friend a weak smile, even as her eyes returned back to where they'd been—her parents. 

Playing with her new adopted sibling, happy and safe. 

They were sitting in the main hall of Magnus's house, Wulfhild having invited her and her family over for dinner.  They'd finished eating a short while ago, and people had broken up into smaller groups.  The king and Ruffnut were now seated in one of the oversized chairs off to the side, cuddling and bouncing ideas for verses off of each other and generally being obnoxiously cute.  The musician-thane, Ketil, was playing an instrument off in the corner, while Roald and Eindride were playing King's Fist.  The board featured some newly carved pieces, which looked like they were modeled after Hiccup mounted on Toothless.  Sigvatr was seated in a chair in another corner, a tankard of steaming mulled mead lying on his belly with his hands wrapped around it, and an expression of gratified contentedness on his face.  Lena and Thicknut were spectating the King's Fist game, while Fishlegs was talking animatedly with Mark and Vlademar about dragons off to the side.

And Tuffnut was making silly faces at Mhairi as the toddler bounced on her dad's knee, giggling. 

Meanwhile, she and Wulfhild were in the middle of a game of _tabula,_ the racing game with dice and stones.  Or at least they were supposed to be. 

Wulfhild rolled her eyes, put the dice in Heather's hand, and closed her fingers around them.  "Mind rolling?  It's your move."

Still grinning sheepishly, she rolled, and moved her pieces, knocking one of Wulfhild's off of the board.  Her grin turned into a lopsided smirk.

Wulfhild rolled her eyes.  "I'm surrounded by hustlers," she muttered humorously, picked up the dice, and rolled.

Heather's gaze returned to her parents and Mhairi.  The little girl, about three years old, had been given to them by Ad— _Alvin_ , with dire insinuations as to what would happen to them if the girl had failed to thrive.  But thrive she had under her parents' care, just like Heather herself had, and when it had come time for them to come to Berk, they'd brought the little redhead with them.  How could they not?  To her, they were 'Mama' and 'Dada.' 

So now she had a little sister.  And they were all under the protection of her chief, a man that Heather now realized had her allegiance, body and soul. 

She was happy, and safe. 

Wulfhild, sighing dramatically and fondly, placed the dice firmly in her hand again. 

Smiling sheepishly, Heather rolled, and caught Fishlegs looking at her.  She met his eye for a moment, and he glanced away.

As she moved, stacking two of her pieces onto a third on one of the triangles on Wulfhild's side of the board, she knew that she had to talk to him, and soon.  She'd moved back out of the Ingerman house and in with her parents, Mhairi, and a few of the other freedmen and freedwomen from Alvin's household once they'd gotten back from Vedrarfjord.  And she and her… estranged? boyfriend hadn't had time alone in which to talk.  There were still hundreds of prisoners in the cells under their feet, winter was only a few weeks away, they were sending out riders to all of the surrounding Alban villages in an effort to buy or barter food and supplies in exchange for goods or labor, and he was overworking himself in helping coordinate it all, to the point that it had taken Ruffnut and Wulfhild working together to get him to come for dinner tonight.

She touched the peridot pendant hanging from her neck for a moment. 

Well, there was one thing for certain in her own mind.  She loved him.  When the healer had removed the bandages from his arms the other day, revealing the wounds that _she'd_ inflicted on him, and slit free the stitches, she had watched, and felt every twinge of his pain as if it were her own.  She loved his mind, his kindness, his thoughtfulness, his decency, his personal strength, his inquisitive nature… and, if he told her that he never wanted to see her again, she'd accept that.  What she'd been given was a gift, and she'd squandered much of it.

She glanced at her parents and her sister.

But not all of it.

###

With her signature freshly scrawled on a piece of parchment, Astrid put it on top of the pile, and then rubbed at her face blearily.  The two weeks since the battle and the week since Vedrarfjord had been annexed had been brutally intense.  They'd been sending out riders all through the Hebrides and the Alban mainland for buying food.  She'd just authorized, as the Master of the Dragon of Berk, an agreement with the mainlander Choinnich Clan that they would send a harvest team of fifty or so Terrible Terrors trained in farm work to help them next year, in exchange for a few tons of grain and some vegetables, fruits, game, and cured ham now. 

Sighing, she picked up the next piece of parchment; it was an agreement with the Clan MhicFhionhain just to the north, on the Isle of Skye, that Hiccup would come and help them improve and expand their mills over the winter, in exchange for more flour and food now.  Reading it over, she tapped the quill against her lips absently.  It was a good agreement; judging by the terms, the MhicFhionhains were trying to subtly fleece the Hooligans, as they obviously thought that they were getting a bargain for getting the renowned genius of her boyfriend to rebuild their mills for them in exchange for a few tons of grain.

Rolling her eyes, she put it aside to talk over with Hiccup before she agreed to it in his name.  She was fairly certain that he'd agree, just for the chance to get away from Berk in the middle of the winter, but they were partners—she wasn't going to dictate such things for him.  That being said, if he said yes, she'd come with, of course, and maybe when the construction was underway, she and Hiccup could slip away for some time together.  When they'd visited the island back in the spring, she'd thought that the place was beautiful; almost like home, with the mountains and the rock spires and hills, but different enough that she could see _it_ , rather than having the landmarks being blurred by familiarity. 

Putting her elbows up on the table, she propped her head up on her hands and sighed.  She was sixteen and a half years old, about to see her seventeenth winter, a shieldmaiden and dragon rider, and hopelessly in mutual love with a man who had casually remade the world multiple times already.

And there was no denying that any longer.  There was no way that things could ever go back to what they had been before.  And now, when she thought those words, she wasn't thinking of the Dragon War anymore.  No.  Hiccup had changed the world and shattered the old ways of doing things.  No army or fleet or city could stand up against the forces at their command, and all of their neighbors had realized that.  Several clans and tribes in the area had sent tribute back with the messenger dragons when they'd heard that Berk was in danger of running short of food, and she'd heard one man delivering a ton of flour say candidly that they'd rather give it up than have to deal with dragon riders coming to take it. 

Stoick had rolled his eyes at the tribute-givers and paid for the food at a fair price, which had astonished them—and inspired the contracts that she was looking over. 

The next parchment was a report from Vedrarfjord; Spitelout had his hands full, and the letter was a not-too-terribly-subtle plea to _please_ be allowed to come home, because he was going to either kill someone or drown himself in a barrel of beer out of sheer frustration if things kept up.

She snickered.  He'd wanted the Chieftain's Throne and gotten the Chief's Desk to go with it. 

Overall, though, the report was positive.  The initial run of Gronckles, Timberjacks, Whispering Deaths, Thunderdrums, Nightmares and Nadders were starting the project of bringing the city up to Berk's standards; the old keep's remains had been cleared and new construction was underway, improved housing was being built, patrol patterns were being established around the city, and a few of Hiccup's infrastructure projects were being planned, such as the sewer tunnels underneath the city.  And, while it had apparently taken a bit of thumping to get it into some people's heads, all of the thralls in the city had been freed and formally inducted into the tribe, with the bed rights and food rights that came with it. 

The real surprise, however, was the final note.  She checked the date. 

Yesterday morning, a trio of runaway thralls—a father, mother and boy—had shown up at the gates to the city, requesting sanctuary.

And Spitelout had granted it.

Whistling in appreciation, she set that one aside for Stoick, and continued to work through the rest of her stack of mail.  She, Hiccup and Fishlegs had split the duties between them, although, to be fair, Fishlegs was handling the bulk of it; about half of the stack were actually messages that he'd already sorted and flagged for her attention and approval as Master of the Dragon.

The door opened and Hazelnut came in, a stuffed mailbag hanging from her shoulders.  "Hey Astrid," she said tiredly.  "How's it going?"

Astrid eyed the mailbag with trepidation.  "News from Norway?"

"Ayep," Hazelnut said, her tone nonchalant.  "This is for the King, but I talked with that one fellow, the regent, Jarl Einar?"

Astrid nodded.

"Well, he asked me to run some mail to the other jarls.  I did, as a favor, but I told him that I'd be telling you after I did it.  So now I'm telling you," she said, slumping slightly.  "I'm gonna go drop this bag off and go spend some actual time with my husband."

Something must have shown on Astrid's face, because Hazel quirked an eyebrow and gave a rather evil smirk.  "You all right there, Hofferson?"

She glared at Hazelnut and said flatly, "Yeah, never better."

Hazel rolled her eyes.  "Hofferson, you don't have to lie to me.  Hiccup might be clueless when it comes to women, but something's been bothering you, and I know I'm not the only one who's noticed."

Astrid glared at Hazelnut and clenched her fists.  "It's none of your concern."

"Bullshite!" Hazelnut said, her expression deeply incredulous.  Before Astrid could reply, she dropped the bag from her shoulder, placed it on the ground, and leaned in.  "Hofferson, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but your boyfriend is probably the single most powerful man in all of Midgard right now.  And you're the one that _he_ listens to.  So it _is_ my concern, because he's going to be my future chief, he's already kept my family from dying, _twice,_ and he introduced me to my best friend in the entire world, and _you_ are the one sleeping with him!"

There was a pause when those words hit the air.

Astrid glared at the older woman.  "I could call you out to the _holmgang_ for slander for what you just said."

"Ain't slander if it's true, girl."  Astrid reached for her ax.  "Look, I don't want to fight.  I want to _help._   You might not be my friend, but you're going to be my future Chieftess—"

Astrid gave a sharp, pained bark of laughter at that and then, eyes wide, clapped her hands over her traitorous mouth.

Hazelnut blinked at her, taken aback.  "What the—Astrid, you can't be serious!?  Do you really think that he _won't_ marry you?"

She stared ahead for a moment, dropping her hands from her mouth, crossed her arms and started to absently drum her fingertips on her scarred bicep.  "It's not up to him," she said quietly. 

"What the…?  What do you mean?"

Astrid turned and looked at Hazelnut, and repeated, "It's not up to him, Hazel.  It's up to Stoick."  She leaned forward.  "While I was in Norway, how many marriage offers came for Hiccup from other kingdoms?"

"I don't remember but… oh.  I see," Hazelnut said, sounding pained. 

"Exactly.  For Frigga's sake, down in the cells, Jarl Godwin offered his daughter Edith to Hiccup when we went to talk with him last week.  And he's the second most powerful man in England after the king!"  She narrowed her eyes and glared at Hazelnut.  "So, yeah, _my lover_ might be 'the most powerful man on Midgard,' but there's no way in Niflheim that Stoick will make an offer for Hiccup for me!  Not when it seems like every noble and royal in all of Europa is trying to get their daughter or sister into his bed for an alliance!"  She slumped.  "And the worst part?"

Hazelnut, her face sympathetic, asked softly, "Yeah?"

"The worst part is, I can't blame him.  Sure, we beat Harthacnut this time.  But we're a tiny tribe, Hazel.  You've seen a small piece of the world out there delivering mail.  And you saw the maps.  You know how small that piece is.  There are kingdoms out there that put Harthacnut's crowns to shame.  And if they decide that they want us dead, then without anyone to help us, we'll probably die, just by bleeding away, losing a dozen here, a dozen there…"  She sighed.  "We need every ally we can get… and that means…" she trailed off, her throat closing on the next words, but she forced them out, "means that Hiccup won't be able to marry me."  She slumped.  "My clan's no better, really.  _They're_ willing to give me up as a concubine to Hiccup just so that they have a voice in his ear."

Hazelnut winced and twitched, and said in a strangled voice, "Uh… I… uh… gods, Astrid, I'm sorry."

She drummed her fingers on the table and said in a forced-light voice, "Well, you were half-right, Hazel.  I'm probably not going to be the next Chieftess, but I will stay with him, ring or no.  I just haven't had the heart—or guts—to ask him, because that way…" her voice cracked, "I can still hope."

Hazelnut reached out instinctively, paused, drew her hand back, and then reached out again more slowly and deliberately, and patted Astrid on the shoulder.  "I'm really sorry."

"I… I've made my peace with it.  Or so I tell myself," she said, and turned away in her seat.  "Now go away.  Spend some time with Aodh, and remember how lucky you are to have what you have."

Hazelnut, giving her one last sympathetic glance, picked up the bag of mail, turned, and left without another word. 

She dove back into her work, but the pile of parchment didn't last long enough to offer a sufficient distraction.  She wished that Hazel _had_ left the mailbag, just so that she would have something to deal with.

Instead, she got up, stretched, and went to find Stoick.

Heading out of her house, she poked her nose in at the forge first, as that was where Hiccup had spent most of the last two weeks, working on various projects.  He was being awfully secretive about a few of them, and she suspected that he was making her presents, which made her smile.  But he wasn't there. 

Turning to Gobber, she asked, "Do you know where Hiccup is?"

"Aye, he's up at his house with Stoick, Magnus, Yngvarr, and Ross; they got back from England a few hours ago, looking preeeetty pleased with themselves," Gobber said with a toothy smirk.

She grinned back.  "They settled the ransoms?"

"That's what rumor has it," Gobber said, cackling.  "Supposedly, Harthacnut's ransom alone is going to be fifty thousand pounds silver."

Astrid's eyes bugged and her jaw dropped open.  One pound silver was a year's wage for a typical laborer according to the traders. 

Gobber chortled.  "And that's just him!  We've got another seven hundred of those fellas down there—!"

The town horn was suddenly blowing, drowning out the smith.  Astrid found herself breathlessly counting the blasts. 

One…

Two…

Three…

_Four…_

_Five…_

And then a long, slow blast.

She and Gobber shared a look. 

"Tribe Thing, eh?" Gobber said; somehow, his grin, already wide, had grown.  He reached out and clapped her on the shoulder.  "C'mon lass, let's see what's going on."

She helped Gobber bank the fire on the forge and make the smithy safe to be left alone, and then joined the teeming throngs heading up to the mead hall.  Everyone was talking animatedly, and the rumors had definitely spread—the only subject was the ransoms.

As she crossed the threshold, someone reached out and grasped her arm.  She whirled, only to see Hiccup there, a mischievous grin on his face.  "C'mon!" he said and pulled her up to the head table, sitting her down at his right hand.  In the center of the high table were Stoick and Magnus, both of them seated and looking Very Serious, although the corners of Magnus' mouth kept twitching upwards as she watched.  Off to the side, Harthacnut, Godwin, and an unarmed honor guard of Thingmen stood, watched by a squad of armed thanes. 

Once the tribe was assembled and settled, Stoick pounded on the table.  "I call this Thing to order.  We have news from Winchester."

The doors to the mead hall opened, and Yngvarr and Ross strode in, incredibly satisfied looks on their faces.  Reaching the high table, they both went to one knee.  A wooden messenger tube was strapped to each of their backs.

Yngvarr spoke, still bowing.  "I wish to report to you, sire, and you, lord chief, of a successful parley with Edward Æthelredsson."  Ross unslung the tube from his back, opened it, and handed a scroll of parchment to Yngvarr, who unfurled it and began to read.  "He has agreed to pay the ransom for his half-brother, King Harthacnut Cnutsson, of one hundred thousand pounds silver—"

The room erupted in a roar—which quieted quickly as Stoick pounded the table.  Astrid felt the room spin a bit.  A hundred thousand pounds silver.  Gods.  She glanced at Harthacnut; the big blond man was staring at Yngvarr in horror, even as a vein pulsed in his forehead.

Yngvarr looked around the room, coughed, and continued as if nothing had happened, "—one hundred thousand pounds silver, half now, and half in ten-thousand pound installments over the next five years, to be paid to his captor, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third.  For Earl Godwin of Wessex and his son Sweyn Godwinsson, a joint ransom of forty thousand pounds—"

The room erupted again, but quieted almost instantly, as people wanted to hear—and weren't above elbowing their neighbors to make them quiet. 

"—again, half now, half in installments over the next four years, paid to Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, and agreed to be added to a joint pot of all of the ransoms, excluding that of the king.  For the Thingmen, a ransom of seventy pounds silver per head will be paid and added to the joint pot.  For the men-at-arms, twenty silver per head.  For the common conscripts, it was suggested by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third and accepted by Stoick the Vast that no ransom needed to be paid, and that, as a show of mercy, they will be released and returned to their homes," Yngvarr sounded ecstatically delighted at that, "as they are needed there for the harvest, and will not be a drain on Berk's own larders."

At least one person—sounded like Clodgall clanhead Jorgenson—muttered in disapproval at 'letting them go', but Magnhild whispered something to him and he sat, mollified, at his wife's point. 

Harthacnut, for his part, made a strangled sound of protest, but no one paid him any mind. 

"As for the common pot, the included sum will be divided among those responsible for the captures that filled it, including…"

Astrid listened, her eyes feeling like they would pop from their sockets, as Yngvarr listed the dozens of riders—herself included—that had helped pluck people from the water, or capture the ships.  They would each be getting a share based on how many they had helped capture, even if those included the ransomless commoners—although Hiccup had returned the majority of his share from the Earl and his son back into the pool to make up for that reduction.  There was also a note that a tithe would be taken from the pot for Berk's treasury, especially 'in order to replace those materials used.'  Magnhild's surly _harrumph_ carried through the entire room, which made everybody laugh.

Even after that reduction, though…

Astrid's share of the pot alone would come to over five hundred pounds silver.  Hiccup's portion would be nearly a thousand, even after giving up most of his share of Godwin's ransom to the pot, from the sheer number of people he had rescued. 

Yngvarr grinned at Magnhild, and finished with, "And given the lateness of the season, and the tightness of Berk's larder, it was also agreed that we would begin to fly the captives straight home within the next week, and aid in the collection of the ransom while we're in the process of doing so."

People cheered, and continued to cheer with the pent-up energy from Yngvarr's report.

Astrid felt Hiccup give a touch on her shoulder, and he motioned her off to the side with a nod of his head and a serious look in his eye.

Her heart sank.

  _Oh, Frigga no.  He's going to tell me that he has to marry someone else.  His father found an offer worth accepting._

Putting a smile on her face, she nodded, rose from her seat and followed him, as the cheers continued.  They eventually quieted down as she and Hiccup reached one of the side rooms.

Just before they entered, she heard Stoick ask, "Jarl Yngvarr, is there anything  else of importance?"

"Aye, milord.  There is that other matter—"

She glanced back over her shoulder to see Yngvarr unsling the messenger tube from his own back and uncap it, just as Hiccup closed the door behind them.

He turned and… just looked at her, like he was trying to fix this moment in his memory, and her heart started to flutter in agony.

He knelt and took her hand.

"Astrid—"

She shut her eyes in terror at the next words.

"—will you marry me?"

Her eyes flew open and she stared at him in shock.

"Astrid?  Astrid, are you okay?"

"But, but, but… you've had offers… princesses and duchesses and… alliances with kings and emperors…"  She gaped at him, not daring to believe.  "You aren't…"

Hiccup rose and pulled her into a hug.  "Dad and I turned those down.  All of them.  They aren't you."  He held her by the shoulders at arm's length, grinning at her.  "They aren't _you._   My friend.  My partner.  The person who makes my heart sing.  The one who will throw me into ice water when I deserve it.  I want _you._ "  He paused and said, in a tone of worry, "If, if, if you want me…"

She looked into his eyes and saw fear.  Fear that she would say no.

She kissed him.

Hard. 

"Yes."  Another kiss.  "Yes, I will marry you."

They stood there for a moment, wrapped around each other.

And then the door was opened behind them, and Hiccup gave a grinning nod to Ross, who was standing there, looking like a cat who had drunk all of the cream.

She then noticed that the hall behind him was silent.

Ross turned and gave a thumbs-up.  A moment later, Stoick's voice, sounding like he was splitting the difference between crying and cheering, boomed through the hall.

"For that other matter," he said as Hiccup and Astrid strolled back into the hall, "we all get to officially witness," he paused dramatically—and to compose himself, Astrid could see the tears of joy leaking from his eyes—"the betrothal of my son, Hiccup, and his future wife, Astrid."

Her arm around Hiccup's waist, his arm around hers, they two of them grinned and waved as the entire room applauded.  Her clan was looking stunned, with the exception of her parents, who had obviously already been asked, for the marriage contract.  Her great-grandfather was clapping so hard that she felt briefly worried for his heart.

Her own heart feeling like it would burst from ecstasy, she turned and buried her face in Hiccup's shoulder, and then she tilted her head up and kissed him.  And kept kissing him, even as the applause took on a different tone. 

The whistles of approval probably helped with that.

Then Yngvarr, having gotten a stool to stand on at some point while she'd been busy kissing Hiccup, dramatically pulled the parchment from the messenger tube, unfurled it, and started to read it aloud.

People hushed, as she leaned up against Hiccup and wrapped her arms around him, looking around the room.

"To Hiccup Stoicksson clanheir Haddock, in betrothal to Astrid Hákonsdoitter clan Hofferson, the following dowry from Hákon Mortensson and Gunvor Dugaldsdoitter clan Hofferson was offered and accepted: twenty pounds silver, thirty-three sheep, and twelve heads of cattle."

Astrid blinked.  That… that was the entirety of her parents' personal flocks.  What the…?

Then she noticed that her parents didn't seem bothered at all.  In fact… they were looking at her with happiness and…. anticipation? 

She glanced around. 

Magnus was looking… smug?  Of course, that might be because of Ruffnut; according to the midwives, she was definitely pregnant.  But Stoick was literally bouncing in his chair with glee. 

What the…?

Then Yngvarr, glancing in her direction, his grin reaching levels of near-absurd relish, read the bride price. 

"To Hákon Mortensson and Gunvor Dugaldsdoitter clan Hofferson, the following bride-price for their daughter Astrid Hákonsdoitter was offered and accepted: the sum entire of the ransom of King Harthacnut of England paid to Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third for his capture and release, as well as regency over the city of Vedrarfjord in the name of Stoick the Vast."

She looked at Hiccup, her jaw hanging open, as the crowd cheered. 

Harthacnut looked like he was about to pass out, while Godwin was actually clapping as well. 

Chestnut was composing additional stanzas for the saga on the spot, although she could only hear snatches in the uproar. 

Her great-grandfather was weeping tears of joy.  Aunt Cecelia had actually fainted and her uncle Cináed had caught her before she hit the ground and broke her arm again. 

Harthacnut had finally noticed Godwin's approval, and was glaring at his vassal.

She tried to speak, and squeaked, making Hiccup laugh, and then laugh harder when she squeaked again.

"You can't be serious," she said, once she had regained control over her voice.

"I am," he said, with a smile that should have been made illegal. 

"Are you…" she thumped his chest, speechless.

"Literally paying a king's ransom _and_ a city for my wife?"  He leaned in and said, smugly and happily, "Yep.  And she's worth more than that to me."

"Oh, you—!"  She kissed him just to stop the smug. 

Magnus's voice cut through the din.  "So, when's the wedding!?"  They looked up at Magnus, who had apparently vaulted the table to get to them; he was beaming at them, bellowing to be heard from an arm's length away.  "You pay a king's ransom for a bride price, you get a king for the best man!"

Astrid laughed, and gave him a hug, freeing an arm from around Hiccup and pulling Magnus into the embrace.  Wulfhild came up, pushing her way through the cheering crowd; smiling ecstatically, she was bouncing up and down and breathing so fast that she could barely talk, and proceeded to throw her arms around the three of them.  Ruffnut followed in her wake and joined in on the group hug.  They were all laughing, cheering and crying.

She hadn't lost him at all.

No…

He had _turned down_ all of those marriage offers for her sake.

Astrid grinned at him, tears of joy streaming from her eyes, and found herself marveling again at someone that could look at an offer of power and alliance… and choose love. 

Then again, he had done that already, hadn't he?

Kill a dragon for status and respect… or release it because it was who he was.

Marry a foreign princess for power… or marry his beloved, because that was who he was.

And then she was being hoisted up on people's shoulders along with her lov… her _future husband,_ as the assembled tribe cheered and stamped their feet, having honor and glory and _love_ enough to make her heart burst. 

It took a while for Yngvarr to get to read the rest of the marriage contract, but he got to it.  The date had already been set; they would be married in a few weeks, before winter set in and the season came to a close.

This morning, she had been tired, and worried, and resigned to a life of love out of wedlock, burying herself in her work to distract from the pain, even as she had lied to herself that she was reconciled to it.

As she went to sleep that night—in _Hiccup's_ bed for the first time, the two of them taking shameless advantage of being _finally_ betrothed—there was only one word to describe her current feelings.

Happy.

* * *

 

 **A/N:** Wheee!  He finally proposed!  And for those people who want a feel for how big that bride price is... a silver half-penny was the average daily wage of a woman in Ireland in the era (and I have some pictures from my honeymoon of the coins in question from the Dublin museums, which I'll post at some point on my tumblr).  240 pennies made up one silver pound.  So one pound was roughly the wage that a typical laborer would earn in a year to a year and half.  Harthacnut is king of England and Denmark in this era, which have a combined population of somewhere in the range of 1,300,000 people--meaning that it's going to actually be big enough to measure on the economy.  As a way to deny Harthacnut the ability to prosecute further wars into the future, this is just about the most effective way possible.  

Giving it all for Astrid's bride price is just adding insult to injury.  ^_^

Beyond that, I have two chapters left to post before I go on hiatus for November and NaNoWriMo, and I have a question to ask, based on a discussion between me and my beta readers.  Mknopp suggested that I resume after the hiatus as a new "book"; I was originally planning on having this story be all in one place, but, after some discussion, I'm torn.  I've made a survey here using Google Forms to see what people's thoughts are on the topic; my thoughts, pro and con, are at the following link; if you could take a moment to answer yea or neh, I'd be most appreciative.  The link is [here](https://goo.gl/forms/SdWBWdtsfLpOfoj12).  


	28. Ties That Bind

**Chapter 28: Ties That Bind**

_The decisive defeat of the Danish-English navy by Berk in late 1041, in particular, resulted in a tremendous shock to the political status quo of the era.  While most of the nobility and royalty had heard of the story of the defeat of the Green Death in the year since the event, that had been an incident from which there was a limited number of primary witnesses, and only second-hand evidence was available (even if that evidence was compelling).  In contrast, there were thousands of survivors from the English fleet, all of whom were terrified first-hand witnesses to one of the most one-sided naval battles in recorded history.  The rumors and news would be much harder to dismiss as exaggeration or invention as many had done previously.  While it might be hyperbole to state that an air of hysteria began to descend on the monarchs of Europe, many did react to the news with varying degrees of fear, placation, aggression, or all three at the new power that had just made itself known._

_—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396_

 

She watched them die.  A shout of _Loose!_ came up from the ship, and her uncle and his dragon died for nothing…

Her cousins died, Sunnigifu and her dragon rent by swords, Manni and his dragon reduced to embers on the wind…

" _Because I won't let you corrupt my king!"_

The fleet was coming, and they couldn't stop it…

_"We've lost more riders in the last hour than we've gained this week…"_

_"And if they decide that they want us dead, without anyone to help us, then we'll probably die, just by bleeding away, losing a dozen here, a dozen there…"_

The pirate archer wasn't stopped by the Francian, and an arrow sprouted from Hiccup's chest and his eyes glazed over…

Astrid screamed as she fell out of bed, wrenching herself from Hiccup's sleeping grasp in her panic. 

Hiccup also bolted awake, and there was sudden noise from downstairs.

Eyes wide with panic—from the dream, from the thought of getting found naked in Hiccup's room by her future father-in-law or both—she had the presence of mind to call out, "I'm okay!  Bad dream!"

The sounds below paused, and Stoick gave a sigh of relief and went back to his bedroom.

As she nestled herself back into the narrow bed, Hiccup whispered, "Are you all right?" 

"It was… was just another nightmare," she said to him.  "Just a nightmare.  From the battle.  I'll be okay."

He nodded, made a wordless sound of sympathy, and hugged her up to himself, skin against skin, the pair of them nestled like perfectly carved spoons.

She started to touch him, assuring herself that he was alive.  Her toes found his stump, and she remembered watching Nanna cut his mangled, burned foot free a year ago.  She had nearly lost him then… 

And she remembered her own words to Hazelnut from the other day, which Nott had presented to her in all of their ugly glory. 

There were barely seven hundred members of her tribe, counting the freedmen and freedwomen that had come in with Heather.  In Vedrarfjord, there were another two thousand—four thousand if one counted the hinterlands around the city.  But that wasn't the same; judging by Spitelout's report, getting their multitude to act like Hooligans would be very different from bringing in the occasional handful of freedmen and outsiders and incorporating them into the tribe's ways of doing things. 

And there was no way that Stoick, much less Hiccup, would approve of a war of conquest to bolster their numbers.  For that matter, neither did she.  Aside from the losses they would take, that would definitely make them into a threat that would be fought against—and conquering people was only a short step from enthralling them. 

But… right now, the only ally they had in all the world was Magnus's kingdom.  And they had new responsibilities in protecting Vedrarfjord. 

For a moment, she had a vision of her father flying on Cloudfox over the Eirish countryside—and more attackers like the ones from Nidaros lying in wait for the dragon whose scales were the color of foxglove flowers.

She shuddered, making Hiccup give a sleepy questioning noise.  "What's wrong?  The nightmare?" he asked.

She snuggled up close and said quietly, "Yeah."

"Wanna talk 'bout it?"

She rolled in his grasp to face him, and said quietly, "I'm scared."

In the near-darkness, the only light coming from the banked hearth down on the ground floor, she could see Hiccup's face as a shadowy outline against the black of the room, his eyes slight patches of wet reflection.  But she could still see him smile fondly.  "Scared?  You?"

Irritated, she wetly licked his nose. 

"Aaagh!" he said quietly, playing it up a bit, and then sobered.  "Seriously, Astrid, what is it?  Promise I won't laugh."

"Hiccup… I love you and I want to marry you… but part of me almost feels like this is a mistake."  He stiffened, and she hastened to add, "Not being with you, no!  But, but… giving up the possibility of an alliance, for _me—_ "

"I don't _want_ to marry anyone other than you," he said tartly. 

"Hiccup, you could have taken me as a concubine and saved the marriage—"

" _What!?"_   He sputtered, "I, what, who, how—where did, how—"

"My clan already said that they would have accepted it, because they were certain that your dad was going to marry you off to someone else," she said, and buried her face in his chest.

He stroked her hair.  "And what does this have to do with the nightmare?" he asked, and she could visualize his expression as he deliberately avoid exploring the concubine comment any further. 

"Right now… Hiccup, we're so small, so _fragile_.  We survived that battle because of you.  But every person we lose hurts us."  She picked her head up and looked at him in the dark, speaking quietly and fiercely, "And aside from Magnus, we don't have _any_ allies out there—and I'm sure that what we did to Harthacnut is going to spread like wildfire, worse than the story about that _burh._   What if someone decides to try to kill us off before we're a threat?  Or decides that we might already _be_ a threat?  Or—"

He kissed her, and she realized that she had started to babble. 

Melting into the kiss, she relaxed.  Here, she was safe. 

Breaking the kiss, he said, "Then that's my job, as herald.  This year, we made friends with Magnus.  Next year, who knows?  But we'll do what we did in Alba—go from being the scary dragon riders to those slightly weird neighbors with strange pets that always offer a hand."

She smiled at his confidence and snuggled in.  "Promise?"

"Astrid, I promise, I'll do what we have to in order to keep us safe.  And the best way to do that is to talk with them, not wall ourselves off."

He sounded so confident about that, and it was so very reassuring in the aftermath of her nightmare.  She kissed his chest, and said, "I'm going to hold you to that promise."

"I know.  And we'll be together.  Promise."  He sighed.  "Make you a concubine… what were they thinking?"

"I told you, they thought that you were going to have to marry some princess, like Wulfhild, or Godwin's daughter," she said sleepily.  She hadn't realized how much her heart had been pounding from the panic of the nightmare, until she started to calm from Hiccup's reassurances; a delicious lassitude was settling in as the blood thumping in her ears slowed and calmed. 

"Well, Magnus is already an ally, and I don't fancy Godwin for a father-in-law," he said acerbically.  "I guess that I'll have to make my allies in some other way than marrying them—after I finish these Latin refresher lessons with the Ingermans."  He scoffed.  "Whose bright idea was it to make all of the treaties in the old Roman language?  What's wrong with Norse and Gaoidhealg?"

"Mmmh, no idea," she said, closing her eyes and smiling at his indignation; he'd been irritated about the need to polish his Latin for over a week, since Bladewit had told him of the tradition in Europa to have all treaties be in that language.  And while he could get by with reading the ancients due to the Ingerman tradition of adding commentaries in Norse to their books, according to Fishlegs he needed to intensively practice and polish his understanding of the written language if he was going to be a proper herald.  Hiccup had grumpily noted that at least he didn't need to speak it, or they'd have to keep Harthacnut through the winter before they could sign the treaty.  "But for making allies, dragon rides seem to work," she added.

"There we go.  We'll fly to all of the royal courts and give every king in Europa a ride on Toothless and Stormfly," he said earnestly. 

"And queen," she added sleepily.

"Yep.  On Stormfly," he said, and kissed the top of her head.  "Toothless and I can't, as I'm going to be a married man."

She felt her heart melt, and sighed happily.  Rolling back over, she spooned with him once more and eventually drifted back off to sleep. 

###

Stoick and Trader Johann sat down in the mead hall as they had for years.  Johann's outfit was noticeably richer this year than it had been last, and he'd shown up with three additional ships in his little trading fleet.

"You look like you're doing well, my friend," Stoick said.  "Bit late in the season, though."

"Aye, I had some troubles with getting my partners to stop digging in their heels and work with me, but I managed.  Meanwhile, look at you!  A visiting king, your boy is getting married—I brought some things that you might find of interest for the feast—and it looks as if your village has grown mightily this year!"

Stoick laughed.  "Aye.  We've had some problems, but, overall, things are good."

"Problems like Vedrarfjord, I take it?"

Stoick rumbled, "Aye.  That's going to be an ongoing nuisance, but can't be helped.  I wasn't going to leave them to starve in the winter for the crime of having an evil king."

Johann's eyes raised and he pointedly drank a draught of ale.  Swallowing, he said, "Well, last year I asked if you would have dragons for sale.  I take it that the answer is still no?"

"Aye, that's correct.  But we will have dragons for _hire,_ my friend.  My boy has been hard at work coming up with _ideas."_

Johann gave a dramatic exaggerated shudder that made both of them laugh. 

"Also, if yeh heard about Vedrarfjord, you must have heard of Harthacnut's attack."

"I may have heard something about an entire war fleet being given a spanking and sent scurrying home with its tail between its legs, yes," Johann allowed with a smile.  "Dodging them was the other half of why I was late.  They were happily looting any merchant in the area for supplies and sailors, and I'm rather attached to both."

Stoick snorted.  "I would think the warfleet would be seen as a bigger problem than Vedrarfjord, Johann."

"But why?  That'll be ended with the peace treaty, and a ransom that'll hamstring the man from attacking you again.  Vedrarfjord, on the other hand, is now a standing challenge to any Eirish king or warband with a lack of brains and a taste for glory and gold."  He snorted and took another drink. 

Stoick scoffed in reply, and said, "I trust Gunvor and Hákon to do the job right."

Johann chortled.  "Aye, I heard about that as well!"  He gave Stoick a sly grin.  "I must say, that's one way to get one's in-laws out of one's hair.  My solution was to be away at sea three months out of four."

Stoick rolled his eyes.  "They adore him, actually."

"Well, he's done them no favors,  tossing a pair of millers into the tangled briarpatch of Eirish politics.  Oh, the stories I could tell you about the Eirish…"  He sighed and gave a lopsided smile. 

"Another tale about how you won an arm-wrestling contest with one of their kings and won the right to claim anything from his realm, and you picked his wife?" Stoick inquired with a raised eyebrow.

"Nah, and it was his daughter, and she was _ever_ so grateful to be free of that barbarian island.  And she's married to my nephew, and they're expecting their fifth child this winter," Johann said, waggling his eyebrows.  "He's captaining one of my ships in your harbor, actually, and I hope to get him home to his wife before the season ends."

Stoick paused for a moment and considered calling Johann's… bluff?  But the glib way in which the correction and expansion had rolled off his tongue bespoke such confidence that he instead moved on.  "Well then, old friend, shall we get down to business, for the sake of your nephew's marriage?"

"Aye.  Now, I have my usual cargo for you and your tribe—and a list of complaints about the lack of dragon parts as long as both my arms.  Are you _sure_ you can't…" 

He trailed off, and Stoick realized how stormy his expression had grown.  "No.  And don't ask again.  Ever.  We are not going to ever return to slaughtering dragons for parts here on Berk."  He leaned forward.  "But we have something perhaps even better, and proof that a live dragon is more valuable than a dead dragon."

Johann looked dubious, but nodded.  "Aye, and what veritable fortune is this?"

"Well, for that, we need your help," Stoick said, and reached down. 

"Of course you do," Johann said with a smirk.  "I am that indispensable."

Stoick rolled his eyes and placed the parchment scroll on the table in front of Johann.  "The details are here."

Johann, quirking an eyebrow, unfurled the scroll and started to read. 

Stoick could tell when he reached the good parts when Johann sucked in a breath and his eyes tracked over the same spot several times.  He took a drink of ale to hide his smile.

Perhaps a quarter hour later, Johann carefully rerolled the scroll, and placed it carefully on the table.  "Ambitious."

"Aye, but you have the contacts, if you're not just name-dropping far-off locations to overawe us provincial Vikings," Stoick said.

"You're proposing that I and my partners set up offices and roosts for your dragons across the continent for them to _carry mail_ and to hire out to help with construction _._   This is either madness or brilliance."

"Why not both?" Stoick said, still grinning.  "Imagine how nice it will be to be able to make money without having to personally sail around and cheat," he coughed, "I'm sorry, _deal with_ each customer individually.  This way, they come to you.  And _we_ get to show both goodwill and positive use to the people that would otherwise fear us.  Most of Harthacnut's men got sold a barrel of rotten apples as fresh fruit to make them willing to attack us, with the sole kernel of truth being what my idiot nephew did to that fort seven months ago.  Hiccup believes, and I agree with him, that if dragons go from 'beasts that burn towns' to 'steeds that carry mail', people will find us less threatening and be more willing to leave us alone.  And if we have places to rest and for people to bring us their mail, it apparently vastly simplifies the whole endeavor, if I can believe Fishlegs' _extensive_ explanation." 

Johann laughed, and then sobered.  "Aye.  Well, I can see the logic of it.  But something like this… is beyond my ability to finance alone.  I will attempt to bring in partners, and report my success to you next year."

Stoick nodded and then smiled.  "Before you go…"

"Aye?"

"I know of several dozen investors here in Berk who wish to talk with you.  A number of people recently came into some coin, and they're thinking of using some of it to finance this little venture."

Johann gave Stoick an unamused look.  "A king's ransom is 'some coin' by you?"

Stoick laughed.

"Grand romantic gestures aside, I can't believe you let him do that, Stoick," Johann said, his eyes narrowed above a pair of thinned, flat lips.

"Well, I'm getting a treaty out of it, plus a tithe of the general pot for the treasury and fifteen seaworthy longships.  And my boy _did_ snatch the king right off of the deck of his ship.  I believe that _some_ grandstanding is allowed.  And it's not just Astrid's parents; the general pot was split about a hundred ways, but even the smallest share was still dozens of pounds silver."

Johann sighed and rolled his eyes.  "I see.  Well, I will talk with them before I go."  He paused.  "They're waiting nearby, aren't they?"

"Ayep."

"Well then," Johann said, "I had best get going; time is limited this late in the season, and it sounds like I have a great many people to talk to."  He frowned.  "By the way, Stoick, in the battle, did you lose that old sourpuss Mildew?"

"No… why?"

"Well, he regularly orders this alchemical extract—it's made from a particular flower found down around the Mediterranean Sea, very exotic, _very_ expensive—and I managed to bring him his shipment this year.  Last year, there was a problem with getting it, and he was very upset."  Johann drummed his fingers together.  "It wasn't my fault—the Taifa of Seville was… undergoing a change in leadership and the Moorish alchemist I get it from, he had fallen out of favor.   But you know Mildew."

Stoick snorted.  "Aye, that I do.  He didn't want excuses, he wanted his order?"

"Ayep.  So I promised him that I'd have it this year, and given the cost and the fuss he raised, I'm surprised that he wasn't waiting for me as soon as I stepped off onto the dock."

Stoick thought for a moment and cocked his head.  "Come to think of it, I haven't seen him in weeks."

"Ah, well.  Perhaps he finally drifted off in his sleep into the arms of Hel and her merry band."

"Mayhap.  More likely he ended up on Helgafjell _,_ though."  Stoick shrugged.  "And here I thought it was supposed to be an idyllic and _peaceful_ place." 

Johann laughed.  "Aye, that it is.  Mayhap he's on the far side, away from everyone."  He stood and bowed to Stoick.  "Thank you for this opportunity," he said, patting the scroll of parchment.  "I will see you again next year with progress on that."

Once Johann left the mead hall, Stoick, frowning, took the brief flight over to Mildew's isolated hut.

"Mildew?  Where are you, elder!?" he called, knocking on the door.  There was no answer… but at least there was no smell of putrefaction, so it was likely that the old man wasn't rotting in his bed. 

He knocked again.  No answer.  He knocked again and listened carefully for any sound of movement within. 

Nothing.  It actually sounded… odd.  More… hollow. 

After another knock and no answer, Stoick circled the house and called out again; the garden out back was overgrown with weeds, and the most recent footprints aside from his own were weeks old, and the field of cabbages hadn't seen any attention or weeding either.

He circled around to the front and pounded on the door, hard enough to crack the wood. 

Nothing. 

Now deeply alarmed for one of his tribe—even a man as despised as Mildew, who had been rightly cast out of his own clan for his crimes before Stoick had even been born—Stoick broke down the door.

The place was… empty.  The walls were cleared of Mildew's trophies, and while the furniture had been left, the drawers in the chest were all empty, and the bedframe sat forlornly with the bare straw mattress off in the corner.  The floor had even been swept. 

Clearly the old man had left of his own accord. 

The question now was when… and to where. 

And what he would be doing when he got there.  Because the old man was a dragon-slayer of supreme skill…

###

"Amazing!  Look, you can see the roads from up here!" Godwin called to Harthacnut, looking down over the side of the 'sky-cart', his hair whipping about in the wind. 

Harthacnut snorted.  Yes, you could see far from up here.  And he was certain that it was mere coincidence that their path had crossed over the remains of Brycgstow on their way to Winchester. 

He did have to admit, though, that this was an impressive—and uncanny—way to travel.  He could see for miles and miles, but the air was chill with the November cold, and the winds made it that much worse. 

But the speed…

No, it was ungodly.  Man was not meant to soar through the sky and intrude upon the Domain of God and his angels!  This morning, they had been in Berk.  Aside from a few stops for rest and meals, they had flown in a few hours what had taken him nearly a week to travel. 

But from up here… he could see to the distant horizon, and, hovering over England, he was literally master of all he surveyed. 

If it wouldn't have been likely misinterpreted as cowardice, Harthacnut would have shut his eyes, rather than taint his kingdom so. 

Haddock and his demon flew past and then hovered.  The younger man cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, "We're almost there!"

Godwin waved in reply; he'd taken a disturbing liking to the young sorcerer-smith, and Harthacnut intended to watch him carefully for betrayal over the upcoming years.  Wessex and Kent made up the heart of his English domain, and Godwin turning his coat to Berk could only mean civil war. 

They were descending, and Harthacnut hazarded a peek over the chest-high walls of the open box.  He could see Winchester, far below, but growing as they descended, its Roman-built stone walls having once given him a sense of security and defense… and now the demons holding him aloft laughed at them. 

Several minutes later, they touched down gently on the lawn in front of his citadel in the city.  One of the riders must have gone on ahead, as his court was assembled and waiting—and watching in awe.

He motioned to Athelstan Tovisson, whom he had made interim herald in the tunnels under Berk.  The Dane nodded, exited the cart, and boomed, "All Hail Harthacnut, King of England and Denmark!"

His courtiers called back, "All hail!" and genuflected. 

As he exited the box, Harthacnut caught a glance of Haddock's expression from where the younger man had landed on his demon nearby—and he looked amused.

Harthacnut looked out over the genuflecting courtiers and soldiers and fought to keep a scowl off of his face.  He and Godwin, by necessity of their ransoms, had been the last to be freed.  The commoners had actually been the first to go, and Haddock had shown a deep cunning; as the commoners had been sent back, he had put his courier teams at Edward's disposal for collecting the ransom from both England and the Danes.  What should have taken six months to a year had taken barely two weeks—and Haddock had even taken the opportunity to undermine Harthacnut!  He hadn't believed it when he'd first been told, but teams of the little dragons, which had somehow been trained to work as farmers, were sweeping the countrysides of his realms, helping bring in the last of the harvests that hadn't been lost to the frosts, even as they swept up the coin for the royal ransom. 

It was brilliant, a masterstroke of politics, and Harthacnut felt grudging admiration for the young man.  In one fell swoop, Haddock had enfeebled the peasantry's willingness to support another war against him. 

Worse, it would prepare the ground for Haddock's eventual conquest of Harthacnut's realm, if the common folk saw dragons in that sort of positive light.

His steward, the man's staff, and a squad of protective Thingmen came forward, bearing wooden chests filled with the last of his ransom, and Godwin's—or at least the last of this installment. 

Haddock's betrothed and his large burly friend, Ingerman, worked together to collect the money; they and a few others in Haddock's entourage made quick work of the counting, and it wasn't more than ten minutes or so before they confirmed that his steward hadn't tried to cheat them. 

Ransom paid, he walked the few strides between the circle of dragons and Hooligans over to his own people. 

Then came the really infuriating part.  He turned, to see Haddock and his betrothed giving a quick embrace and kiss over the pile of coins, and rolled his eyes.  Nearby, the bastard Magnus was watching them both indulgently.  A few of Harthacnut's courtiers were looking on, confused, and his mother, Emma, was looking scandalized. 

Harthacnut sighed; as much as he wasn't looking forward to the coming humiliation, it was best to get it over with.  He did have a momentary fantasy of ordering the guards to attack, but it was plain that the dragons were watching the armed men carefully—and Haddock's public display of affection was probably also calculated to make it apparent on how little concern he had for the threat of Harthacnut's men. 

Still… it didn't mean that he couldn't take the moment to undermine that. 

"Haddock!  Fairhair!" he called out.  "Perhaps _now_ is not the time!?"

A bit sheepishly, the two younger men parted from their group and walked towards him.  As they fell in step, Harthacnut muttered quietly to Haddock, "Bad enough I'm having this treaty dictated to me.  Could you _at least_ show some decorum and respect for my tattered honor?"

"Sorry," Haddock said apologetically, and it even sounded genuine. 

Not for the first time, but hopefully for the last, Harthacnut looked over Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the Hero of Berk, and considered him.  Some seven years younger than Harthacnut, he was taller and considerably thinner, standing perhaps two fingerwidths taller than Magnus, walking at his side.  The false foot that he walked upon unnerved Harthacnut in the extreme; if not for the sounds of it's springs and mechanisms, someone would have to look directly at it to notice, as Haddock's gait was unimpaired.  He suspected black magic had been involved in its creation.

But his foot was the least of the marvels that the sorcerer-smith had crafted or forged with whatever secret magics he'd gained.  The harness for his dragon was another, and there was whatever secret spell he had crafted in order to set ships on fire. 

His age was irrelevant; when Harthacnut had been Haddock's age, he had been ruling Denmark as viceroy to his father for six years.  So who knew what Haddock would forge by the time he was Harthacnut's own age?

They reached the table in the courtyard, and each of them unfurled his own copy of the treaty upon its surface.  Haddock, as his imposing father's herald, strode up to the table and began to read out the terms in fluent Norse and halting Anglo-Saxon. 

It was a peace treaty.  Stripped of all of the high language, it promised peace between his kingdoms and theirs.  But worse, it also codified and amended his original oath with Magnus from the summer before last.  If he died before Magnus did—and with his consumption growing worse, it seemed likely—then Magnus would claim both the Danes and England as his crowns. 

The legacy of Harthacnut's father, who had once ruled all of the lands touched by the North Sea, would be completely stolen by a bastard boy.

And given how Haddock was undoubtedly the dominant one of the two of them, there would be little doubt as to who would actually rule his lands.

Oh yes.  He might not know what Haddock would forge over the coming years, but an empire would be the least of it. 

Perhaps not now; maybe when he didn't have his imposing father claiming his glory, like he had with the conquest of that Eire town.  Harthacnut had overheard the details of that conquest from his jailers during his time in that dingy tunnel, and was unsurprised at how, despite the boy's dragons being the ones to carry the day, his father had still been the one to 'accept' the surrender of the city.  Being out from under that sort of presence was perhaps worth the wait. 

But, one day, the boy would become a man, and that man would become a chief, and that chief would carve out an empire with sword and dragonfire and become a king.  Of that, he was certain. 

Unless he was stopped first.

Treaties signed, the copies were rolled and either placed in messenger-tubes on the backs of the dragons or handed over to his royal archivist. 

His Anglo-Saxon coming clearer, Haddock looked out over the assembled courtiers and spoke grandly of peace; he promised an end to dragon-rider raids, and that he hoped that England would be a good neighbor and peaceful friend, and that his home would defend itself only if necessary, but that they came with open hands and no weapons—ignoring the beasts that they rode, which had proven their worth in battle. 

Harthacnut managed to keep his disbelief from his face, but his certainty as to Haddock's ultimate intentions didn't waver. 

But, equally certainly, his own kingdoms could not stand against the boy, now promising trade and dragons for hire, carrying mail and helping with construction.

Harthacnut didn't miss the wistful look on his steward's face, either.   

Speeches and formalities over with, the Hero and his dragons flew off to the north, and his assembled court began to murmur, remembering the hellfire and raiders that had sacked Brycgstow, and weighing that against the Hero's promises. 

But not Harthacnut.  He had already made that assessment, and reached his own certitude on what would inevitably occur. 

And while his own resources might be tapped to the limit and beyond, rendering him almost certainly helpless against Haddock's return, he _did_ have resources available to him that were not open to the heathen dragon-riders…

Harthacnut immediately found the Archbishop, and pulled him into private conference.

Bowing with respect to the priest, he then sat and said, "Father Eadsige, I fear that we must send a message to Rome with all dispatch.  Matters are worse than we feared, and His Holiness needs to be informed as soon as humanly possible."

"I understand, my son.  Please, speak of your ordeal—"

###

Heather stalked through the streets carefully.  It was Wash Day, finally.  All week, she'd been chopping and dicing vegetables, plucking and deboning poultry, mincing fruit, and helping pack it all in the remaining ice left from the previous winter.  Hiccup and Astrid's wedding was set for the following Frigga's Day, and preparations were underway in earnest.

The work was definitely more enjoyable than the labor involved in feeding the masses of prisoners had been.  Much more artistry, much less gruel.  But the Anglos, Danes and various others were gone now, and Berk now had food to spare, thank Freyr and Gerd.  And Hiccup's creation of a water-powered lathe capable of turning out new wooden and soapstone bowls and pots in quantity had pleased Magnhild enough that she was willing to cook for the wedding.

It had been enjoyable work—aside from the plucking and deboning of the fowl—even if most of the other cooks in the kitchen weren't really talking with her anymore, and the earlier camaraderie had all but vanished.  Karolina, in particular, stood out in her shock and dismay and chilliness; their former friendship was still there, but there was little doubt that it was _former_.  The teasing and ribald jokes were gone, there was a new stiffness, and the Hofferson woman limited herself to offering insight into how Berk did things, like she would for any other newcomer. 

But that was all right. 

And right now, Heather had other concerns. 

She'd already taken her bath, having gotten up early specifically to beat the crowds and whispers.  And while she'd been soaking, she had screwed up her courage and decided that she wasn't going to be a coward any longer. 

It was time to talk with _him._ If for no other reason, she'd heard that he'd barely been taking care of himself and not taking breaks. 

She'd been a coward for months, and it had nearly broken them both.  She wasn't going to be a coward any longer.

Not if staying a coward broke him more. 

She had almost reached the Ingerman house when suddenly there was a voice calling her name.

"Heather!  There you are!"

She turned and suppressed a groan.  Her mother was striding towards her, looking pleased. 

Two years of wanting her parents freed, three weeks of having them free, and now she desperately wanted them gone for at least a day—or at least out of the way.  But she couldn't blame them for their reactions, not when they were still clawing back to control of their own lives and being able to do what they wanted without harsh punishments.  So they'd been clinging to her constantly, always needing her for something…

She wanted to cry.  An hour.  An hour was all that she asked for! 

Instead, she turned and smiled.  "Yes, Mom?"

"Where have you been, I've been looking all over for you!"

"I was working in the mead hall kitchens.  Getting some prep done," Heather lied.  She'd actually been checking the Chief's house and the Rookery to see if Fishlegs was in a meeting.

"No… I checked there first thing," Griselda said back, cocking her head.

"Well, you must have missed me."

"I don't see how… well, no matter!  Come with me, I need your help with something," her mother said, walking off towards the hut in which her family was now living—herself included.  She had moved in with them, and out of the Ingerman house, after the conquest of Vedrarfjord; the explanation had been passed around, and people had believed it—mostly.  More than a few assumed that both parts were truth—that she had been under protection at the Ingermans against a spy, and that, while she was there, she and Fishlegs had been sleeping together.

The ones who congratulated Fishlegs were annoying, but the ones who asked for details were _infuriating._   Not to her—she didn't care what they said about her—but because they were mortifying _him_ with their questions.  One of them had, according to rumor, asked Fishlegs something rather specific (although the details varied on what he had actually asked) during the Washday two weeks prior.  What she did know was that her estranged boyfriend had knocked the other man against the bathhouse wall and then left—and his reaction was being taken as confirmation that, yes, she _had_ done such acts for him.

_Oh, if only…_

Heather rolled her eyes at the half-wistful thought.  To her surprise, judging by the whispers, the Hooligans were apparently somewhat unimaginative in such matters.  In contrast, the woman she only knew as Fagr, Adalwin's— _Alvin's_ pleasure-thrall, had taught Heather how to please men during her lessons on how to be a seductress and spy.  The acts that some of the Hooligans seemed to consider outrageous were ones she had been instructed on before she'd turned fourteen, all as part of her basic training. 

And she wanted to share the _advanced_ material with the man that she loved. 

If she ever got to _talk_ to him again without _someone_ getting in the way!

Fishlegs, at least, was being lauded by the other men, as much as it aggravated him.  The women, on the other hand, were being even worse to her; a few of the more catty ones were taking every opportunity to tease her about being unable to wait, but what could you expect from someone in her situation?

Karolina had eventually taken her aside and explained how Berk handled courtships and betrothals.  Legally, she and Fishlegs were still courting, like Hiccup and Astrid had been—and sex between courting couples was censured by the community.  If Fishlegs hadn't been one of Hiccup's friends, it would have been worse, but the rules didn't quite apply to Hiccup's inner circle—as witnessed by the fact that Astrid had already effectively moved into the Haddock house prior to the wedding, and nobody was saying anything against it (with the excuse being that her parents were packing to head for Vedrarfjord after the wedding).  Oh, Astrid was being relatively discreet, but the legally mandated chaperons weren't even bothering to hide their approval.

But Heather was assumed to not be a virgin any longer, and her status as still being courted by Fishlegs was apparently in doubt.  And the knives were starting to come out, especially as some of the local girls had had their eyes on Fishlegs for themselves, and resented her, as an outsider, coming in to take him.  Her status as a freed thrall only helped so much.

If not for the fact that they could seriously hurt Fishlegs with their gossip and whispers, Heather would have laughed at them.  As it was, she was resisting the urge to put some of her training into practice and fire back in the gossip war.  She had some tactics that these girls had never even _dreamed_ of.  It would be interesting to see how they'd handle a touch of judiciously planted evidence that would destroy their own reputations, or even just a meal sprinkled with the right additives to make sure that they would spend an evening or three huddled by the chamber pot—either squatting or bent over it, both were possibilities. 

However, that was all a distraction.  What kind of pain could they cause her that she hadn't already caused herself?  She'd almost _killed_ Fishlegs.  She remembered the feeling of his nose breaking under her foot with a sense of nausea, and she'd apparently kicked him hard enough that he didn't remember the second kick to the face, as the first hadn't put him out.  That second kick had skipped off of his chin and hit him in the throat.  A little bit more force and she would have crushed his throat and killed him for sure. 

But she couldn't _talk_ to him about it, about any of it, because they'd both been busy—and too hurt.  She suspected that the dinner the other week had been intended as a way to get her and him into the same space and let them talk it out… but they'd both flinched away.  There had been too many people present for Heather to feel comfortable with such a discussion, and he…

Well, she didn't know his motives for avoiding anything beyond the polite conversation that they'd had that night. 

Now she was determined to find out whether it was because he never wanted to see her again, or if the awkwardness was because he still felt the same about her as she did about him, even after the lies.  She had to know.  If he said that their courtship was off, she would accept that.  For Freyja's sake, she wouldn't just _accept_ that, she'd do her best to ensure that whichever Hooligan girl he favored would suddenly find her rivals… impaired. 

She owed him that much.

And she still loved him, and she wanted him to be happy.

But now she was following her mother back to their hut, to deal with some other inane issue that her parents needed help with; as they entered, she could hear Mhairi playing with the small carved dragon toy that Stoick had given her.  The toddler's shrieks of delight echoed through the house. 

"So, Mom, what is it?"  She followed her mother into the house's central room.  "Need to decide on what foods to buy for the winter, or have someone that you need—"

Her mother stepped aside, and Heather was suddenly face to face with Fishlegs.  His mother, Tynni Órgíslsdoittor clan Ingerman, was standing at his shoulder, looking satisfied.

"—me to… talk… to?"

Her prior determination to see him fled, and there was suddenly nothing she wanted more than to run for it. 

He looked terrible; the bruises, broken nose, and black eyes on his face had healed, but his hair was unkempt and his eyes dark and baggy, like he hadn't been getting enough sleep.

Not that she was in any place to throw stones there. 

They were both steered by their mothers into chairs facing each other.  As they looked at each other uncomfortably, their mothers sauntered over to the wall and leaned against it, looking disgustingly at ease with each other. 

It was quiet for a moment, as Heather kept glancing at Fishlegs, and then looking away in guilt.  Meanwhile, he was stealing uncomfortable peeks at her and then twitching away in discomfort.

Then Fishlegs' mother spoke up.  "All right.  Both of you.  You've been making each other miserable for a month now.  That's enough.  Talk it out." 

Their gazes met briefly in sudden commiseration, and then dropped to their feet. 

"You can do it either up here or locked down in the cellar," Fishlegs' mother threatened. 

"I even made sure to leave a jug of water down there," Heather's mother chimed in helpfully.

Heather shot her a betrayed look.

Her mother rolled her eyes.  "Tynni and I have already spoken on this, Heather."

"If nothing else," Tynni said, "you two are legally courting.  Either break it off, or continue from where you left off.  But you two don't get to keep running around afraid to look at each other and making the rest of us have to tiptoe on eggshells."

"So now," Griselda said, "we're going to go in the other room and play with Mhairi.  And you two are going to talk and settle this.  We'll be right here if you need someone to help, but enough is enough already.  We want you both to be happy.  This," she motioned to encompass both of them, "isn't happy." 

They turned and left the room, leaving the door open.

"Go ahead and talk!" Griselda called.

"We'll be right here," Tynni added. 

"Listening intently," Fishlegs said in a soft, irritated and sardonic tone.

Heather gave a soft whimpering chuckle in acknowledgment of the point. 

She leaned back in the chair, and he did the same in his.

Hesitatingly, she tilted up to look him in the face for a moment, to find that he was already staring at her.

They both looked away, blushing.  They did that a few times in between glancing every so often to monitor the maternal spies' positions.

She tried to recall one of the elaborate apologies that she had composed during the endless feather plucking, but they flapped away like gulls, hanging just out of reach. 

She tried to focus on one in particular, composed from when she'd been plucking a particularly gorgeous mallard duck, but the words stuck in her throat like a fish in a collared cormorant's neck. 

So… she leaned forward and, cautiously, gingerly, touched the back of his hand.

He twitched as she touched him… but then turned his hand over and took her hand in his. 

They leaned in close.

And then… silence.

Long… awkward… silence, as neither of them seemed to be able to say a thing.  All of the thoughts in Heather's head had flown the coop. 

They sat there with their heads together, tentatively holding hands, their mothers in the next room, and the silence just… stretched out until it was so painful that Heather started to laugh at the absurdity of it.

A moment later, Fishlegs joined in, and, leaning against each other, they laughed until they cried, and cried until they laughed, their faces red and eyes watering.  She fell out of her chair, sinking on her knees to the floor, and, still holding her hand, Fishlegs did the same.

How long they were like that, Heather had no idea.  It could have been five minutes or five hours of purging laughter.  At the end of it, they were leaning against each other.  She felt like a hollow gourd, her insides scraped raw and clean, and they holding onto each other for mutual support.

Then there was silence, both of them breathing heavily to catch their breath and trying to stabilize their racing hearts, her leaning against his side, his arm slung around her.

In a quiet voice, Heather said, "Fishlegs… do you forgive me?"

"Yeah.  Do you forgive me?"

"You did nothing that I have to forgive."

"I…"

She placed her hand over his mouth gently.  "You kept your honor and your integrity… and your kindness.  You did nothing that you have to ask forgiveness for," she said.

He considered that for a moment, and then nodded.  "Okay.  Are we still friends?"

"If… if you want me to be, I am."  She swallowed and asked the painful question.  "Are we still courting?"

He flushed, took a deep breath to steel himself, and said, "If… if you want us to be, we are."

Her voice a little choked, she said, "Yes… I want that."

Shyly, they brought their gazes back together, and were quiet for another minute, but they kept holding hands.  Then Fishlegs asked tentatively, "So… um… I have a que-question?"  His voice cracked on the last word as he stammered.

She nodded.  "Yes…?"

"I, um, I… well, you see… well, when you couldn't tell me… I, well, um…" he swallowed and then said in a rush, "I can understand if you had to pretend to be interested but, um…" he flushed, and finished quietly, "how much in our friendship was… was pretend?"

She took a deep breath, looked him in the eye, and said, "None of it was pretend.  That… that's how I fell in love with you." She smiled.  "I could listen to you tell me about dragons for hours."

He smiled wanly.  "Okay.  I'll hold you to that."  He slumped a little sheepishly and then mumbled something. 

"Yes?" she asked.

He averted his eyes.  "I know my poems weren't that good but—"

She couldn't help it; she laughed.  He looked shocked and astonished, and she said, "Fishlegs, if _those_ 'weren't that good', then I volunteer to help you with polishing them up to whatever standard you want."  She leaned in.  "And if that means that I have to listen to you reciting 'not that good' poetry to me, then I'll 'suffer'.  Gladly.  Tonight?  Over dinner?"

He swallowed against a lump in his throat, and nodded.  There was a fresh tear dribbling from his eye and he had a wobbly smile on his face.  "All right."

Reaching up gingerly, watching him carefully for any hint of discomfort, she raised her hand to his face and then patted him gently on the cheek, wiping away the tear.  "I… I wish I had trusted you before.  I cried myself to sleep every night, wanting to tell you.  I wish to the gods I had trusted you."

He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch.  "It's okay.  It worked out."  He opened his eyes slowly, for a moment looking like a satisfied cat being petted.  "I'm just glad that I was putting the Book back when I did…"

She shuddered and nodded. 

"And… and I'm sorry about what everyone's saying about you…" he said, shamefaced.  "It was Stoick's idea to protect you, but I agreed—"

She held up her hand to stop him and smiled wryly at him.  "Fishlegs.  I don't _care_ what they're saying about me.  I care what _you're_ saying about me.  If they're expecting me to act like a blushing maiden over racy gossip, I'll happily tell them all about what you rescued me from, and how Adalwin trained me."  She met his eyes with an evil glint in hers and took her finger off of his lips.

"But… but… I didn't rescue you!"

"You did.  And I'm not even talking about the fight at Vedrarfjord.  I'm talking about you being a kind and decent man.  I was drowning in darkness… and you gave me a light."  A little more assured this time, she stroked his other cheek. 

He seemed to be considering that, and they sat like that for another timeless moment.  Then he leaned in and whispered, "Can I kiss you?"

Latching her hand onto his shoulder, she quickly pulled herself forward, out of the sitting position, and planted her lips straight on his.

It was a long one, and a good one, even if they were both inexperienced with one another.  For their second kiss, there was significantly less pain involved than in the first one. 

Breaking it when air became a concern, she said with a smile, "Yeah, I think you're capable of it.  You just need more practice."

"Then can… _may_ I practice some more?"

The third showed significant improvement.  At least a plus five increase on the scale, Fishlegs opined to her. 

###

Exhilarated, Wulfhild flew over the waves on Mistletoe's back, her braids whipping in the wind.  Off to either side were other riders and their dragons, all of them festooned with mail bags. 

Hiccup and Astrid had made a virtue of necessity, and given the various New Riders practical jobs to do as their final exams.  Wulfhild had leapt at the chance to help with the mail run between Berk and Vedrarfjord as her chance to prove that she and Mistletoe could work together for the afternoon-long flights. 

Now they were on final approach to Berk.  The sense of freedom in the sky was intoxicating, and she wondered if she would be able to help with more mail runs before the wedding next week.  It was already late in the season, and their longships had already been sent back to Norway.  If not for the chance of flying home, she, Magnus, and the rest of his courtiers would have been forced to overwinter at Berk.

Which would have been _such_ a tragedy.  Terrible.  Truly terrible. 

No, they would be here for another two weeks, through the end of the week of feasting after the wedding… and then going home with the dowry dragons. 

Dropping low to skim over the water, she whooped in excitement, and Mistletoe made an answering trill of joy.  They ran through the sea stacks at speed, and she gave out another gleeful whoop as they emerged in Berk's harbor, flying over the ships below.  They pulled up to avoid plowing into the cliff walls and she and the other riders landed by the mead hall a few moments later. 

Astrid appeared from the Haddock house, and came over as they worked to detach the mail bags.  "So?" she asked Ross, who was the senior mailman for this trip, and therefore Wulfhild's exam proctor. 

"Well, aside from having a standoffish and ornery dragon who seems to think that we're all threats to her rider, I'd say that she performed quite adequately.  Her long-distance navigation needs some work, and she picked up some real bad habits from you and Hiccup," he said to his cousin with a wink.  "Wave skimming is fun and all, but don't do it when you're carrying mail."

Wulfhild chuckled sheepishly and blushed.  "Sorry!"

"Eh, you didn't get the saddlebags wet, but you could have, so I have to knock off a few points for that," he said, still smiling.  "But I'd say that she passed, and pretty well, given how cantankerous her dragon is."

Wulfhild shrieked with joy, jumping up and down, but then forced herself to calm and curtsied to Astrid, as the senior rider present.  Yes, she was a princess and Astrid was a shield maiden, but that didn't matter in the moment. 

Astrid grinned at her and produced a scroll from a satchel at her side.  "So, Wulf, here.  And congratulations."

Wulfhild took the parchment, and found that it was a certificate, indicating that she, Wulfhild Olafsdoittor of House Fairhair, was the rider and master of the Razorwhip named Mistletoe.

She rolled it back up, walked over to Mistletoe and placed it in an empty pouch on the saddle for safekeeping.  Then she darted over and tackled Astrid in a hug.  "Thank you!"

Astrid laughed and patted her on the back.  "So, how was the flight?"  The two of them started to walk towards Magnus's Berk house, just down the hill, followed by Mistletoe.

"Long, occasionally briefly boring, but when I started to get bored, I just looked out at the horizon and watched the clouds go by like soft mountains," she said.  "Or went for some wave-skimming."  She grinned.

Astrid grinned back.  "Sounds about right."

Wulfhild glanced around.  "So, where's Hiccup?"

"Busy in the smithy at the moment.  I'm _pretty_ sure that some of my morning gift is being made right this instant," Astrid said, and her smile grew wider. 

That had some really interesting implications.  "Do you know what he's going to give you?"

"Nope, but my parents do, and they're almost giggling like little girls with a _seeeeecret_ about it, so I'm looking forward to it," Astrid said as they entered the house.  Magnus, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Sigvatr were singing in the next room, with Ketil playing one of his drums as accompaniment and Wulfhild shook her head.  At least they all were decent singers, although Tuffnut kept trying to embellish his singing by varying his vocal range and kept getting swatted by Sigvatr whenever he tried to break into the woman's registers or the deep rumbling men's levels.

Getting Mistletoe settled in her room was the work of a few minutes, and she came back downstairs a few minutes later to find Eindride standing stiffly in the central room, near the hearth.  Astrid was giving him a quizzical look, as Magnus could be heard in the next room extricating himself from the twins pleading with him to sing some more. 

He bowed as she came down the stairs, while also glancing nervously at Astrid for whatever reason.  "Milady… I bring news from home."

Right.  He'd volunteered for the mail run to Norway as his practical.  She nodded.  "Good news, I hope?"

Magnus poked his head into the hall, and then came in fully.  "Eindride?  What's the matter?"

Eindride went to one knee and offered up a sealed scroll.  "My father sent me as a messenger with this message from your jarls, milord."

Uh oh.  That couldn't be good—not with Eindride's body language practically screaming _it's not my fault, please don't shoot the messenger!_ as he kept worriedly glancing at Astrid, her ax strapped to her back.

Frowning, Magnus took the scroll and broke the wax seal. The frown deepened as he read, reaching a full scowl within a matter of moments.

Astrid met Wulfhild's gaze with a questioning glance, and then flitted her eyes and cocked her head at Magnus. 

Wulfhild shook her head slightly.  She had no idea what this was about. 

Reaching the bottom of the scroll, Magnus hissed in an angry breath, his jaw clenched.  He turned to Eindride.  "Get out."

Looking relieved, Eindride marched stiffly and quickly to the door, and vanished. 

Wulfhild wordlessly reached out for the parchment, and he handed it to her, saying, "Read this.  It concerns you, and my faithless vassals."

She took it, and began to read.  The header was the usual polite introductions and she skimmed it until she reached the main body.

Then her eyes widened, and for a moment she was nine years old again, fleeing the city of Borg with her father and family.

She read it over, twice, on the off chance that her admittedly weak grasp of literacy was making her misread things.

But no, that was not the case.

Einar had managed to get nearly every single jarl and petty king in her entire kingdom, including at least four parties engaged in famous blood feuds, to co-sign what he'd written.

Almost the only one missing was Yngvarr's.

She read it again.

**_A Statement of Utmost Concern to the Sanctity and Security of the Kingdom of Norway_ **

_It has come to the attention of the Jarls of the Norse that there is a worrisome Pattern beginning to grow in our Alliance with the Chiefdom of Berk.  While any one Aspect would not be suspect, taken as a whole, this Pattern can only suggest that Berk is the Senior and Norway the Junior, and potentially the Subjugated in the fullness of time.  These Aspects include such acts as having Norse Royalty act as Secondary Commanders, and even as menial aides; the inclusion of Norse forces in the Conquest of a City, an act beyond the Purview of existing Treaties, in which Our Royal King was relegated to a support role; and the presentation of a united Front, beyond that of a mutual defense Treaty, towards the Kingdoms of England and Denmark, which will undoubtedly draw Animosity towards Norway if and when Berk creates additional Enemies among the other great Kingdoms._

_In exchange for these risks to our Kingdom, we have been given a pittance of dragons according to the reports of Their Numbers, and effectively no influence in the Court of Stoick the Vast.  Indeed, They will have more influence over Our Royal Decisions via the Hooligan Queen, Ruffnut, than We will on Theirs.  While We acknowledge that Queen Ruffnut and her Brother Thane Tuffnut are indeed boon companions of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, they will be in Norway, acting as influence upon Our Kingdom, whereas We will have no such influence in Berk to speak for Our Interests.  Furthermore, such Inequity can Only Increase over time, as Queen Ruffnut currently carries the future Heir to the Crown of Norway, predisposing Norway's future Good Will towards Berk.  In Contrast, the current Heir to the Chiefdom of Berk has no such ties to Norway, and basing an Alliance of such Import on the potentially Fleeting Strength of a Youthful Friendship seems to be Unwise, At Best._

_Such Imbalances must be rectified if this Alliance is to be an agreement between Equals.  If efforts towards redressing this inequity are not taken, it can only be seen as a sign of the return of the days of Sweyn Cnutsson and Queen Regent Ælfgifu, and of Norway as being under the control of a foreign Crown, drained for the aggrandizement of those not of Our Own People._

_The immediate Solution most obvious to the Signatories of this Statement is a proposal of Marriage or Concubinage to Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III of the hand of Princess Wulfhild Olafsdoittor, to act as Our Representative and Influence in the Hooligan Court, especially in the aftermath of scarring Wounds suffered by the Princess due to Hooligan mishandling of Her Lessons.  It is Believed by the Signatories that such a Visible Reminder of the Consequences of Their Decisions would be the best possible Speaker for the advancement of Norse Interests in the Hooligan Court.  Other such Solutions are currently under discussion._

_While We do not Advise the ending of this Alliance, it is Our Belief that matters as they currently stand show worrisome directions towards a future in which Norway is once again Subjugated and treated as Vassal, and We remind Our Royal King of the efforts that were required to undo that State of Affairs.  And, at present, We risk much and have gained comparatively little.  Redress is most urgently needed._

_Signed…_

And there was the list of names.  All of them.

She looked up.  Magnus was staring at her in concern.  So was Astrid.

"What's wrong?" Astrid… her best friend asked, her voice worried.

"I… I… oh God," she stammered, and then she flushed as she realized that she had just blasphemed.  While the parchment she was holding wasn't a declaration of civil war, it was definitely a statement that they were considering it—and that, if Berk tried to use force on Magnus's behalf, they'd consider her and Magnus to be their puppets, and act accordingly.  The reference to Sweyn and Ælfgifu was effectively a statement of _we did it once, and we'll do it again!_

But… at the same time…  They wanted her to stay _here._   With her friends.  But not as friends—as an interloper, an outsider, an intruder, trespassing on her friends' happiness.

But—

"Wulf!?" Astrid asked, growing increasingly alarmed.  "What is it?"

Wulfhild shared a look with Magnus.  Grimacing, he turned to Astrid and said, "There's a problem, but I don't know if you can, can help…"

"Tell me what it is, and I'll do what I can, I promise," she said stubbornly.  "You said that it concerned Wulfhild and your 'faithless vassals'.  Are they threatening her?  Did Einar pick someone for her to marry against her will—"

Wulfhild cringed, as did Magnus.

Astrid caught it, and said, "Whatever it is, I want to help."  She looked Wulfhild in the eye.  "If he's going to marry you off to some gutter baron, we'll offer you sanctuary here—"

Wulfhild gave a half-sob, half-laugh. 

"What, did I say something funny?"

She caught Magnus's eye again and made a questioning nod towards Astrid, motioning with the scroll.

He looked her in the eye… and nodded. 

Wulfhild handed the scroll over to her best friend… hoping that she was not about to lose her friendship… or earn her hatred. 

Astrid began to read, and her expression quickly turned stormy…

* * *

 

 **A/N:** So, I have good news, bad news, poll news, and NaNo News.  

The good news, holy crap, chapter 27 got almost 500 hits in a week.  My previous record was 399 for ch 23.  

The bad news... Well, when my original draft for chapter 29 hit over 20,000 word count on the second revision pass, I basically went "Screw it" and chopped it into three parts.  So I unfortunately  _won't_ be finishing things off at a nice and neat stopping point before NaNoWriMo.  Sorry! (and I really am... at least a bit.  Somewhat.  To some extent).  But, on the positive side, I can add two chapters to the Buffer with no problem, and those will be posted in December when I resume posting.  

Regarding the poll that I posted last chapter, thank you to everyone that's responded so far.  While this isn't going to be a deciding vote, it's been very helpful in informing me what people think of the idea of splitting the story versus keeping it as one unit.  For people that haven't voted yet, the link is [here](https://goo.gl/forms/SdWBWdtsfLpOfoj12), and I'd deeply appreciate it if you could take a moment of your time to answer.  

As for NaNoWriMo, I'll be posting daily word count totals over at my [Tumblr](https://athingofvikings.tumblr.com/) (check the tag #NaNoWriMo 2017); my goal for this year is 100,000 words and a minimum of five chapters in my buffer.  


	29. In Fire Forged

**Chapter 29: In Fire Forged**

_Feudalism, as a general term for sociopolitical systems consisting of a series of social classes of landless workers, landowners, warriors, and priests in a low-currency, medium-resource environment, can be seen as a low-complexity societal failsafe in the aftermath of a collapse from a higher order political structure.  While higher-order political structures can potentially exist given the same conditions as a typical feudal society, their overhead costs (educational, infrastructure, lack of leisure, etc.) render them more unstable under such circumstances.  In contrast, a feudal system can be extremely stable; under conditions that allow for feudalism, the system can persist for centuries before enough excess social and financial capital is accumulated to allow for a shift to higher-order forms of government._

_Key features of feudalism include systemic and institutionalized social stratification, wherein a minority of families or other institutions control the majority of the society's resources (typically in the form of arable land), a worker class that farms the land and produces the goods necessary for survival, a warrior class that protects the land and workers from encroachment by other landowners, and a priestly class that legitimizes the rule of the landowners._

_It should be noted, though, that, as a low-complexity sociopolitical system, feudalism is highly vulnerable to disruption caused by changes that allow for an increase in productivity or social mobility by the worker class, who make up the majority of the population.  Nowhere is this better seen than in the events of the 1040s to 1080s in Europe…_

_—Nationbuilding: How People Move, Talk, Think, Organize, & Structure Themselves, 1888, Amsterdam University Press_

As she opened the smithy door with not-quite-a-slam, Astrid saw Hiccup glance up and immediately hide whatever it was that he was working on.  Any other time, she would have been intrigued at the hints of the shapes, but not at the moment, not with the fear and anger thrumming through her.

Gobber looked up from where he was hunched over something on the anvil and quirked an eyebrow.  "Everythin' alright there, lass?"

Astrid shook her head and marched up to Hiccup, the damning piece of parchment clutched in her hand, and thrust the letter at him.  "Read this."

As Hiccup started to read, she turned to Gobber.  "Can you give us some privacy for a few minutes, or should we go someplace else?"

Gobber considered that as Wulfhild, Magnus, and Ruffnut entered the smithy, looking worried.  "Somethin's wrong.  Huh.  Aye, sure."  He turned towards her betrothed.  "Oi!  Hiccup!  Take over for me?  I'll hit the privy and give you lot some privacy."

Hiccup nodded numbly as he read.  Gobber left, and Hiccup wandered over to the anvil, reading one-handed. 

She watched him as a dozen dozen thoughts and fears cascaded through her.

He would have to break the betrothal to prevent war.

They'd have to declare war on their only ally in order to keep Magnus on the throne.

Her tribe was going to be abandoned by their only ally, and the wolves were already circling…

She was going to murder Einar Thambarskelfir if she ever had the chance.  He was a small-minded, petty man and the world would be better off without his jockeying for power at the expense of everyone around him—and it would feel so, _so_ good.

Magnus and Ruffnut both looked like they wanted to hold him for her to take that cut, while Wulfhild looked like she wanted to run off and hide. 

Wulfhild wasn't meeting her eyes, and a part of Astrid was furious with her.  A small stray thought chased across her consciousness on how _miserable_ Wulfhild looked, but her anger burned it out before it could draw her into sympathy, and she turned away, focusing on Hiccup.

Wulfhild might not be the _source_ of the problem, but she was still the representative of the threat to her marriage before she was even wed—and she wasn't the only one around here needing comfort.  First, Astrid _needed_ to know that she wasn't about to get cast aside.

On some level, she knew that she wasn't.  Hiccup had already turned down other offers much more attractive… but her fears whispered that he was going to have to leave her.  He was too much of a peacemonger to pass up the chance to save lives and stop a war.

Her thoughts and fears continued to swirl as Hiccup carefully read through the letter, muttering incredulously to himself, each sound that he made etching into her fears like a chisel carving runes into stone. 

Norway was now a real place to her, not a spot on a map; she'd seen it, sailed and flown up and down the length of it, spoken with the people, soaked in their bathhouses and steamed in their saunas, drunk their ale and eaten their bread. 

If Hiccup _didn't_ take this offer, then many of the people that she had met would probably be caught up in civil war.  And— _memories of the attack flashed through her mind—_ people were maimed and killed in war. 

But to stop that… 

Hiccup was going to have to marry Wulfhild in order to make peace, was one fear that resounded through her, and that brought up the next thought, as her father's voice echoed in her head.  _Would you be willing to deal with an empty bed, divided time, and anger and resentment from the mother of the next chief, if it also comes with a whole heart…?_

Anger and resentment… from Wulfhild?  Her friend?

That was a punch to the gut all on its own, and she shied away from it, her anger stoking up further.  It had been a fight with herself to keep from screaming at Magnus and Wulfhild and find Hiccup instead.  She trusted her betrothed to stay on an even keel.

She glanced at Wulfhild, and saw that the princess was clutching her arms around herself, her fingertips white and digging divots into her biceps, and swaying back and forth. 

Astrid swallowed and clenched her teeth and looked away as the words from the letter drummed through her head.  Her hands itched to draw her ax and attack _something._   But the closest available targets around were Wulfhild and Magnus, and she had enough control over herself to keep from doing that.  The same went for smashing up the forge. 

She had a momentary fantasy of Eindride sticking his face into the smithy so that she could split it in half with a well-aimed throw, just as Hiccup put the parchment down on the anvil.  He rubbed his temples, picked the letter back up and handed it to Magnus.  "Did I read that right?  Did your vassals just basically threaten you with civil war?"

Magnus nodded soberly.  "There's really no other way to take it, not with the mention of Cnut's son."

Hiccup looked away from Magnus, his mouth starting to form Astrid's name, and then his gaze focused on her for the first time and he froze.  His eyes widened—first in fear, and then in anger. 

Without prompting, she flung herself at him, and he hugged her, and then reached up to wipe away tears that she hadn't even realized were leaking from her eyes. 

He held her close and rocked her back and forth for a moment, and then made a sound that she'd _never_ heard him make before.

A growl of anger.

Astrid saw Wulfhild flinch, and Magnus took a step back in surprise, and then stepped in front of his sister. 

Hiccup saw their reactions, and took a deep breath.  "I see that Jarl Einar hasn't changed," he said sourly.  "You know, he told me to my face that you wore the crown, but he ruled?"  Hiccup scoffed. 

Astrid swallowed hard against his chest.  Oh gods, oh gods…  As soon as he said that, the depth of their situation became apparent.  Magnus had grown too independent, and Einar was trying to reassert control over him—and, through him, to Hiccup.  And Hiccup would have to leave her and break their betrothal to prevent a war… or she would cost the tribe their only ally in the whole of the world for the sake of her marriage.

Wulfhild made a pained whimper, and Astrid shot her a glance, but had to look away quickly as the rage stabbed her again. 

"What else did he say?" Magnus asked, his tone very, very _carefully_ controlled.

Hiccup replied flatly, "He said I'd be a 'better lord' if I learned to be as corrupt and greedy as him, and wanted to know if I wanted anything, like money, land, warriors, or," he glanced at Wulfhild, "women."

Astrid clung tighter to Hiccup.  It was that, or hunt down Eindride wherever he was hiding and deliver his head to his father. 

Wulfhild, she could see out of the corner of her eye, was curled up into herself, her shoulders hunched and head bowed, her arms still clutched around her chest.  Magnus took her hand and patted it for a moment. 

Hiccup shuddered against Astrid, and then took a deep breath and said bluntly,  "Well, I'll tell him the same thing I told him then.  Not.  Interested.  I'm not the kind of person he thinks that I am." He twisted and gave Astrid a kiss on the crown of her head before looking around the room.  "All right.  We need to deal with this."

Magnus, sounding a little pained, said, "Agreed."

Astrid tensed.  _Here it comes…_

"First point, non-negotiable," Hiccup said, releasing one of his arms from around her to make a waving gesture and the put it back in place; for the brief moment it was gone, Astrid felt its absence keenly.  "I am _not_ giving up Astrid, or marrying _anyone_ else in her place.  _Got it?_ "

She'd only heard that kind of tone coming from him twice before—telling her that, _no,_ they weren't telling his dad about the Nest… and staring down Spitelout the night of the battle, stating _why_ he wasn't willing to slaughter the entire Anglo-Dane fleet. 

Relief bloomed in her chest.  She wasn't going to lose him.  Wulfhild wasn't going to destroy her marriage before it even began.  And Einar could go choke on those sausages that he liked so much if the elder thought that he could steal her love from her.

But the relief quickly vanished, as her other fears vied to take the place of the vanquished.  They were going to lose their sole allies in the world… and Berk would stand alone.

Magnus, ignorant of her thoughts, said sharply, "Of course!  That's not even a question!  You and Astrid belong together, and I'd personally kick the ass of any skald who would try to force such a thing in the saga for 'drama'."

Ruffnut snorted, and Wulfhild actually gave a slight laugh at that, which made Astrid's blood boil for a moment.  This wasn't _funny!_

So she pulled away—slightly—from Hiccup, keeping her arm around his waist but turning to look at Magnus.  Using what tattered remnants there were of her self-control, she kept from yelling and spitting, but her fury was an ax made of flaming ice, and she said, her tone a chilled edge to match, "What in Loki's name were they _thinking!?"_  

Magnus flinched back.  Then, with a harsh sigh of his own, he carefully met Astrid's gaze and said, "I don't think that they are.  Thinking, that is.  Not really."

"What do you mean?" Hiccup asked, and tightened his arm around her.  "That letter looked pretty well thought-out to _me._ "

Magnus took a deep breath.  "Okay.  Okay."  He reached out uncertainly to Hiccup, and Astrid found herself unconsciously blocking him, interposing herself between Hiccup and Magnus.  Magnus quirked an eyebrow at that, but lowered his hand without comment, and said flatly, "I know that we're all furious.  Hiccup, remember our first Thing, back in Nidaros?  Let's go by those rules.  No dueling.  We're going to talk this out."

Hiccup scowled.  "Easy for you to say.  And I remember our talk _then,_ too!  And it was on _exactly_ this.  You _swore_ on the name of your _god_ that you wouldn't—!"

Magnus cut him off with a chopped wave of his hand; his teeth clenched, he bit out in small jolts, "Hiccup, I know!  I know!  Please, calm down!  This was _not_ my idea!  I'm as furious as you are!"

Crossing his arms, Hiccup gave a deep sarcastic snort.  "Really?"

 _"Yes_ , really!  Oh, let's see—my vassals just insulted my best friend, threatened to break up the betrothal of my _two_ best friends, insulted my wife, _their queen_ , treated my sister like their pawn to sacrifice, and basically called me your puppet!"  His eyes narrowed.  "But I'm _not_ your enemy in this!  So do me the kindness of not treating me like I am!"

His words sparked additional fury in Astrid's gut, and she was about to shout back at him when Hiccup said, "Fine," his voice flat and grim.  He snatched her ax off of her back and the Damascus dagger from her waist, plucked his own knife from his belt, and, with a few steps, placed all three weapons on the workbench, out of arm's reach.  "Everyone.  Disarm.  Let's do this."  He then stepped back and put his arms around her.

As Magnus and Ruffnut followed suit, disarming themselves, Hiccup stepped further away from the workbench laden with their weapons, taking her with him.  He then took a deep breath.  Then another, as he met her eyes with a meaningful look.

Astrid took her own deep breath, and nodded in response to his direction.

Magnus wasn't the enemy.

Wulfhild wasn't the enemy. 

Her arm was still clutched around Hiccup's waist possessively, and his arms were around her waist and shoulders.  She wasn't going to lose him.

She _wasn't._  

So she took another deep breath and pushed that fear away, using Hiccup's solid—if wiry—body as the foundation to push against.  "Okay.  So, you're saying that they're not thinking.  What did you mean?"

Magnus gave her a grateful look and said, "Pretty much that.  They're not stopping and considering, they, argh, how to put it?"

Wulfhild, her eyes still fixed at the floor, said quietly, "Because you scared them, so they're trying to get you to play by their old rules." 

Astrid looked at Wulfhild as Ruffnut stepped over to her sister-in-law and protectively slung an arm around her shoulders.  Even with that support, she looked… beaten, with her arms crossed in front of her her shoulders hunched, and her lips and eyes scrunched in pain.

Hiccup cocked his head and asked, "Scared them?  How?"

Wulfhild met his eyes for a glance before looking away and then said, "Isn't it obvious?  In one night, one _battle_ , you made their entire means of making war pointless.  And they're desperately looking for a way to make sure that they won't get conquered by dragon riders who can destroy their armies casually."

Hiccup snorted and Astrid tensed.  She swallowed hard against her fears, and said,  "With this sort of shit?  Funny way of going about it.  What moron thinks that the best way to keep from being attacked is to insult the threat?"

Ruffnut shook her head.  "It makes perfect sense, Astrid," she said.  "You're still just pissed off and not thinking _either."_

"How does this make sense, Ruff?" Astrid demanded.  "If they're scared, why throw down this kind of challenge?"

Ruffnut rolled her eyes.  "You don't need to yell at me _either._   I'm the 'influence' they need to balance, remember?"  She snorted, crossed her arms in front of her and said, "Hiccup just announced to all of Midgard, in flaming runes written out of burned longboats, that he can kick anybody's ass on the battlefield.  Period.  End of sentence, turn the page.  And they're not completely stupid.  So they needed to find a way to challenge him in the kind of fight where they're equals, if not better than him."  She jerked her chin towards the scroll.  "There it is."

Astrid heard Hiccup's teeth grinding, and he said, "And how do they know that I _won't_ just take this to the battlefield, then?"

They were all quiet as those words hit the floor, and nobody would meet each other's eyes. 

There was a little thrill at him getting so ferocious on her behalf in Astrid's chest.

But visions of what such a battle—no, a _war—_ would mean started to dance behind Astrid's eyes, and she started to actually _think,_ rather than scream that she was about to lose him. 

All it would take would be a lucky shot by an archer… and she'd lose him.  Just like in that nightmare. 

Or, almost worse—

_How many, love?  Five hunned?  Thousand? Two?  Was my idea… Used my friend t' kill people…_

—not losing him to death, but instead losing the kind and decent Hiccup to a battle-hardened warrior, the kind of Viking who _could_ look at a burning fleet and see a good start, and drink afterwards, not to forget, but to toast an achievement. 

She felt a chill at that image, leaned into his side and looked up.  "Would you, Hiccup?" Astrid asked him bluntly.  "Would you really?  You nearly drank yourself to death over Harthacnut's attack.  Would you _really_ be willing to wage a _war_ that would kill even more people?"

Hiccup released her and stepped back for a moment defensively.  "I might.  And it doesn't _have_ to be a war."  He snorted and narrowed his eyes.  "We could do to them what we did to Harthacnut and Alvin—targeted strike to the head."  He shrugged and paced to the far side of the forge, and patted one of the arcane devices that he'd built—a light wood X-frame as large as his arms, with small sails attached to the bars, and mounted to a bracket that would allow it to spin—and sent it spinning with a flick of his arms.  It creaked and he stepped back towards them.  Then he turned towards Ruffnut.  "But, Ruff, you're _wrong._   They _are_ completely stupid."

"How so, Hiccup?" Magnus asked.  "I'm not disagreeing, but I'm curious as to your reasoning.  I mean, this is a challenge _to me._   They had no reason to expect me to show it to you."  He glanced at Astrid.

"Okay, maybe not _completely_ stupid, but still stupid enough to not realize that you _might_ show me—or _Dad!—_ that letter!"  He ground his teeth together and gave a disgusted sigh.  "And that's the mistake that they're making.  I'm _not_ the chief.  I might be the Dragon Hero," his voice dripped with sarcasm, "but  I.  Am not.  The _chief._   No, my _dad_ is the chief."  He scoffed as Magnus inhaled, Ruffnut gave a half-anticipatory wince, and Wulfhild inhaled sharply.  Astrid grimaced.  "Yeah.  And, oh wait, he _does_ play by their rules."

"But your dad has said that he's reluctant to get involved in another conflict—" Ruffnut said.

Hiccup cut her off with a harsh laugh.  " _Reluctant?_   Yes.  _Refused?"_   He snorted harshly.  "We have _a vassal city_ now because the old king tried to steal dragons and hurt us in the process."  He shook his head.  "No, Dad will look at this, shrug and go, ' _Aye, fine.  War it is then.  I have Magnus's oath, and there wasn't an exception made for attacks from within.'_ "  He looked around the shop at all of them, ending on Astrid. 

She inhaled sharply, stepped forward, and pulled him into a hug. 

He looked over her shoulder at Magnus and said, "And now I'm having a hard time finding a reason to stop him this time, or to at least not go out on Toothless and snatch every single one of those hidebound, rigid morons and hand them over to Magnus for a nice big treason trial.  It would be really hard for them to start a civil war if they're in prison or hanging from a tree in the sacred grove."  His arms clenched tighter around her, and she squeezed tighter in response.  "Give me a reason."

She could almost hear the silent 'please' that wasn't added on the end. 

Astrid bit her lip and pushed back to arm's length to grasp his hands.  The idea was really attractive… but her talk with Hiccup on the cliff, watching the dragons fly off to Vedrarfjord, bubbled up. 

So she shook her head.  "You capturing them wouldn't work.  Or, rather, it would work _just_ as well as dealing with Alvin did."

"What do you mean?" he asked caustically. "Toothless and I could grab them, give them to Magnus.  Problem solved.  No reason not to."

"Yeah there is, Hiccup.  Turn it around.  Let's say someone came and kidnapped your dad off of the mead hall steps and handed him over to King Echmarcach, back before last year.  How would _we_ react?"

Hiccup made a noise like a cat getting stepped on, and Ruffnut actually giggled nastily—either at the sound, or the image that Astrid had just conjured, she had no idea.  She stomped on an urge to snap at Ruff, as there was silence otherwise.  That sort of distraction wouldn't help.

The silence continued, nobody making any noise.  Then Hiccup sighed and said, "We'd take every longboat that we had and sail straight for Mön to get Dad back."

She scoffed harshly, and turned one of Hiccup's own favorite phrases back against him with all of the elegance of an ax parry.  "Yeah.  Vikings.  Stubbornness issues."  She poked him in the chest.  "And you're just one rider, Hiccup.  You can't be everywhere at once, even on Toothless.  Word would spread faster than you could catch them, and then what?  Do you take out their heirs too?  Would we have to put regents in charge, and where would we find enough loyal people to hold them while we put their leaders to trial?"  She scoffed angrily, her remaining outrage pouring into her tone, combining with all of the hindsight that she'd had from Vedrarfjord over the last month.  "Magnus, how much room _do_ you have in those dungeons?"

He exhaled sharply.  "Not enough, Astrid.  Nowhere near enough.  And, to top it off, Hiccup, if you _were_ to do that… then you'd be making their lie into truth.  Because at that point, I would only be king because of you.  Like… Like how I'm only king because of Einar in the first place."  He folded his arms across his chest.  "At that point, I'd have a revolt on my hands, and then… then I would need your help to put it down.  And that would kill thousands.  And you wouldn't do that… would you?"

Hiccup looked at her, and then Magnus, and then back to her.  He was speechless, but she could see him thinking. 

"Thousands of _innocent_ people, love.  That is the reason you can't go snatch them.  And it's the reason that you have to stop your dad."  He loved her… but he wouldn't massacre a kingdom for her.

And she wouldn't want him to. 

He stared into her eyes, and then looked away.  "You're right."

She hugged him, and it was his turn to lean on her for support. 

Ruffnut sighed.  "And there it is."

Hiccup took his arms off of her back and rubbed at his face.  "So what do we do?  Is there another way?" 

Magnus unconsciously copied Hiccup's motion and rubbed at his eyes.  "All right.  So, first," he extended his hand to Hiccup and Astrid, "I want to apologize to the both of you for this, and I should have said that as soon as you were done reading that letter, Hiccup, if not sooner.  You are my _friends,_ and 'youthful friendship' or not, I don't see that changing."

Astrid reached out, and then hesitated—and Hiccup stretched out and shook Magnus's hand.  "Thanks, Magnus, but what does that solve?  We're not going to come and make a war for you."

"That's my problem.  I still have _some_ allies in Norway, and I _am_ the King.  They can't get rid of that so easily."  He turned slightly and extended his hand to Astrid, who, after a moment, shook it. "Plus, if they're willing to threaten me, I can threaten right back."  He snorted as they released their handshake.  "I wonder how they'd react if their holders threatened to depose them?"

"Is there a way to keep this from descending into civil war?  At all?" Hiccup asked plaintively, putting his arm back around Astrid's waist. 

"Not really," Magnus said.  "This sort of threat… they went too far.  I mean, we could give in and that would buy me time to make alliances, separate myself from Einar's control, but…" he glanced at Wulfhild, still looking miserable, and then looked away, and continued, "I wouldn't force Wulfhild to do anything she doesn't want."  He sighed.  "So there we go."

And then Wulfhild whispered, "I want to stay."

They _all_ turned and looked at her.

Astrid felt _something_ explode in her chest, like one of the pots that she had dropped on the fleet: the burst of fire clear and distant, and everything else gone cold and dark like the sea.  _"What!?"_

"Before you read the letter, you offered me sanctuary, Astrid."  Wulfhild met her eyes briefly.  "Can I stay?"

"As what?  Guest?  Hostage?" Astrid asked, and then, with an edge in her voice, she asked, " _Concubine?_ "

Wulfhild met her eyes again and nodded.  "If it meant peace… I'd do it."

Astrid stared at her, and only when Hiccup hissed in pain a moment later did she realize how tightly she was clutching him. 

"And give in?" Magnus asked Wulfhild, incredulous, putting a supportive hand on his sister's shoulder.  "I was talking about possibilities, not that you should _do_ it!  I won't allow my vassals to dictate terms to us, not about this.  We'll find another way!"

"A way that doesn't get anybody killed?  Or start a war?"  She nodded towards the parchment.  "They're still playing the old game, and I'm still a playing piece _in_ that game."  She sighed. 

For a fraction of a heartbeat, Astrid had the impulse to reach out and hug her friend, but shoved it down hard.  Hiccup was _hers,_ and she wasn't giving him up!  Wulfhild had no right to claim him.  Einar may have started this… but Wulfhild was now pushing for it.  She wasn't the injured party here, and how _dare_ she act as though she was?!

Hiccup scowled.  "Then they get to start playing a _new_ game."

"That's the _problem,_ Hiccup," Wulfhild said morosely.  "You changed the rules too much, too fast, and they're panicking, because they don't know how to deal with it.  They're like those dragon-hating elders you have, who fought dragons their whole lives and don't know how to make peace."

Ruffnut muttered, "Great.  A whole kingdom of Mildews."

Astrid scowled.  "That's probably not a bad comparison, Ruff—except these guys are the chiefs and jarls, not a cranky old clanless hermit."

"And it's not the whole kingdom," Magnus said pointedly.  "It's _just_ the jarls and chiefs."

Hiccup slumped in Astrid's grip, and then looked at Wulfhild.  "So, what, you'd stay?  Why?  Wulf, we're friends, but you know I don't love you.  Not like that."

"Of course I know that," she said flatly, a little more strength entering her eyes and tone, which made Astrid swallow hard against a sudden lump of fear.  "Hiccup, I never _imagined_ that I'd love my future husband, or that he'd love me.  And I was always going to be sold into marriage to cement an alliance—regardless of what your romantic tendencies might have wanted for me, Magnus."  She glanced at her brother and sighed harshly.  "And now here we are."  She looked at Astrid.  "Although if you say no, that 'gutter baron' you mentioned is probably next on Einar's list, just to get his failure out of his sight."

Astrid pulled forward out of Hiccup's hug and stomped forward.  Stopping a little more than an arm's length from the princess, Astrid shook her head.  "No!"

Wulfhild's eyes shot open and there was a gasp from Magnus and Ruffnut. Before anyone could say anything though Astrid continued, "We'll find another way. We won't let them win."  Behind her, Hiccup made a noise of agreement.

Ruffnut shrugged.  "I can't think of one that'll keep those old farts happy.  They want a traditional peaceweaver, and Wulfhild's _right there._ "

"And… and I've been dreading to go back," Wulfhild said softly. 

Astrid looked at her swiftly, biting her lip against a rush of mingled pity and outrage.  Their talks bubbled up in her memory; she remembered holding her friend when they'd removed the stitches from her cheek, and touching the hot scar.  And how Wulfhild had been terrified that she'd just become 'damaged goods,' even as she tried unsuccessfully to hide that fear.  Astrid had hugged her then and told her that it added character. 

And yes, she'd made the offer to let her stay, but by every god of Asgard and Wulfhild's own Christ-god too, _not like this!—_

Swallowing hard now, Astrid said, "That offer of _sanctuary_ is still open."

"So then why not have it _be_ sanctuary, and just call it what they want?" Wulfhild replied, her voice sounding wrung out.  "It would cement the alliance and completely undermine their excuse for civil war."

Before Astrid could sort out the warring emotions in her head and chest and do anything more than clench her arms tighter around Hiccup, making him give a pained exhalation, Ruffnut shook her head.  "That wouldn't work and you know it." 

They all looked at her. 

"What?  Remember how _my_ marriage got started?"  She clamped an arm onto Magnus's shoulder possessively.  "To his jarls, the only ties that are _certain_ are the ones from family and fucking.  Not oaths, not treaties, not hospitality.  Blood and babies."  She scoffed.  "Remember that Wulf and I are only the link of those ties, and they've woken up to the realization that, _hey,_ Magnus isn't Hiccup's brother-in-law, which would be the only sort of bond that they think they can really count on, because you don't attack _family."_

"But they have you, Ruff," Astrid pointed out sharply, letting go of Hiccup and stepping forward.  "And the Thorstons—"

"—Aren't the chief's clan, and that's _all_ that counts there, Astrid.  Oh, sure, if Hiccup or Stoick declared war on Norway, my clan would make a ruckus at Stoick.  But they couldn't _stop_ it.  But if Hiccup was Magnus's brother-in-law, _that_ they'd view as a guarantee.  You _have to_ listen to family in their eyes."  She took her arm off of Magnus's shoulder and crossed both in front of her.  "So, sure, you could keep Wulfhild here under your protection and out of Hiccup's bed, and call it sanctuary, and Einar couldn't say boo about it to _you,_ but I'd wager Astrid's bride price against mine that Einar would be accusing Berk of 'kidnapping the princess' by Yule—and if you tried to say she _is_ a concubine and _didn't_ actually…" she faltered at the glare Astrid was giving her, "didn't actually follow through on that, I'd push that back to Midsummer.  He'd hear sooner or later, just from the wagging tongues around here."

Astrid clenched her hands, stepped back, and then convulsively grabbed Hiccup's hand.

She wasn't going to lose him, even as a fear in the back of her mind gibbered that Wulfhild would seduce him away from her, that she would be second place in something _else_ in her life!  Wulfhild had been taught and trained in how to be a nobleman's wife, after all, and… Astrid hadn't.  Diplomacy, etiquette, protocol, foreign languages… all of the skills that Hiccup would need as herald and future chief… Wulfhild had, and she didn't, and Wulfhild had a head start that would be nearly impossible for Astrid to overcome.  For Freyr's sake, Wulfhild had kin-ties by family to the Swedes and Rus', not just Norway, which would add that much more strength to Wulfhild's position! 

All Astrid had… was skill with an ax, a dragon, and a family of millers, herders, weavers, and fishermen. 

And she had a temper and a tendency towards brutal violence, while Wulfhild's own temperament was much more a match to Hiccup's.  And one day, he would realize that—and the thought stoked her anger at Wulfhild.  Whether the other woman had intended it or not, she'd just declared herself to be competition for Hiccup's love, and Astrid wasn't going to stand for it.

She was just about to open her mouth and tell Ruffnut and Wulfhild exactly where they could shove that idea when Hiccup spoke up, and said, "So he starts making accusations that we've kidnapped her.  Who would believe it?  I mean, Wulf has a _dragon._   She could fly away any time she wanted."

"Hiccup, _you_ know that.  _Magnus_ would know that.  _Einar_ would know that.  But why would the jarls have _reason_ to believe that?"  Ruffnut exhaled sharply.  "You're making the mistake in assuming that they _want_ to be reasonable.  Why should they be reasonable, when being unreasonable and belligerent might get a stronger alliance with _you_ out of it?"

Astrid grunted at that.  She wasn't feeling terribly reasonable herself, but it was a good point.  Hiccup put his arms around her, she unconsciously leaned into his embrace.

"So then we tell them—"

"What, that the alliance is off?  Or that we're going to war?  Which is it, Hiccup?" Ruffnut asked nastily. 

Those words hit Astrid in the gut, and the thought slammed into her.  She shook her head slightly to clear it, swallowed again to try to clear that stubborn lump of fear in her throat.  No, her biggest fear right now wasn't Hiccup's faithfulness, it was the idea of Berk being bereft of allies.  Not just bereft of allies—but now possessing enemies who _knew_ them, and knew their weaknesses. 

It was the thought—the recurring nightmare—of a fleet ten or a hundred times larger than the last, come to burn out the den of dragon riders, no matter the cost.

_Gallbrute and Blackfang falling into the water…_

It was her tribe being hounded to the ends of the earth, their home burned behind them, bounties on their heads as if they were common raiders.

_Sunnigifu and her dragon hacked to pieces by swords…_

Her clan, put to the sword and torch, or riddled with arrows. 

_The best that Berk can hope for is making Harthacnut pay a butcher's bill atop a pile of his own men for killing all of you…_

Her parents, dead like that captain, their bodies thrown down the well.

_Manni, turned to ash on the wind…_

Stormfly dead and being butchered for parts, like her own people had once done, her memories conjuring a vivid reminder of a Nadder's guts being spilled and processed. 

Hiccup, cold and dead in her arms, an arrow in his throat. 

The fury that she'd been feeling… died, quenched like Frostbane's firebreath under the wet leather sheets of the Anglos, and she slumped against Hiccup, who jerked in surprise. 

She felt drained. 

And afraid. 

More afraid of those nightmares coming true than anything else.

"Astrid!  Are you all right?" Hiccup turned and held her up by her shoulders.

She took a deep breath and nodded slowly.  Turning, she looked, really, truly _looked,_ at Magnus and Wulfhild for the first time since she'd stormed in here. 

And they looked afraid too.

Wetting her lips, she said, the lump in her throat making her voice feel thick, "Magnus."

"Yes, Astrid?"

"If… if we said no to this… what might happen?"

He swallowed, making the bump in his neck bob, and went, "Well…"

Hiccup leaned over and asked quietly, "Astrid.  What are you doing?"

She pulled him tight and said, her tone tired and belligerent, "I'm trying to _think,_ like you do, not just react."

"Oh."  Hiccup looked like he didn't know how to take that. 

Magnus shrugged sheepishly at her.  "Well, on that… thinking on it… I don't know.  If every single one of those jarls—or even half of them—decide that I'm selling them out to Berk, there's no way I can keep my crown."

She took a deep breath.  Then another one.  And another. 

"And then what?" Hiccup asked. 

"Well, we either end up running back to Jarislief or Uncle Jacob or to you, and asking for help… again."  He sighed.  "Or we end up living out our lives in exile."

Her thoughts started to whirl at that blunt assessment.  Was it _really_ so bad to have Wulfhild here as Hiccup's… concubine, safe from Einar, under her and Hiccup's protection, _and_ be assured of Norway's alliance? 

She wasn't sure.  So instead, she asked, "Would it work?"

Magnus blinked, startled, and his jaw hung open for a moment.  Hiccup seemed equally startled, as did Wulfhild.

She ignored their surprise and asked again, sharply.  "Magnus!  Would it work?!"

He glanced away from her gaze, guilt on his face, and nodded.  "I… I don't know what they were thinking, but with Wulfhild here… a direct tie to the Heir of Berk…  not only would that undercut their objections in the strongest way possible, it…"  he swallowed, "it would be the sort of alliance that would terrify them into obedience—or at least silence."

Hiccup made a pained noise.  "Manni's broken axle, I _hate_ this."  Then his eyes fell on the project that Gobber had left. "Shit!"

Pulling himself free from Astrid's grasp, he grabbed a pair of tongs and practically _threw_ the odd pieces into the forge, muttering, "I hope that the metal isn't ruined…"  He looked over his shoulder to Astrid and said, "Help?"

She nodded, grateful to have something to do.  She went over to the bellows and started to work the handles.

Meanwhile, Magnus went over to Wulfhild and tried to pull her into a hug, but she shrugged him off.  Twice, the second time giving him a glare.

Giving his sister concerned looks, he went over to Ruffnut by the wall and settled back, one arm over Ruff's shoulder.

Astrid poured the remnants of her anger into the bellows, urging the fire higher and hotter.  

She looked at Wulfhild out of the corner of her eye as she worked the bellows and Hiccup salvaged what he could, and felt a flare of anger at the other woman.  She looked so hopeless, small and lost; the glare that she'd given her brother had vanished, and now she was huddling in on herself. 

After several pulls of the bellows, Ruffnut slipped free of Magnus's arm and walked over to Wulfhild, putting her arm around her, which Wulfhild accepted for whatever reason.  

Seeing that infuriated Astrid, although it was nothing like the sheer red ire that she'd felt before.  She felt like she was being pushed into this… and even though Einar had been the one to suggest it, Wulfhild… had endorsed it.  More than endorsed it.  She had gotten behind it and pushed.  And even though she had her reasons…

Yeah. 

Her emotions churned at the thoughts that raised. 

But this was bigger than her.  Than either of them.  She and Wulfhild could settle this later.

She clenched her hands on the bellows' handles until her knuckles turned white.

First, they had to make sure that there _was_ a later. 

Meanwhile, off to the side, Magnus took out the letter again, laid it on the workbench, and started to mutter to himself.  Then Wulfhild slipped free from Ruffnut's grasp and pushed her to Magnus's side with a whispered comment.

She took a deep breath to steady herself, doing her best to ignore them.  The last time she'd felt a fury this all-consuming, Hiccup had dropped Meatlug in the training pit in the time it had taken her to turn around, and he'd been picked instead of her. 

She scoffed angrily. 

Pity that this time there wasn't a _simple_ solution, like following Hiccup into the forest and confronting him.

Sure, that hadn't turned out the way that she had intended, but she couldn't argue with the results.

Hiccup called, "Hold it!"

She paused, and he plucked the oddly shaped objects from the forge and put them on the anvil, and took up a spot on the wrong side, facing everyone.  He pointed to Wulfhild, and Astrid felt a fresh flare of anger.  "Hand me that hammer behind you, the one with the rounded head."

Wulfhild mutely did so, reaching to the rack behind her and giving Hiccup the indicated hammer, and Astrid stared at her, eyes narrowed.  _She_ was his assistant in here! 

She stepped over, into the space between Hiccup and the wall racks of tools, mutely standing ready to assist. 

"Medium cross-peen hammer," he asked her, and she handed it to him a moment later, her eyes making brief contact with Wulfhild's as she reached for the tool.

Wulfhild looked like she was about to cry.

Feeling oddly satisfied, and discomforted by that satisfaction, Astrid stepped back and silently handed Hiccup the desired hammer.

As he worked, she took another deep breath, followed by several more.  Wulfhild wasn't her enemy.  She _wasn't._ For Hel's sake, she had promised…

That brought her thoughts to an abrupt halt, and she started to shake, trying to keep in control of her breathing. 

She had promised to help her friend.

 _Tell me what it is, and I'll do what I can, I_ promise _._

She started to breathe deeply, faster and faster.

She had promised.  She had _promised_.

And Wulfhild needed help.

But the help that she needed, or at least _wanted,_ terrified Astrid.

"Astrid, what's wrong?" she heard Hiccup ask her, sounding alarmed.

She looked up at him, her breath coming in gasps now. 

He dropped the hammer to clatter on the floor and darted around the anvil to hug her.

As his arms closed around her, she gave a great shuddering gasp and wheezed into his shoulder.

She was safe.  She had him.  She was safe.  She had him.  She inhaled sharply, and then started to laugh humorlessly. 

"What is it?" Hiccup asked, half-muffled by her head from where his face was pressed up against it.  He didn't sound like he was doing much better than she was.

A deep sense of the absurd infected her, and she started to shake again, either laughing or crying or both. 

Her thoughts and memories cascaded. 

 _And the best bargain that they're all going to want is_ their _daughter or sister in that house, with a child as soon as possible to cement ties._

A stack of parchments under a stone painted with the words _Marriage Proposals._

_The only way that the game has changed there is that now we know that having a dragon makes you effectively a noble in rank.  But since there aren't any dragon-riders outside of Berk, my potential pool of future husbands hasn't exactly enlarged._

She clung to Hiccup, who patted her on the shoulder.  And she looked for a way out that didn't involve a war with all of Europa sooner or later.

She couldn't find one. 

Half of those marriage offers had been for Stoick.  She and Hiccup had gone through them all, one at a time; Hiccup had offered them to her to burn as a way to deal with the nightmares, but she'd declined—as a waste of decent parchment, if nothing else (you could always spend some time with a razor and scrape them clean with some effort).  But she'd been struck by how it seemed that every single noble within a month's travel and possessing an unwed sister or daughter was interested in trying to marry them off to Clan Haddock's men. 

At the time, she'd been touched by the scale of what Hiccup was giving up for her.  That he had still chosen her, when he could have gained an alliance with his pick of dukes and counts and princes. 

Now… she realized that the attention wasn't going to let up just because he was married to her, especially after Einar and his ilk had pointed out the possibility.

She snorted into Hiccup's shoulder—making him give her a questioning sound of his own.  If they turned this down, Einar would probably spread the word, just to keep up the harassment, even if they kept turning the offers down.

But…

Most chiefs and clanheads ended up taking concubines, if for no other reason than to bolster their clan's numbers; it was how her own clan had been revived from near extinction over the last sixty years.  Stoick was unusual for not having any, but his fidelity to his dead wife was seen as a sign of the strength of his devotion, especially now, since Hiccup had shown them all that he wasn't Useless and was accepted as the heir.  But before a year ago, there had been significant pressure on Stoick to take a new wife or concubine and sire a replacement or spare for Hiccup. 

But those foreign lords didn't care for that devotion.  They just saw open spots near a source of power—and Hiccup represented too much power, as the Norse jarls demonstrated.  As her own _clan_ had demonstrated.  The interest wouldn't let up, and it would cost them with each declined offer—in goodwill if nothing else.  Those foreign nobles would claim insult in a heartbeat.  But, sooner or later, someone would _insist_ on Hiccup having a concubine from them in order to cement an alliance, insist in a way that they wouldn't be able to block.

Unless there was already a concubine there.  That would lessen the interest, almost for sure.  And it was almost a stroke of brutal elegance, to solve so many problems at once. 

Wouldn't it be better if that woman was already her friend?  Like Wulfhild was?  Someone that she knew, and trusted?

Someone that she had _promised_ to help?

She took a deep breath and, bracing herself, pulled away from Hiccup. 

"Can, can I talk to you for a moment?" she asked, nodding her head towards his workroom.

He nodded, walked back to the anvil, picked up the tongs, tossed the metal bits into the forge fire, and turned to Magnus.  "Could I ask you to…?" he said, indicating the bellows with a shake of his head.

Magnus nodded.  "Of course.  We're in this together… and, well…"  He gave a small smile.  "You've already thought your way out of one impossible trap.  While I'm not expecting miracles… I'm hoping that you can do it again."

Hiccup laughed weakly and painfully.  "Yeah… we'll see."

Magnus walked over to the bellows and started working the handles as she and Hiccup went into his workroom. 

She closed the door and started to pace. 

Hiccup watched her for a moment as she went back and forth and back and forth in the small room. 

Finally, she turned to him and said, "Hiccup… we're getting married."

He nodded.  "No question there.  None.  I'm yours, and you're mine."  He gave her a small, if possessive, smile.

She gave a deep sigh.  "I needed to hear that.  Thanks.  But… I don't see a way out of this that doesn't end… badly.  We need allies."  She met his gaze for a moment.  "As my nightmares kept reminding me."

"So…" he asked, his tone leading and worried.

"So… unless you can think of some beautiful solution that I _can't,_ and Magnus can't, and _Wulfhild_ can't… that keeps all of us safe…" she choked on her next words, and they tasted of bile as she forced them out, "I… I think that you should say yes."

He looked stunned.  "I— what— how— _why_ —"

"Hiccup!  Think!"

He took a deep breath and shook out his hands.  "Astrid, I—I—I—" 

She walked over, took hold of his tunic front, and pulled him in for a kiss.  And she made it a good one. 

And then she ended it.  "Hiccup.  You're smarter than I am.  So, let's think this through and see if you can see any mistakes that I've made."  If anyone could bargain with the Norns before they tied shut the knots of fate, it was Hiccup. 

He nodded.

"Okay.  First, we're together."  He gave another nod, emphatically in agreement.  "Second… we need allies, and we need to _keep_ those allies."  He swallowed hard, but nodded.  In the next room, she heard Magnus working the bellows.  "Third, we want to keep… keep Magnus, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Wulfhild safe.  They're… they're our friends."  She swallowed against her own lump.  "Sending them into a civil war doesn't help."  She took his hands in hers.  "Having to help put down a civil war…"  she trailed off significantly. 

He nodded slowly.  "…would force us to conquer them on Magnus' behalf—and dragons or not, we're outnumbered."  He sounded like he was speaking in spite of a deep stab wound.  "We have to find a peaceful way out of this."

"And I can't think of one that _doesn't_ involve giving in, and… and… and accepting Wulfhild as your concubine.  Can _you_?"

He blinked and stared at her.  "Astrid, you can't be serious.  We'll figure a way out!"

"Hiccup, answer the question," she said tiredly, but he snapped his jaw shut as if she'd shouted at him. 

He stepped away from her and started to pace as well, waving his arms, muttering to himself, and giving her a worried glance every so often. 

She just leaned against the door, her arms crossed.  After he glanced at her for the sixth time, she mouthed _think!_ at him and stepped back into the main room of the smithy.

Ruffnut and Magnus glanced up at her from where they stood by the bellows and then looked away.

Astrid took a deep breath, braced herself, and turned to Magnus and Ruffnut.  "Can you let me speak to Wulfhild alone for a moment?"

Magnus's eyes widened, and then his gaze darted to her ax, still lying on the bench.

Her temper flared at his lack of trust, but she stomped on it.  She'd earned his suspicion.

Ruffnut nodded.  "If we can't trust you now, then we can't trust you later if she stays.  Come on, Magnus," she said, and tugged him out the door. 

As it closed behind them, Astrid took another deep breath, and walked over to where Wulfhild was hunched over by one of the workbenches. 

Wulfhild glanced up at Astrid, her eyes widening, and the flicker of anger still warming Astrid's gut crowed at the fear in Wulfhild's eyes. 

She hushed it and stepped in close.  "He's thinking of a way out of this.  So I promised you that I'd help, and I will _keep_ my promises, come Hel or high water.  But I can't say that I'm _happy_ about this, _friend._ "

Wulfhild flinched.  Not lifting her head, she said softly, "I'm not a threat to your marriage, Astrid."

_Yes, you are!  You've spent your life being taught how to be a good wife!  I haven't!_

Rather than give voice to the sudden fury in the back of her mind, Astrid narrowed her eyes and asked, "So… start talking.  Why?"

"Why… do I want this?"

"Yeah.  Tell me _why_ you want this… instead of trying to find some other way.  Some way where I _know_ that you aren't a, a _threat."_

Wulfhild inhaled sharply through her nose and then slowly raised her head to meet Astrid's eyes.  "I… I… I take it back.  I'm sorry.  I—"

"Wulf!  Answer the question!"

She inhaled sharply again, and started to shake.  "I… I'm tired.  I'm tired of being thrown around my whole life.  I'm tired of being alone all the time.  I'm tired of being treated like a precious, _fragile_ ornament."  She made a gesture towards her scarred cheek.  "I'm tired of being without friends.  I'm _tired_ of waiting my whole life to be sold off.  I'm _tired_ of living in fear of meeting a man without conscience in the morning, and having to go to his _bed_ that evening!  I'm _tired_ of, of, of…" she slumped back down.  "And… and I thought for a moment… that, that since you were my friend… but I didn't…"  She sniffed.  "I assumed too much… and that's gone now too."  She sniffled again, a long and wet inhalation.  "All I wanted was to stay someplace safe with friends…  but now I destroyed that."  She stepped away from the workbench and turned in the direction of the door.

Astrid grabbed her arm and held it.

"Astrid?"  Wulfhild tried to pull her arm free.  "Astrid!  Let me go!"

"No.  I'm not done yet."

Wulfhild looked at her, incredulous.  "What's there left to talk about?  You hate me now… and I can't blame you.  You have something precious and rare.  Why would you want to risk it?" 

Astrid took a deep breath, and then another.  "Because you might help me _save_ it."

"What?"

Bracing herself with a deep, deep breath, Astrid said flatly, "I would rather have you here than Elisiv Yaroslavna, or Edith Godwinsdoittor, or Matilda of Flanders, or any of the _dozens_ of other noblewomen that have been offered to Hiccup and Stoick."  She sucked in air through her nose.  " _You_ , at least, I know.  And I don't hate you."

 _Are you sure of that?_ whispered a voice in the back of her head. _If you didn't need her…_

She pushed that thought away, because it was half-right.  She needed Wulfhild… if only to guard her marriage's back.  Her _own_ back. 

Because that other future concubine that would be forced onto them as part of a treaty…

She would almost certainly come with a knife… and a goal whose path went through Astrid. 

"You don't?" Wulfhild asked, fresh tears forming in her eyes and dribbling down the existing tear tracks on her cheeks. 

"I… we… we'll _talk._   But we _can_ talk."  She looked Wulfhild dead in the eyes.  "I'm _not_ happy about this.  But I know that we can talk with each other.  And be honest.  So, yeah, I'll admit it.  This could work."

Wulfhild was staring at her, her eyes wide and leaking tears.

"I… I… I don't know what to say."  She reached forward hesitantly, as if to touch Astrid's shoulder.

Without thinking, Astrid swayed back, as if to dodge a punch by reflex, and by the time she had realized what she'd done, Wulfhild had dropped the hand limply. 

At that moment, Hiccup stepped back into the room, looking defeated. 

"I can't think…" he saw her and Wulfhild standing next to each other, "of anything… what's going on?"

Astrid turned and looked at her betrothed.  And fought down a moment of jealousy and fear at the image of him kissing Wulfhild, of him sharing with her what he shared with Astrid.  He was still _hers._   She inhaled sharply and said, "You can't?"

"No."

"Then take Wulfhild as she suggested, as she _wants_."

Hiccup blinked, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.  "Astrid… are… are you _sure?"_

Astrid walked carefully towards him.  She felt drained, and tired, and her gut was still a roil of emotions, fury and fear being dominant.  But she couldn't rid herself of the images of him dying again and again in her nightmares…

And those fears goaded her into saying what came out of her mouth next, to actually _commit_ to the course of action that seemed to be the only safe path.

"Take Wulfhild as your concubine.  Make Norway our allies in a way that they'll never reject.  Let Einar think that he's won this time… just long enough for Magnus to wrestle control away from him.  I want him to be a powerless old man when I kill him.  And tell _every_ single noble that's trying to bind you to them that they're out of _luck._ "  She reached him and pulled him into an embrace.  "Because you're _mine,_ Hiccup Haddock, but I can't say the same for the Hero of Berk."

He swallowed hard, the sound loud against her ear.  "I'm… I'm sorry, Astrid.  I… I couldn't think of another way out."

"Then don't.  Save our alliance.  Save our friends.  Don't let our happiness cost the tribe the only allies we have."

Awkwardly, he patted her on the back.  "Astrid… are you sure?"

"Yes… and I'm also sure that I promised to help Wulfhild.  And this is what she wants.  And I'm going to _keep_ that promise."

Wulfhild let out a little moan behind her, and she turned and looked at… at the princess. 

It was like looking into a mirror; she looked just as upset and determined and uncertain as Astrid was feeling.

She looked away, and returned to leaning against his shoulder.  "Stop a needless war.  Cement our alliance.  Save our— save Wulfhild from being sold to a stranger."  A day before, those three things would have made her stand up and cheer, if not dance around the room in jubilation.  Now… now her heart was still hammering against her ribs, her hands were clammy; she felt lightheaded and nauseous, and hoped that she was not in the process of making a mistake that she would regret for years to come. 

She pulled away from his shoulder and held him by both arms.  "Say yes, and we'll figure out where the _three_ of us stand with one another.  We can figure this out."

Hiccup blinked, looked at Wulfhild, who looked at him hopefully, a pained smile on her face. 

"Wulf… are you _sure?"_ Hiccup asked hesitantly.

She sniffed.  "Hiccup… if you were to say yes… then I would not only count myself luckier than I could have ever possibly hoped for… I would bask in the light of your love for each other and call myself happy."  She sniffed again.  "Even if you never love me, and this costs me my friendship with you both.  It is still better than I could have ever hoped for."  She met his eyes.  "Because you are a good man… and I'd rather be y-your concubine here than a queen anywhere else."

"I… I don't know what to say to that," he said.

"Say… yes."

Astrid squeezed him in her embrace.  "Say yes and forge peace, Hiccup.  We'll figure things out from there."

Slowly, he nodded.  "Yes.  I'll tell Magnus we'll do it."

Astrid swallowed, and the lump in her throat seemed to grow.  Wulfhild gave her a grateful look… and Astrid turned away. 

Friend or not… she couldn't face the other woman now.  Call her a coward or not, she didn't trust herself, and her self-control dangled by a thread. 

She leaned in and said to Hiccup, "Finish up in here.  You and I are going out flying as soon as we can.  I need to clear my head… and maybe scream."

He nodded.  Letting go of her, he walked back over to the forge and anvil, and got back to work… on what she suspected were parts for her morning gift. 

Well, if there was one thing that she had learned the hard way about this love business, it was not to leave problems alone.

As soon as she could, she was going to have a talk with her great-grandfather and his wives.

For advice… for venting… for just talking to those that would understand. 

But at least there were no problems on the immediate horizon for her fears to latch on to.  This… this she could deal with, with enough talking and determination.

For the moment… they had this precious, dearly bought peace. 

And she'd make use of it. 

###

The Church courier rode on horseback down the old Roman road as the dim lights of the Francian village appeared, flickering in the distance, the hoofbeats of his escort sounding around him in the darkness.  He and his horse weren't riding too fast, but it could be argued that _any_ speed in the dark was a risk to his steed. 

In his saddlebags were many sealed reports making their way to Rome, having been sealed by the Archbishop of Canterbury nine days ago.  He'd caught the last ship of the season across the Channel, courtesy of a trader's small fleet, headed by a Norseman lunatic who dared brave the seas at this time of year.  His prices had been exorbitant, nearly extortionate, but the courier's orders had been explicit.

His Holiness must be informed of the rising threat to the north. 

So he had paid this Trader Johann the quarter pound sterling he'd demand for passage between Portsmouth and Normandy.  That had been days and miles ago.  Paris was well behind him now, and Dijon lay ahead.  From there, south, to Lyon, racing the coming of the winter snows.  The autumn muds had slowed his progress enough.  Depending on the weather, he would either continue south to Marseilles or turn east to the passes over to Turin, which would save him days against the coastal route… if the passes had not already filled with snow by the time he reached them. 

And so he rode through the night, hoping that the village ahead would have a place to stable their horses and rest for the scant hours until dawn, where they would ride again as soon as it was light enough to see.

The two knights that rode with him had been volunteers.  Their devotion and skill had already saved him twice from bandits on the route.  They had joked with him about the chance to make pilgrimage to Rome, but underneath their jocularity, they had a seasoned brutality to them, and he was grateful for it. 

They reached the village, and found space in a barn for the horses, and place in a house for themselves, belonging to a local carpenter.  The craftsman had protested, but the knight had insisted, with his sword for emphasis, and this craftsman had seen reason, thankfully.  Not all had been so wise as to be willing to give aid when it was required by God. 

The courier curled up on the floor by the hearth, his saddlebags his pillow.  He had no intention of allowing them out of his sight. 

* * *

 

 **A/N:** And there we go!  Okay, some administrative stuff.  As mentioned, I am going to be starting National November Writing Month on Wednesday.  My goal this year, after some thought, is going to be 100,000 words, 5 chapters in the buffer, and a full revision pass through the upcoming winter season.  I will be posting daily status updates on my [tumblr](https://athingofvikings.tumblr.com/) tracking my NaNo progress.  As of posting this chapter, my current Scrivener word count, including all past chapters posted and all future chapters drafted, is 532,000.  I'm hoping to boost that up to ~640,000 by December 1st, if not more.  Also, I plan on letting the poll linked in the previous chapters' A/Ns continue until December 1st and make a final decision then.  (And to those people who left comments and encouragement on the poll, thank you so very much.  Those comments made my day).  

Beyond that, I hope that everyone has been enjoying the fic so far.  For the upcoming month, I know that I left you all off on a semi-cliffhanger, which means that there is only one rational response: Share the pain :D  Recommend the fic to your friends.  Post it on rec lists.  And other forms of spreading the news.  ^_^  That way, when waiting for chapter 30 to be posted on December 3rd, you won't be alone ^_^  

Thank you to all of my readers and reviewers for the encouragement.  I started writing this fic a year ago, and it's been a wonderful experience for me, and I hope that it has been enjoyable for all of you as well.

See you in December!


	30. The Blood Of The Covenant Is Thicker…

**Chapter 30: The Blood Of The Covenant Is Thicker** **…**

_…Ingerman's contributions to Haddock's legacy, however, pale in comparison to that of Astrid Haddock I, Hiccup's wife.  The only daughter of Chief Hákon Mortensson clan Hofferson and Chieftess Gunvor Dugalsdoittor clan Hofferson of Eire, married to Hiccup Haddock III on 27 November 1041 after a ~15 month courtship, the two were genuinely inseparable partners for the remainder of their lives.  Popularly known by multiple titles, including The Skydancer, Freyja's Chosen, Sif's Blade, and others, she is generally credited as having been instrumental in channeling and directing the productivity of her husband's intellect into practical ends._

_…in addition to acting as Hiccup's manager, or as his whetstone, the metaphor that she preferred, Astrid, in her position as her husband's marshal, was widely feared and respected across Europa as the foremost military mind of her era, a reputation inspired from her tactics used during the Second Battle of the Seine River…_

_—A History Of The Isles, Oxford, England, 1591_

"—and I think I have _just_ the solution for making that point," Hiccup said with an edge in his voice.

Wulfhild squirmed in her seat.  She and Magnus were seated opposite Hiccup and Astrid, with Ruffnut on Magnus's other side, Ygnvarr next to her, and Stoick next to Ruffnut.  They had kept their conference small and they were proceeding quickly in order to draft a proper response to Einar's ultimatum as rapidly as possible—they wanted it sent out and arrived before the wedding, which was next Frigga's Day, and today was Wash Day. 

She was getting everything that she had wished for, and it was _terrifying._  

So far, they'd agreed that she would stay, as a formally recognized concubine to Hiccup.  As far as she understood it, that basically meant that she would have the same status to Hiccup as Magnus's own mother, Alfhild, had to Wulfhild's father—as a formally recognized woman who was attached to the great lord in question.  It seemed to be a safe assumption, and they had barely touched on the point before they'd moved onto the next—that she would be a formal peaceweaver between House Fairhair and the Haddock clan.  Stoick had bluntly and offhandedly mentioned that any children resulting from her and Hiccup would be formally part of Clan Haddock, but would be below Astrid's children in any inheritance, and they would only inherit with the consent of Stoick or Hiccup. 

She'd managed to bestir herself to ask why before Stoick had moved onto the next point—and had been the recipient of such a flat look from Stoick that she was afraid to speak up again.  He had moved onto the next point—that of a formal treaty between Clan Haddock and House Fairhair—as she'd noticed Hiccup, Astrid and Ruffnut all giving her blank looks.  But they'd gotten pulled into the rapid discussion on how to best use her brother's oath from the summer as a building block, with the explicit point that an attack on one of them—by enemies from within or without—was to be considered an attack on both of them, and would be responded to appropriately. 

She'd retreated back into herself as Stoick discussed that point intently with Yngvarr, wanting to know how best to word that implied threat to dissuade his fellow jarls.  She shivered.  Stoick, who had been quite friendly to her during the last two months, was being distinctly chilly at the moment.  She could tell that he had mixed feelings about all of this, but wasn't interfering beyond lending his experience and perspective. 

Of course, the precise words he'd used—'brought _into_ the clan'—made her wonder what status she would have.  Especially since her children would be able to inherit… but not as Astrid's would.  So what did that make her? 

Ignorant of her thoughts and worries, Yngvarr tilted his head towards Hiccup and asked, "And what sort of solution do you have in mind?"

Hiccup leaned his arms on the table and propped his head up on his fists.  "Well, ahem, _Jarl_ Yngvarr, you're one of the few jarls that _didn't_ sign that letter.  And you take your oaths very seriously."  He leaned forwards, to the point where his arms touched his chest.  "One of their complaints was that 'Norway had been given a _pittance_ of dragons', right?"

They all nodded. 

"Well, here's my suggestion then.  Wulfhild's staying here, as will Mistletoe.  But, in recognition of that, and yadda yadda, pretentious high diplomatic crap—"

Astrid chortled nastily, and Stoick guffawed, while Yngvarr smiled.  Wulfhild gave a wan smile of her own, but her heart wasn't in it.

"— _you,_ Yngvarr, are granted the rights to the _six_ dragons that you've personally bonded."  Hiccup spread his arms, his face and tone sarcastically guileless.  "Oh, look.  More dragons for Norway… belonging to the _one_ jarl whose loyalty to his _king_ is in no doubt."

Yngvarr and Stoick shared a glance, and then wide smiles grew on both of their faces. 

"I think he'll do just fine," Yngvarr said in a carrying whisper to Stoick.

"Thanks," Hiccup said, and then gave a glance at her, and then turned away.  "As for this part about Wulfhild being the Norse representative here, I had some ideas…"

Wulfhild listened with half an ear as her friend outlined his ideas on how to make the jarls regret their demands. 

She was still lost in thought.  What was she to Hiccup, then?   Not a wife, surely… but…  She glanced at Magnus.  He was part of her House, no question, but if not for Einar's machinations, he never would have inherited.  But he was also an illegitimate bastard of her father's.  Just as her future children with Hiccup would be. 

And her father had fornicated out of wedlock to produce Magnus. 

And any children that she and Hiccup might have would be produced in the same way. 

She hadn't brought it up; it would be the height of ingratitude to have pushed for _this_ and then balk.  But the sin still bothered her. 

However, what bothered her more was the near-destruction of her friendships with Hiccup and Astrid. 

She could still feel the grip of Astrid's fingers around her arm faintly, although it had to be her imagination.  Hiccup was taking great care to be exquisitely formal, but he couldn't seem to bring himself to look her in the eye. 

But the political issues that were pushing this were the primary considerations—and they were putting their heads together on how to give as pointed a slap to her brother's vassals as they could manage.  They could worry about repairing the rips in their friendship when there wasn't the imminent threat of civil war hanging over their heads. 

Now that she'd had a day to think, she suspected that if any of those terrified old men had been thinking when they'd cosigned that letter, at least some of them had expected their 'statement of concern' to be taken as an extreme initial position in an extended negotiation, to be automatically rejected by Magnus as impossible and then used to bludgeon concessions out of him in exchange for 'moderation' on their part. 

Instead they were getting everything that they'd demanded, and she hoped they'd choke on it every bit as much as she was, if not a hundred times more.  Because she was getting everything that _she_ wanted—to stay in a place that had become home, with friends, and free from the ever-present threat of an exile into the bed of a man that she did not love. 

Now she had all of that… and, as answer to her prayers, she would be an outsider, the sole Christian that she was aware of on an island of pagans, her friendships damaged and cooled, and sent to the bed of a man she considered one of her best friends… and they only loved each other _as_ friends. 

But it could have been far worse, she reflected, as she listened to him planning on giving her explicit levels of authority and interest on behalf of her brother and making it very clear as to who in Norway he considered his ally.  She was still friends with Hiccup and Astrid on some level.  They were making plans on how to bring her into their home and household after their wedding, which was in only a few days.  And the general attitude of the Hooligan tribe at large towards her was positive and warm. 

It could have been so much worse. 

And… there was hope.

She studied Hiccup surreptitiously as he spoke.  His dark red hair had grown out into a shaggy mane, and it was dotted with the little braids that Astrid liked to put in it.  His features were strong, his eyes green, his skin dotted with freckles, and, back when he'd been willing to hug her without reservation, she'd fit neatly under his arm, as she was nearly a foot shorter than him.  There was no questioning that he was attractive to her, and she pondered how he'd look in another ten years, especially with him seated near Yngvarr, who was at that age and sported a neatly trimmed and braided beard. 

But Hiccup's physical appearance was the least important aspect of him, as far as she was concerned.  No, his soul was beautiful, and she did love him, at least in some manner, for the virtues that he embodied.  Kindness.  Humility.  Charity.  Diligence.  Mercy.  Temperance. 

Not chastity, of course.  But there was also no question that he and Astrid were already bound together, heart and soul, and their wedding seemed little more than a legal formality.  An _important_ formality, but still…

And in some ways, the sin of Lust barely touched him; he had eyes for one woman, and one woman only, and there was no question to her that what lay between them was Love, as Paul had spoken of to the Corinthians. 

Wulfhild was envious of the bond that they had. 

Lying to herself that she wasn't, well, that served nobody.

The same went for her attraction to him.  She… found him pleasing, both to look upon and to contemplate.  He was a good man, there was no question there, and she had to acknowledge that attraction, at least to herself.

But more than that was not hers to presume upon.  Acknowledging that she found him to be the best possible candidate for her as a person, as well as a potent alliance, that was one thing. 

Acting as if she had any claim on his heart and his love…  that was something else.  But they were at least friends—or had been, and would hopefully one day be again—which was a far sight better than many of the noblemen that she might have been sold to. 

She would not show ingratitude and demand more than was hers to claim.  While there was no question in her mind that this was what she wanted, her greatest regret was that she was an intruder into her friends' relationship, welcomed only out of political necessity. 

And she would be content with that portion.

"Wulfhild?" Hiccup's voice intruded, and she blushed, realizing that she'd drifted into reflection and away from the discussion.

She gave a half-hearted smile and said, "Sorry.  Woolgathering.  Yes?"

"Um… I was wondering if there was a formal appointment or something along those lines that you would be interested in?" Hiccup asked.

Her jaw dropped slightly and her eyes widened.

He continued, "I mean, Astrid has the Master of the Dragon appointment, although—" he cut himself off, and continued, "Since you're going to be in the household, and you didn't want to have to spend all your time doing needlework, I figured that this would give you something to do and send a message…" he trailed off.

Wulfhild realized that she was staring at him in shock.  Astrid looked a little cold at it, but when she saw Wulfhild looking at her, she gave Wulfhild a half-hearted wry smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.  Wulfhild couldn't interpret whatever it was, beyond a sense of Astrid supporting this move as well. 

"Are… are you sure?" she asked, dumbfounded.  Yes, it was for political advantages, but he was willing to just _give_ her a position and the authority that went with it?  Just like that?

Hiccup nodded.  "I am.  It would give you something to do…"

"And…?" she asked cautiously.  "You're not just doing it because I'd be bored…"

He nodded and said, "Yeah.  Look, I don't trust the jarls."

"Nor should you," Yngvarr commented acerbically. 

Astrid bit her lip and said, "So Hiccup and I sat down and did some thinking already on this, and asked, 'Hey, if we were like Einar'—you know, the sort of person who will happily turn the truth into mince if there's sausage to be made—'what sort of accusations might we make next in order to extort more out of Berk?'"  Astrid shrugged.  "Accusing us of treating you like a pleasure thrall or adornment was one thing that we both thought of."

"So…?" Wulfhild asked hesitantly.

"So, giving you a job… something to do… something that's not an empty position, but has some teeth to it, well… it would hard for Einar to make the accusation that Norway has 'no influence in the court of Stoick the Vast' if you have that," Hiccup said with a stiff shrug. 

She sat back, touched.  Of course Hiccup and Astrid were worried about that—but their solution was unprecedented.  By doing this, they was preemptively blocking the hypocritical 'concerns' that they would inevitably issue in order to force out more concessions from Hiccup and Magnus.  And they were doing so in a way that showed that, whatever tensions might currently lie between them… they was still her friends and cared for her. 

Oh God, she was lucky… and strangely indebted to Einar. 

What could she pick?  She'd spent her entire life as a powerless ornament, and now Hiccup came up and offered her a platter of options!?  How was that _fair_?

She blinked again, still a little dizzy with the possibilities. 

Finally, Yngvarr, his voice gentle, with a slight hint of amusement in it, said, "Milady, might I suggest either Almoner or Secretary?  Either position would give you considerable authority, and would fit your own personal nature."  He gave a slight smile and said, "I doubt, for example, that Master of the Hunt would appeal overmuch to you."

She nodded a little numbly, and said, "Can I think it over?"  Her immediate impulse was Almoner, but she was still dealing with shock and could tell. 

Hiccup nodded, and gave her a supportive smile.  There wasn't anything in it beyond a cool and strained friendship, but at least there was that much.  She was going to live with friends… not former friends.  But she wanted her friends back as they'd been last week, the happy couple who thought nothing of hugging her and inviting her in for a game or to listen to her practice with her lyra, or to invite her along for a flight around the island… not these two people who smiled at her, and yet clasped each other's hands tightly when she came near and hadn't touched her since that letter had arrived.

The meeting continued on for a while longer, and then they split up.

Wulfhild went off to her house to collect Mistletoe for a flight to clear her head.  It was a short walk from the chief's hut, only a few dozen paces; she entered the house with her mind still buzzing with the thoughts from the meeting, and went for the stairs up to her lofted room. 

"Milady Wulfhild?"

She startled.  "Wha—oh, it's you, Father."

The priest looked her over with a dour expression.  Then he made a small forced smile.  "Milady, I know that we have not had a chance to speak in the last few days, but I wished to offer you my condolences and support for this trial you are experiencing."

She shook her head and said, "I'm fine."

"Truly?  Milady, you will be the sole Christian on an island of pagans.  Not only that, but you will be joined out of wedlock to a pagan man, your children illegitimate in the eyes of the Lord."

She tried to interject, but he continued to speak and her trained deference to the priest pushed her half-formed objections back down into silence.

"Such trials are enough to test the stoutest of faiths, and you are not trained to the demands of proselytism.  It is my duty to safeguard and shepherd your soul, and I would be remiss in that duty if I did not do what I can."  He smiled.  "In fact, if you wish, let us consider this conversation to be under the seal of the confessional.  I shall not speak of it."

She nodded and, unconsciously guided by Father Michael, she took a seat at the nearby table.  "Now, my daughter, have you any sins to confess?"

She sighed, marshaled her thoughts, and slumped in her seat.  "Only to the sin of envy and the sin of lust, Father."

"So you do find yourself attracted to Haddock?" he asked gently.

"I know that his heart is tied to another, and that I should not covet what belongs to my friend… but now that I am in this situation, I have been asking myself if this fate is truly so terrible.  He is a _good_ man, and I do not know if I am convincing myself or allowing myself to contemplate the thought… but I cannot deny that he is attractive to me, in both the soul and the flesh."  Folding her hands together, she slumped deeper in the chair.  "And yet… as you said, I will not be wedded to him."  The Father's unequivocal statement had taken her earlier uncertainty and replaced it with the awareness of what she was facing, and she was grateful for his guidance… even if the news wasn't good.  The shoe had dropped, at least. 

"I see."  He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment in thought.  Then he said carefully, "I may have a solution to that issue, milady."

"Yes…?" she asked, cursing the quaver in her voice at the sudden hope dangled before her. 

"Milady, I will speak it over with your royal brother, with your permission, but the obvious solution to me is that I wed the two of you—"

"No!  I can't—" She started to rise out of her chair, furious with the priest, but he made calming motions.

"Milady, please!  Hear me out.  Yes, Lord Haddock will wed his pagan bride.  That is not in question.  But he will do so _under their rites._   And God doesn't recognize such rites as necessarily valid."

"But I thought…"  she swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat, and said, "I thought that pagan marriages _were_ seen as valid.  My father ran into that problem when he converted the populace back—"

"Oh, yes, that issue," the Father interrupted.  "Milady, pagan rites make these issues so complicated.  Let me assure you that the primary difference there is one of cohabitation.  If they hold to the essence of a marriage, then after a time, God sees them as married, even if the rites that they were bound under were not legitimate.  But…"  He leaned forward.  "I propose that I wed you to Lord Haddock myself.  It will be a simple ceremony, with none of the pomp and polish that will come with the upcoming pagan rites… but then you can assure yourself that you are not fornicating out of wedlock and compounding your sin, but are instead a proper Christian bride."

"But Astrid—!"

"Milady, we simply will not tell them.  This is for the good of your soul, nothing more.  In Haddock's eyes and those of this tribe, his bride will still be Lady Astrid, but in God's…"  He trailed off significantly.  "And this way, your children will be legitimate, with none of the stain of bastardry on them in the Sight of God… but I can do nothing for the sight of men."

She stared at him, overwhelmed, even as some hint of a barely-remembered detail twitched in the back of her mind.  As she tried to pursue that memory, however, it vanished like soapsuds in the bath, leaving her with the hope of a happy life without sin.  But as tempting as that hope was, her friends came first, and she had to be sure that it would not harm them in any way.  There was a succession at stake, and Stoick's words from earlier, on her issue's place in that inheritance, echoed in her mind.  "But what about Astrid, and her children?  How would this affect them in the eyes of Heaven?"

"What difference will it make?" he asked patiently, but before she could answer, Father Henriksson said smoothly, "Milady, the pagans will hold their rites and be satisfied, and we will hold ours, and be likewise, and ours will be exclusively for the good of your soul, and the souls of your children."  He drummed his fingers on the table again in thought and said sadly, "I honestly wish that I could save them from the treatment that bastards suffer at the hands of their fellow men, but such Grace is not mine to grant.  But granting them succor in the Eyes of God… that I _can_ do, milady."

She shuddered at that, knowing how such noble bastards were typically treated.  Although, she did recall that her own mother had also been bastard-born off of her grandfather's concubine, Edla, and she had gone on to marry a king.  She swallowed at the memory of her beautiful mother, and wished that she could have had the chance to introduce Astrid Olafsdoittor to Astrid Hákonsdoittor; they would have gotten on famously.  But she had risen above the circumstances of her birth to wed a king, and had been beautiful, kind, charitable, and well-spoken, beloved by many, including Magnus. 

Noble bastard-born in the eyes of man was something that she could deal with, she decided. 

"But what about Astrid?  You said that her wedding rites would not be valid," she asked, trying to at least understand the consequences of what he was proposing.

Father Henriksson shook his head.  "Only time can make them so, and you cannot change that.  And I cannot do anything for Lady Astrid's state of grace without her consent, or the consent of her children or their godparent."  He leaned forward with a kind smile on his face.  "But… I can at the very least help you, milady.  It will be our little secret, with no one knowing beyond you, me, and God."

"How…?" she asked weakly.

"I will hold this under the seal of the confessional, until such time as you release me from it," he said.  "No one can compel a priest to divulge what is said in confession."

She tried to examine what he was saying, but her own knowledge of doctrine was spotty.  Some of it must have shown on her face, as he leaned in and said softly, "Milady.  Please.  Trust me.  I am your shepherd, and your soul is my charge.  Please, let me help you in what trifling ways I can before you expose your immortal soul to such dangers."

She met his eyes, and there was a look of such concern, support, and certainty in them that she found herself slowly nodding.  "Okay… if my brother says it's all right with him."

Father Henriksson smiled broadly at her and said, "Milady, it will be my pleasure."

###

"—and six years ago, he and the other Varangians were fighting against some group called the Arabs, or the Abbasids—"

"That's the people that Vidkunn's mother and wife are from," Gudmund interjected.  "We're Norse, they're Arabs.  Their kingdom is called the Abbasid Caliphate."

"Cool, so, as I was saying, they were on campaign against these Abbasidians, and apparently Harald and the others helped capture _eighty_ towns and forts!" Snotlout crowed.  He and the other junior Varangians were in their barracks, and he was regaling them with stories that he'd heard about Harald.  They were intrigued, as Harald was the non-Greek general of the Varangians, and therefore their commander-in-chief.  Snotlout was enjoying doling out little bits to his fellows, his status as Harald's aide giving access that they would never otherwise be able to dream of. 

One of the older Varangians who bunked in the same room called over, "Aye!  And at one point, we were so bored with the siege, we took a break to have a glima tournament!"  He and a few other older soldiers laughed in fond remembrance. 

"Sounds like you've been having quite the time," Kormak said tartly from his spot on his bed.  "Just don't forget us little folk whose backs you stepped on to get up there."

Snotlout bristled.  "Kormak, what do you want from me?"

Kormak didn't answer, but instead glared at Snotlout.  Then, just as Snotlout was about to continue to tell the others about his work with Harald, Kormak said acidly, "I'm wondering how long it will be before you get more of us killed for your glory.  You've already shown a taste for it."

Gunnar, ever the peacemaker, interjected, "Kormak, your brother's death was not Sigurd's fault.  And the archer who killed him is dead now."

"No, it _was_ his fault _._   You shield your brother-warriors on the field.  That's the first lesson of fighting together.  He," Kormak pointed accusingly at Snotlout, "abandoned us in the heat, and worse, did it in a way that gave those archers the perfect shot at us.  I watched my brother get hit right in front of me.  He had no warning, no chance to get his shield up—"

"What's this?" one of the older soldiers asked.

"We were attacked by Pecheneg bandits on the portages around the Nenasytec  Rapids," Kormak said, each word precise and flat.  "Sigurd here spotted them, flew back to us, and picked a spot to land that shielded their approach—and took off again when they were maybe fifty paces distant, right before they loosed their arrows."  He scowled at Sigurd.  "My brother died right next to me."

The senior soldiers in the area winced.  One gave Snotlout a disapproving look, but before they could say anything, Gudmund spoke up from his spot on the nearby top bunk.  "You're forgetting that without his scouting, we wouldn't have had any time to prepare for their attack.  They weren't lying in wait in ambush, which we would have been ready for.  No, they were coming in with, what, three _dozen_ horse archers and mounted swordsmen?  Against twenty guards?  Without Sigurd and his dragon, they would have hit us like a hammer hitting a clay pot.  Instead of just your brother, we would have lost half of our people to their arrows, and the other half would have been taken as thralls, and you'd probably _both_ be dead.  So you owe Sigurd your _life._ "

Kormak snorted and turned his back to Gudmund, and glared at Snotlout.  "You want to know what I want from you, Trondsson?"

"Yes!  That would be _nice,"_ Snotlout said irritably.  "Maybe I could give it to you and we could settle this."

"Fine then."  Kormak stood up from where he'd been lounging, and pulled out a knife.  "Blood."  He loomed over Snotlout, knife in hand.  "For blood."

"Aye, that's enough!" the older soldier called out.  "No fighting in the ranks!"

Kormak gave Snotlout a chilly look, and stalked off, slamming the door as he left the room. 

Gunnar, having watched him go, turned and gave Snotlout a significant look.  "I would suggest that you watch yourself, Sigurd.  He very much has a grudge against you."

"No, you think?" Gudmund interjected sarcastically. 

Gunnar shrugged and said with a straight face, "It is perhaps a shameful pastime, but I have been known to indulge."

Hrafn laughed.  "So, Sigurd, any idea where we'll be sent next?"  He leaned in.  "Since you get to listen in on the meetings, and all."

Snotlout shrugged.  "I don't know.  I know that right now there's a war going on in someplace called Italia to the west of here, and we got our asses handed to us by some traitors earlier this year."

"At Olivento and Montemaggiore," the older soldier chimed in, still watching them all indulgently.  "Catepan Dokeianos was under-equipped and undermanned, with most of the army in Sicily, and the Norman, William Bras-der-Fer," he spat off to the side, "who had once fought at our side, joined the traitor Arduin and led the battles against us."

"What's going to happen there?" Hrafn asked breathlessly. 

The older soldier shrugged and scoffed.  "Not for us to ask.  We follow orders and do as we're told."  He leaned in, a slight smirk on his face.  "Although, I am curious to hear what yonder dragon-rider has overheard in those high councils."

Everyone turned to look at Sno—Sigurd.  He shrugged and gave a forced smile.  "Right now, they're mostly talking about making sure Bulgaria doesn't revolt again, and the situation in Italia, but I haven't heard any plans."

The door to the room suddenly opened, and a courier stepped in.  He strode up the length of the room until he reached Sigurd's group and stiffly bowed.  "Sigurd Trondsson.  You are to prepare your dragon to leave in the morning, by order of Spatharokandidatos Harald Sigurdsson, and you are attached to his group."  He then pulled out a scroll, and read off a list of about twenty more names, and told them that they were also to make ready to leave in the morning.  He then rolled the scroll shut with a snap, and left. 

As the door closed, Sigurd looked around with a smile.  "I can tell you one plan, now."

###

Ruffnut settled back into the chair, parchment and quill at the ready.

"How does this sound?" Magnus asked.  He cleared his throat, clasped his hands together, lifted his head, and said in a pompous tone of voice, " _In accordance with the Statement of Concern raised with such grace and kindness, We recognize the Legitimate Issues Raised and wish to inform you as to the results of this Concern…_ " 

He trailed off as Ruffnut shook her head.  "It needs to have more of an _edge_ to it, Magnus," she said.  She tapped her chin with the quill.  "Maybe something more like, ' _We thank you greatly for Raising this Concern with Us.  Having Engaged in Discussion with the Hooligans, We have come to a Mutual Accord in line with Your Suggested Solution."_

Magnus snorted.  "Oh, they'll looove that.  Hmm… we could drop in a few details after that.  How's this?"  He cleared this throat and said pompously, " _As a Result, Princess Wulfhild has been given the Appointment of High Almoner of Berk and has been Accepted as the legally bound Concubine to Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third."_

Ruffnut nodded.  "But if you're going to go with that, really twist the knife and make it clear that those aren't an empty positions."  She cleared her own throat, and said, "… _Appointment of High Almoner of Berk, to be responsible for ensuring the Legal Fulfillment of Bed Rights and Food Rights in Hooligan Territory, and has been Accepted as the Personal Companion and legally bound Concubine to Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third.  Such an Arrangement can only be_ highly _advantageous to House Fairhair and thus to Norway in the Future—"_

Magnus was giving her an impressed look, but then Father Henriksson stepped into the room, and she faltered.

"My liege, if you have a moment?" the priest said, barely giving her a glance.  She gave him a flinty look; he still tried to convert her every Wash Day, and it had reached the point where she and the Christian priest were barely civil to each other.  Magnus was doing his best to play peaceweaver between them, but it was only a stopgap measure in her growing dislike for the priest, and she'd taken to planning pranks on him that she was going to execute when they returned to Nidaros. 

Thankfully, Yngvarr was going to be the one stuck with flying Henriksson back. 

"We're in the middle of something, Father," Magnus said testily. 

"Then I will be brief, milord," the priest said, bowing deeply.  "Simply, sire, there is an issue that has arisen with your sister.  She wishes for a blessing on her… arrangement between her and Haddock."

"I see," Magnus said, tapping his fingertips together.  "And what are your objections to you giving her such a blessing?"

Ruffnut snorted.  Because of course the priest had objections; his favorite word seemed to be _No._

"Mostly that she will be without a confessor here on Berk, milord."

"I hate to say it, Father, but if that's your biggest objection, it's almost a non-issue.  There are confessors in Vedrarfjord that she can visit; it's only a few hours away by dragon and she knows the way."  Henriksson looked like he was getting ready to say something, but Magnus continued on, " _But,_ if you're so concerned on it, I will ask Stoick if he'd be willing to allow a confessor here."

"Thank you, milord!"

"Now, please, give my sister the blessings that she desires.  She's doing enough for me, I can do that much for her," Magnus said.  "You're dismissed."

"Thank you, sire," the priest said, bowed and left.

Magnus sighed, rubbed his temples with his hand, and turned back to Ruffnut.  "Now, I liked what you had before.  Let's finish it, and we'll write it up together?"

Ruffnut quirked an eyebrow.  "Let's snag Fishlegs for the actual writing.  His scribing hand is so much better than mine."

###

Hiccup was carried bodily into the bathhouse by the men's party, all of them singing cheerfully.  With a heave, he was thrown into the largest steaming tub of water, still fully dressed.  He came up sputtering a moment later, just in time to get his head pushed back under the water by his cheerful best man. 

He tried to come up on the other side, but Yngvarr was waiting to pounce.  Yngvarr hauled Hiccup up out of the water, pulled off his shirt, and cheerfully tossed him back into the sudsy water almost before Hiccup realized what was happening. 

A few more passes, and Hiccup was getting to 'enjoy' the usual tradition of getting his bachelorhood—and the filth from the tunnels under Berk—washed and scrubbed away by the men's party.  Magnus was leading a traditional and cheerfully obscene song as they worked him over, and Hiccup tried to keep his squirming and discomfort as under control as possible.  It was difficult, though, as the various married men were trying to see who could make him blush the most, although the lack of any cruel edge to the ribald jokes, stories, and songs helped significantly in him keeping his composure. 

A few months ago, Astrid had commented that he had overshot on the "getting respect" aspect of becoming an accepted part of the tribe—and while not everyone understood the ramifications of the mail, the fact was, his ideas and tactics had been the ones that had driven off an entire enemy fleet and led to the capture of a king. 

So the fact that they were treating him just as they would any other Viking about to get married, as just one of them… it was a satisfying experience on all sides. 

Well, more on theirs, probably.  In general, Hiccup appreciated the idea of being treated just the same as everyone else.

Getting scrubbed by harsh lye-heavy soap and coarse cloths over every inch of himself by the married men's party—including Spitelout, Hensteeth, Aodh, Woodnut, Hoark, Rolf, Thicknut, Magnus, Yngvarr, Hákon, _Rikard_ , and his _dad_ —was somehow a _much_ less abstract experience than a general feeling of 'being one of the guys.'  He could have cheerfully passed on it, and maintained his philosophical acceptance of the idea in general.

At least his dad was mostly staying out of it, aside from participating in the occasional joke at Hiccup's expense, mostly involving 'mysterious noises in the night' and 'the house settling and creaking' that had apparently been more common over the last four weeks or so.  Butter wouldn't melt in _his_ mouth. 

Mostly, though, Stoick was keeping hold of Hiccup's new sword, and every so often—although how often, Hiccup couldn't be sure, due to his dunkings and scrubbings interfering—glancing at the blade where it sat in the leather sheath.  The new blade had been sorely needed for this rite, as the Haddock family sword had been eaten by a Hotburple when Hiccup was three.  So Hiccup had made the new blade to replace the long-lost one, and shown it to his dad yesterday, and he'd approved. 

Of course, that hadn't stopped Magnus from getting his payback on the retrieval of the sword.  Instead of disturbing his grandfather's rest in the family barrow, the men's party had instead blindfolded Hiccup and tossed him into the unfinished tunnels below Berk without a light.  They'd left him in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, until he had managed to figure his way out.

But Hiccup's father had sat him down in companionable silence once he'd emerged from the tunnels, and then said quietly, "Seven generations of Viking chiefs in this family.  You've done them and me proud.  And you're just getting started."  With a shake of his head, he had said, "I should be telling you now about the importance of living up to your family and the deep roots of your ancestry that you must honor.  I'm not going to.  Because I feel that… not only am I proud to call you my son, but that, far from you not living up to us… we might not live up to you."  His father had smiled and pushed him into the waiting arms of the men's party—and they'd brought him here, and tossed him into the water. 

Eventually the rite of passage into company of married men ended, and they dressed him in his finest clothes; he was being yanked this way and that as they fussed over him and his outfit, and the clothes were itchy after they'd finished scrubbing Hiccup to the point where he half-expected to shine like Baldr. 

Magnus, standing off to the side, helped him get everything just right.  "Nervous?" his friend asked cheerfully.

Hiccup swallowed and didn't answer.

Woodnut commented from the side where he was standing, "Well, I can guarantee that the new bedframe will hold up to anything they can do to it."

Hiccup shot the carpenter a dirty look, and got a sunny smile in response.  He didn't say anything though; the teasing, even gentle as it was, had reached and exceeded his level of comfort a while previously.  Add _another_ comment about Wulfhild joining in, and, well, he was glad that his dad could hold the sword out of his reach. 

If nothing else, he wanted the sword's special additions to remain a surprise for later in the rite. 

Then a most unexpected rescue arrived—Tuffnut stuck his head into the bathhouse.  "They're ready!"

Sighing in relief, Hiccup turned stiffly and walked out of the bathhouse.  Escorted by the men's party, he walked to the sacred grove. 

Astrid was already present with the women's party, looking radiant and pleased, her bridal crown a beautiful cloud of flowers and intricate braids over her head.

He joined her at the altar, and Gothi began.  This being a pure Norse ceremony, they sacrificed the bull and were spattered with the bull's blood from the bowl, and they exchanged the rings that Hiccup had made.  Hers was a wide band composed of two parallel lines of gold, which bracketed the most delicate filigree that Hiccup could craft, in the shape of leaves and flowers, using little chips of gems as accents, with a work-hardened gold backing for strength.  His ring he had designed at her suggestion—Toothless and Stormfly, biting each other's tails to form the ring, using different shades of gold to differentiate the dragons.

Their oaths spoken, Hiccup and Astrid kissed, as the crowd cheered.

Next came the race to the mead hall, which they'd shamelessly pilfered from Magnus's own rites—but, this being Berk, they'd decided to make it on dragonback instead of on foot.  The route arced out over the sea stacks and leisurely ended at the mead hall stairs. 

Hopping onto Toothless' back, Hiccup waved jauntily at Astrid as she climbed onto Stormfly's.  "Ready?"

"You bet!"  She grinned.  "I'm feeling pretty thirsty!  I hope you're ready to serve some mead!"

The rest of the men's and women's parties were mounting up behind them.  He smirked at her.  "Would you like a head start?"

She stuck her tongue out at him.  His dad dropped the cloth and they were off.

Astrid and Stormfly immediately made for the race route, pouring on the speed. 

Hiccup and Toothless pulled leisurely up alongside them, and then rolled up and over, so that he was looking down at Astrid and her dragon at the apex. 

She looked up and shouted several cheerful curses at them, finishing off with one that made Hiccup go, "Promises, promises!  We have to get through dinner first!  Speaking of which…"  He shifted, and, just as they'd trained, Toothless poured on the speed.  "See you there!" he called back to her as they left her and Stormfly fading in the distance—but not too far behind.  They slowed a bit as they built up their lead… but were careful to remain in sight of his beloved, who made cheerful obscene gestures at him every time he glanced back to check her position. 

He and Toothless landed at the foot of the mead hall stairs, and he'd timed it perfectly; he reached the top by the doors just as she and Stormfly landed. 

She gave him a sour glare before breaking down in laughter.  As they waited on the rest of the wedding party to arrive, she took a moment to fix up her bridal crown, which was looking a bit windswept, while Hiccup made sure that his sword was ready for the next part of the rite. 

Gobber and Stoick arrived last, and Hiccup stopped fiddling with the blade.  Astrid mounted the stairs up to him, breaking out into a laugh with every other step, smiling the whole way. 

As she reached the top step, he ceremonially barred the way with his newly forged sword.  She stopped and he placed his sword across the raised lip of the door's threshold.  They took each other's hands, and, as tradition demanded, he helped her over the threshold—even as she commented in a whisper that usually she was the one helping _him_ avoiding tripping on the two-inch high door-lip. 

They laughed, and, safely inside the mead hall, Hiccup picked up the blade that he had laid across the doorway, and flicked his thumb over a small latch in the hilt. 

There was a gasp from the assembled onlookers as the blade began to hiss and then, after a moment more, it burst into dragon-fire down the length of the blade. 

Holding it up for people to see, Hiccup took a moment to bask in their stunned expressions.  Astrid poked him and whispered, "Stop grandstanding and stab the pillar already."

Laughing, he did as his wife—his _wife_!—insisted and swung the blade with a two-handed swing into the pillar, where it bit deep and spattered the notched wood with little splotches of flame that smoked for a few moments and then went out.  There was general applause and enthusiastic whistles of approval, which he was grateful for—he'd spent a few hours sharpening the thing's edge at the grindstone specifically for this moment, wanting to head off any of the speculation that inevitably came when a groom's blade couldn't bite deep into the rooftree.  Aside from not wanting to deal with the teasing on the subject for the rest of his life, he was the chief's heir—and there were enough rumors already that he was lacking in strength and virility, due to his scrawniness. 

He yanked the blade free and sheathed it, which quenched the flames, and then took Astrid's hand again.  They walked up to the head table together as the rest of the wedding party filed in after them—Stoick with Gobber, Gothi, Spitelout and Serena, plus Hákon, Gunvor, Rikard and Ingrid, and Magnus, Ruffnut, and Wulfhild. 

Taking his seat at the center of the table, Hiccup suppressed a sigh as he saw several people examining the cut in the rooftree with interest; they were proclaiming portents and predictions based on the depth and angle of the cut.

But then his attention was taken up by Astrid, smirking and holding a bronze and glass goblet large enough for Hiccup to put both of his balled fists into without touching the sides, and decorated with a pair of handles in the shape of dragons, bought from Trader Johann by Stoick.  She had poured the legally required cup of mead from the nearby cask (which Gothi had delivered the night before, beaming at him), and was waiting. 

The crowd hushed, and Astrid, her voice barely quivering, spoke.  
_"Brewed with blessings, this mighty mead,_  
_Blending brimful with strains of strength,_  
_Vigor of youth through years long in length,_  
_Sturdy soundness in duty and deed._  
  
_Drink deep and add these gifts to your life,_  
_To join those that you have already,_  
_Wisdom and wit, a heart true and steady,_  
_And forever the love of your faithful wife."_

She blushed as everyone applauded enthusiastically, pounding tables and stamping feet, and handed Hiccup the goblet.  Ruffnut grinned from her spot several seats down, and Astrid gave her a grateful look.  Next to her, near the end, Wulfhild was smiling appreciatively at the verse. 

Hiccup, holding the heavy cup, stood up as well, and made the sign of Mjolnir over it.  "To All-Father Odin, I dedicate and toast this fine mead, in thanks for your insight, wisdom, and survival to this blessed day.  I know that you see all realms from Hliðskjálf, and know much of what is to come… but I can only hope that I have provided you much entertainment and surprise, and will continue to do so."

The applause to that was thunderous, and Hiccup took a drink from the cup, coughing at the thick syrupy sweetness of the beverage, strong with the taste of honey and cherries.  He then passed it back to Astrid.  She grinned and toasted to Freyja, although her toast was much more succinct.  "Milady Freyja, commander of the Valkyries… I thank you and toast you for getting the message through to my head that there is more to life than fighting."

Someone cheerfully called out something mildly obscene at that, and Astrid smirked.  "Exactly!" she said, and took a deep drink of the mead.

As she placed the cup on the table, Chestnut stood and started to recite,  
" _Bring the Hammer the bride to bless,_  
_On the maiden's lap lay ye Mjolnir,_  
_In Vor's name Frigga then the wedlock hallow!"_

Stoick handed over his warhammer to Hiccup, who placed it, gently, into Astrid's lap.  She rolled her eyes at the handle where it wavered a few inches from her face as she moved.  "Subtle," she commented, deadpan.  Off to the side, Wulfhild and Ruffnut shared a giggle. 

Gobber laughed.  "What?  Vikings?  Subtle?"

Astrid sighed and then laughed.  "Are we done?  That food smells delicious, and this is going to start hurting my legs soon."

"Aye, lass," Stoick said, smiling. 

With a relieved sigh, she took the thirty-pound warhammer off of her lap and handed it back to her new father-in-law.

Hiccup grinned, and his dad then put the hammer aside, clapped once, and said, "Let the feast commence!"

There were cheers of approval as Magnhild's staff appeared out of every side door—including the one to the Broodery—all of them carrying heavy-laden platters of food.  Eyeing a few of them staggering under the heaviest platters, Hiccup sighed and a rueful smile grew on his face; it seemed that making that lathe-guide for making yard-wide platters had been a mistake after all, judging by the degree to which Magnhild had loaded them. 

The servers went for the sideboard around the central hearth, where it would be self-serve for the lower tables, and for the high table, where the wedding party would be served special delicacies. 

Lopsides came to a halt in front of him and Astrid, carrying a platter that had something vaguely birdlike on it, surrounded by and stuffed with fruits, and then set it on the table. 

"What is it?" he asked, looking at it with curiosity.  Ruffnut looked like she was having flashbacks.

"A goose stuffed with a duck stuffed with a hen stuffed with a squab, roasted with honey and fruit," Lopsides answered.  She looked a little frazzled at the moment; doubtlessly Magnhild had emphasized the high honor she had been given to serve the high table, and done so repeatedly… plus there was Gobber, sitting over there, pointedly not looking in her direction.  "Would you like a slice?"

Hiccup nodded energetically, as did Astrid.

As Lopsides cut pieces for them, with Wulfhild leaning in curiously to see the different layers, Magnus whispered, "How on _earth_ did you get the blade to light on fire?"

Hiccup grinned.  "There's a container of Zippleback gas from Belch and Nightmare spittle from Brand in the pommel, and a flint sparker in the hilt; I cut grooves down the length of the blade for them to flow down, and they ignite.  Sort of a reverse blood channel."

Magnus looked at the blade incredulously, as did his sister.

Hiccup shrugged.  "It only lasts for a few minutes, though; I can only pack in so much gas and spittle, and they run out, and I'm still working on making some kind of storage that's more easily refilled."

Further down the table, Hiccup heard Stoick say, "Gobber, I tell ye, one of these days, a bunch of dwarves are going to tunnel up into the Broodery down there and say that they need help reforging Gleipnir, and ask if they can borrow Hiccup."

They all laughed and toasted the thought, as Gobber grinned and said, "Aye, but let's just hope it's just Odin having a new commission, because if they turn up in the next month or two, Astrid here will look at them and say, 'no'."

There was more good natured laughter at this, and Ruffnut, digging into her plate with gusto, added, "And if they're too pushy, off go their heads, Ragnarok or no."

Astrid smirked at her friend.  "Oh, come on, I wouldn't chop off their heads.  You _start_ with threatening them with the ax, and then threaten _specific bits_ if they're too pushy.  Like any time you're dealing with men, dwarves or not."

That sparked more laughter and then the discussion paused in favor of working at the food that was emerging from the kitchens.  The first course of the layered fowl was nice, and he and Astrid amused themselves by feeding each other the choice bits off of each other's plates. 

They had just finished that, and were debating which dishes to try next out of the selection that had been delivered to the high table, when Rolf and Catthumbs approached at the head of a group of the village artisans, again carrying oddly shaped burdens under sheets of linen—or, in Shrubbage's case, pushing a small wheeled cart at the rear of the group, under which an intimidating irregular four-foot-tall shape lurked.  Catthumbs had another similar cart trailing behind her. 

Rolf stepped forward.  "Hiccup.  Astrid," he said, bowing to each of them in turn, an enormous smile on his face.  "It has been my privilege and honor this past year to prepare this for you both.  We have gifts for you, in commemoration of your great victories and this wondrous celebration.  May we present them to you?"

Hiccup turned to look at Astrid, and saw that she was grinning so hard that she was actually tearing up a bit.  He made a 'go ahead' gesture to her, and she leaned up against him, holding his arm, and said to Rolf, "We'd love to see them.  Please." 

Rolf bowed again, and then whipped off the linen sheet with a flourish, and placed the object he was carrying on the table.

It was another scale, this one one of the largest Green Death scales that Hiccup had seen, at least two and a half feet across, and Rolf had painted a portrait of the two of them on it; they were sitting and cuddling on a bench, their dragons sleeping around them. 

They looked at each other, and then the scale, and then back to each other, and kissed before turning back to Rolf and thanking him profusely. 

Catthumbs stepped forward next; under her sheet was a statue… of him riding on Toothless, his friend's wings half-furled, done in a heroic style, all carved from what looked like dragon-bone.  Hiccup felt like his eyes were going to pop out and go rolling along on the floor.

Catthumbs bowed and said, "When I found the bone fragment on the beach that day last autumn, I knew that I had to make something blessed from it.  So I made this for you… to commemorate the day that you freed us and our new friends from war."

Astrid was tamping down on giggles of glee, almost bouncing in her seat, and Hiccup smiled at Catthumbs.  "I'm amazed.  Thank you so much."  He was honestly intimidated by it, but that made it no less beautiful to view. 

She bowed again and said, "The honor is mine.  Thank you, Hiccup."

The line of artisans continued forward, presenting more pieces of the Green Death that had been carved, embossed, painted, scrimshawed, or otherwise made into art.  Finally, Shrubbage stepped forward with her cart, and whipped off the linen covering. 

Astrid gasped, and Hiccup felt his jaw drop.  Nearby, Magnus was applauding, while Wulfhild and Ruffnut were actually getting out of their seats and coming around the table to take a closer look.

"Several of us—me, Rolf, Catthumbs, Scraplet—worked together on this one," Shrubbage clan Jorgenson said to Hiccup and Astrid's stunned expressions.  "We made it from another piece of bone that we found that day on the beach." 

Hiccup looked over the sculpture in awe.  It was nearly four feet tall, and featured a symmetrical double spiral rising from the base; at the peak of each line of the spiral was a shape that suggested the appearance of a dragon, with one shape dyed black, and the other one bone-white and sky-blue. 

He looked around the people nearby and asked, in a plaintive tone of voice, "Did _anyone_ around here not see this evening coming?"

Everyone looked at each other, shrugged and shook their heads.  Magnus and Wulfhild joined in, shaking their heads with enthusiasm and giant grins on their faces.

Astrid laughed.  "We _have_ been wrapped up in each other a _lot_ this year…"

Hiccup sighed and laughed ruefully.  It was more than a little intimidating, knowing that they'd been working on these all year for him and Astrid.  It was touching too, but there was a part of him that was scared by the devotion that they were showing. 

He hoped that he could live up to all of the hopes that they were pinning on him.

Meanwhile, Magnhild was conducting her own artistic exposition, aided and abetted by Astrid's parents.  Every inch of the sideboard and high table were piled high with food; it seemed like there was enough to feed everyone for a week… which was the point, because there would be.  Hákon and Gunvor had decided to spend a portion of their newfound wealth to fund the feasting week for their daughter's wedding, and to do it in style. 

The sacrificed ox from the ceremony was brought out by Hákon and Stoick on a giant spit, the staff having spent the last several hours roasting it.  Hiccup and Astrid were given the first slices.  Hiccup looked at the pound of steaming beef on his plate and hesitantly picked up his knife to carve off a piece, rolling his eyes.  Well, nobody was going hungry this week.  His new in-laws were trying to outdo the wedding feast of a king, and it was amazing what you could do when you were willing to throw a few hundred or so pounds silver at a meal.  For the next week after the wedding, the tables, sideboard and other serving stations would be kept stocked at all hours of the day and night, and the tribe would feast continuously in their honor.   It was a boast of prosperity and a blessing to them as newlyweds, with people eating and feasting at all hours in their honor. 

As grand gestures went, it was one that Hiccup approved of in general, but, when faced with yet another plateful of food, found himself questioning the specifics, as even his growth-spurt-boosted appetite was finding itself itself intimidated by the mountains of food.

More and more dishes arrived, forming an endless stream of soups, stews, salads, vegetables, fruit, meat, poultry, cheese, mead, and honey-glazed sweets.  He tried to remember specific dishes for the inevitable interrogation by Magnhild later on, but she had raised the bar such that there really weren't any _peaks_ to stand out for easy remembrance—although some were certainly dramatic enough in their presentation to be memorable.  Whole roast oxen, honey-glazed roast boars, a giant grilled fish stuffed with fruit, coils of sausages, pan-fried vegetables, a wheel of cheese as tall as Hiccup that was being slowly carved up, steaming slabs of slow-simmered or roasted mutton, simmering vats of at least six kinds of soup in the new cauldrons he had helped to make, platters of bread tall enough that he couldn't see over them, and, of course, barrels of mead, beer and ale that Stoick could go swimming in.  Heather was manning the taps, and working hard at keep up with the crowd's thirst—and the toasts. 

After the sixth toast, though, Hiccup remembered how he had felt the night Magnus had been married—and the hangover the morning after.  So he started to count his cups and then progressively watered them as the day went on.  He wanted to not only remember this all, but also not regret it tomorrow. 

 Around the twelfth toast, Magnhild came out to supervise a dessert for the high table, featuring four kinds of fruit pudding, sweet cakes, mulled mead, honey-roasted nuts, and a chilled soup made from honey, diced fruit and berries, and sweet cream.  While it was delicious, Hiccup just hoped that Magnhild wasn't offended by the fact that he only tried a little bit of everything. 

Once the sun had set, they were released from the torment of having to chew another plateful of food, and, led by the torch-wielding wedding party, who were making bawdy jokes and lewd comments, he and Astrid were led the short distance to his house.  Their house.

It struck Hiccup right then and there, as they helped each other over the threshold, that they were _married_ now.  Astrid was his _wife._

Some last-minute bits of shouted jocular advice and humor made it past the door as the wedding party escorted them to the base of the stairs to the loft.  He closed the new door to his bedroom, which he'd installed at his dad's insistence two days after Astrid had moved in, and threw the lock shut.  As they looked at each other and at the new and larger bed, the last bits of their restraint fell away, and they more or less dove at each other.

###

King Mac Bethad sat in the throne in his main audience chamber late in the night.  What he was about to do was risky, perhaps even insane.  But it was needful in order to safeguard his realm.

Taskill appeared at his side and nodded. 

Mildew was here.

The doors at the far end of the chamber—emptied of every courtier that he did not trust—opened, and a wizened, grizzled, white-haired old man stepped in, leaning on a staff topped with dragon teeth.  A fully grown dragon followed him, its small wings flapping.  It was horrid to look upon—a head with a long tail, all covered in spikes, with wide, milky eyes. 

Mac Bethad carefully inhaled, doing his best to show no fear.  He had been warned of this creature, and had braced himself for it, but seeing it in the flesh was still a shock.  Rather than whimper at the terrifying sight of it, he instead focused on what he knew of it.  According to Taskill's reports, it was called a Whispering Death.  This one in particular, which Mildew had named Mold, supposedly had a grudge of some sort against the Hero's own mount, Toothless, over which the old man and the dragon had bonded. 

Mildew himself hardly looked any more trustworthy to Mac Bethad than his mount.  Even without the knowledge of the man's temperament from the spies' report, he simply _looked_ seedy, surly and all-around unpleasant.  If Mac Bethad hadn't needed him…

Well, he did.  Especially now. 

At least two dozen ships from Harthacnut's imposing fleet had taken refuge in Mac Bethad's ports for resupply that he'd heard about, and he'd actually managed to do rather well on poaching some of the men-at-arms and other warriors from the passing ships in offering them sanctuary and employment.  That had bolstered his own forces nicely, and with men who would be motivated to regain their own bravery against dragon-riders, and who were already experienced and blooded against them.  In addition, they would face punishment for desertion if they were to return home, giving him a stick to go with the carrot.

But from those ships and the men who had crewed them, he had heard of every detail of the battle—or, rather, the slaughter.  And if there was one thing that had become grossly apparent, it was that Berk was now one of the great powers of the world.  Furthermore, they would begin to grow, as their conquest of the third largest port on the Eirish Sea proved.  Conquest was a dish that, once tasted, sparked an appetite that could never be sated, especially for Vikings. 

And he was their neighbor. 

When the rider had appeared in his skies a month ago, he'd been terrified that it was carrying a demand for him to submit to Berk as a subjugated vassal.  And while the request to purchase food instead had come as a relief, the casual mention of the prisoners outnumbering the Hooligans had been its own form of subtle intimidation, which Mac Bethad had not missed. 

If he and his kingdom were to survive the coming onslaught, then they needed dragons of their own.  It was as simple as that.  And that meant that making a devil's bargain with a man who betrayed his own people was their only option.

Mac Bethad examined Mildew as the old man walked towards him.  The staff seemed to mostly be an affectation and a weapon, not needed for him to walk, and his visage seemed to be sculpted to be permanently scowling and surly. 

This was the riskiest thing Mac Bethad had _ever_ done.  Not just the meeting with the dragon-rider traitor; he had guards standing by at the ready in case Mildew or his dragon tried to attack him, plus a sword and shield in easy reach.  But he didn't believe that Mildew would attack him, because of the true threat to both of them: if any of the men in the room betrayed their king's trust and informed Berk, he _and_ Mildew were both dead men.  And Mildew knew it. 

As a result of that very real danger, getting Mildew here had been a trick and a half.  He had slipped away on the spies' ship in the midst of the chaos of Harthacnut's attack, bringing the last of the smuggled dragon hatchlings with him.  They had then taken nearly two weeks to make their way home, partly for obfuscation, partly because the Eirish Sea had been thick with the panicked remnants of the English and Danish fleet, some of which had apparently turned to piracy for the supplies necessary to run as far away from Berk as quickly as they could manage. 

Even after arrival, the need for secrecy had been paramount, given the power that Berk had demonstrated it possessed.  Taskill had indulged every secretive impulse he had—smugglers' coves and covered carts, traveling by torchlight through the night, the killing of a few errant witnesses, including one family that had picked the wrong time to bring their goods to market—to ensure that there would be no rumors of an old man traveling with a dragon that might reach Berk.  But it had been worth it; Mildew had reached his new home and been installed as jarl without incident, and there were no specific rumors of his presence in Mac Bethad's kingdom that Taskill had heard. 

But now… it needed to be made clear who here was the lord and master, and who was the vassal.  Which was why Mac Bethad was meeting with a traitor and thief in the dark of night, in the hopes that _this_ oath would be held more sacred. 

Mildew reached the base of the throne and bowed before Mac Bethad, but his body language didn't have an iota of submission or deference in it.  If anything, the man's arrogance and insincerity were palpable, and set Mac Bethad's teeth on edge.  He knew that Mac Bethad needed him, and the oily smugness he exuded should have earned him a quick trip to the dungeon for a lesson in manners, not a high-security meeting under the conditions of the utmost secrecy.  But now, Mac Bethad was committed, and he'd use this man and his knowledge to chart a path for Mac Bethad's own survival, as well as the future independence of his kingdom.

So instead of ordering his guards to take the traitorous old man to a cell and then going to the bathhouse to feel clean again, Mac Bethad said, "We greet you, Jarl Mildew, to Our Court."

Mildew gave a gap-toothed smile that made Mac Bethad feel unclean just from being in its vicinity.  "I thank you for your sanctuary, milord," he said.  "I took considerable risks in gaining you what you seek, and now I can never go home again."

 _Such is the fate of traitors who sell their allegiance for power and coin,_ Mac Bethad mused.  Rather than give voice to the thought, however, he said instead, "We appreciate those risks that you took, and acknowledge your loss.  In exchange for that service, We offer you the agreed-upon holding and title for you to call and claim as your own.  We offer friendship for friendship, loyalty for loyalty, and punishment for oathbreaking.  Do you swear fealty to Us?"

"I do, milord," he said, and smirked nastily.

"Then rise, Jarl Mildew.  We have much work ahead of us," Mac Bethad said, wondering how long of a spoon he'd need for this supper.  Well, Taskill would be watching him.

Carefully. 

* * *

 

 **A/N:** Whew!  They're (finally) married!  Huzzah!  I want to thank  **batyatoon**  specifically for her help in the poem that Astrid recited during the mead presentation--seriously, Batya took my 'eh' first draft and completely redid it into what's up there.  And I want to thank my whole beta reader team for helping me with all of this.  Seriously, as much as I occasionally want to pound my head against my desk when doing the edit-wrangling, I love you guys.  

Now, a few administrative things. 

First, I've closed the poll from the prior chapters (and I'll be going back later today to edit those Author Notes to indicate that); even ignoring the obviously fraudulent responses (pro-tip: getting six responses in the space of 62 seconds all voting for the same option is a  _bit_ of a red flag), more than 2/3s of the respondents want to keep this story as a single unit, rather than break it up into smaller bits.  

Second, related to the first, if I had to break it up into books, we would be nearly at the end of the current one--I consider "Book 2" to start with chapter 32.  Since one of the common points raised by the "break it into bits" voters was "I want an epub of the whole finished book", if there is interest, I could easily use Scrivener to generate an epub of chapters 1-31 and make it available for download (from Google Drive or such), and do the same for future books.  

Third, starting with Chapter 32, I will be bumping the rating of this fic to Mature, due to upcoming violent content.  As one of my beta readers put it, "Would you be comfortable with a 13-year-old reading [upcoming scene]?  Because that's what 'Teen and up' means."  And I thought about it and agreed that, no, I wouldn't necessarily be comfortable with someone that age reading, for example, a graphic description of Byzantine Roman punishments--those guys were  _cruel._   So the rating is going to be bumped, and I'll be editing the tags appropriately.  On top of that, I'm going to start adding warnings for specific content at the start of the relevant chapters.  

Fourth, I did not completely succeed at my intended goals for NaNoWriMo, for which I blame my Semi-Intensive German A1 class.  Seriously, German, why are the  _wall_  and _door_ female (die Wand und die Tür), but the _window_ is genderless (das Fenster)?  (Oh, and the _floor_ is masculine: der Fußboden).  But I did well enough.  67,731 total word output, Chapters 30, 31, 32, 33, and 34 are in the [Buffer](https://athingofvikings.tumblr.com/post/167025234425/table-of-contents-and-buffer), and half of the upcoming Winter revised, and chapters 35-38 currently undergoing proofing and final revision.  So I'll be working on keeping that buffer packed going forward!  

Thank you all for reading, and I'll see you all next week--when the morning gift is presented.  And according to the Norse social mores of the time, the scale of the the morning gift should match the bride price.  So have fun speculating exactly what Hiccup will give Astrid that could possibly match a city and a king's ransom.  *waggles eyebrows*  


	31. ...Than The Water Of The Womb

**Chapter 31:** **…Than The Water Of The Womb**

_However, while the social caste system and universal literacy were the areas in which Berk most drastically differed from other Norse cultures at the time, other, more subtle, differences lay in wait.  Perhaps the most paramount of these was Berk's degree of gender-based legal equality; while Norse cultures generally were significantly more advanced than their contemporaries in Europe in this regard, Berk's legal codes differed significantly from that starting base.  While Norse women could divorce and were able to inherit property and participate in combat, Hooligan women could also hold titles in their own names, purchase property, engage in commerce and lawsuits, vote in tribal Things, travel without a chaperon, and held other rights that were disallowed even in the most progressive Norse societies elsewhere._

_This resulted in significant confusion to those interacting with and attempting to influence and control Berk's Norse.  There were numerous cases where the assumption that the legal codes were effectively identical ran into the reality that they were not, exacerbated by the fact that the Hooligans used the same terms for different concepts._

_Perhaps the best case of this is in the Hooligan "concubinage" structure, which had been comprehensively reformed in the 960s AD during the Chiefdom of Hiccup Haddock II.  During these reforms, the concept was changed from a system of acknowledged lovers for a man in an arranged marriage to a legal definition of a temporary civil partnership that would expire after a given period unless renewed by the will of both parties.  This civil partnership was designed to offer significant protections and legal guarantees for the woman (or, significantly more rarely, the man) thus attached.  The intent of these reforms were to correct previous abuses that had grown with the concubinage system since the prior reforms after the outlawing of thralldom in the late 800s AD—specifically, that the wives, as head of the domestic household, were exploiting concubines and their children, who typically could not leave, even in the face of a failed relationship, without facing poverty._

_As a result, the reforms attempted to financially incentivize peace and functional relationships in these polygamous households, by requiring the formal adoption of the (typically clanless) concubine into the clan, as well as their children, and the guarantee of a marriage price to be paid by the concubine-holder on behalf of their former partner in the event that their partner wished to marry someone else.  And yet, the Hooligans still called this system by the old term of "concubinage."_

_This and other such areas of confusion of legal terminology caused problems for the machinations of, among others, the Norwegian jarls and the Catholic Church._

_—The Second Flowering Of Yggdrasil: An Analysis Of The Norse Resurgence, 1710_

Astrid blinked awake on the pillow and smiled as she felt Hiccup's arms around her, the two of them lying in his… in _their_ bed, having finally fallen asleep the night before after enjoying themselves at length.  She knew that the smile was absurd and sappy and so smugly self-satisfied that she felt that she should punch herself on principle, but she didn't _care._ While they'd been together for months, and sleeping together every night for the last four weeks… last night had been glorious. 

They were married now.

Holy gods.

She felt him stirring next to her, and rolled over to give him a kiss.  That deepened, and it was ten sweaty, energetic minutes later that, lying on his chest, she murmured, "Good morning, love."

Oh, yes, this was wonderful. 

He laughed and said back, "It's definitely been good so far," and kissed her again.

It took another half an hour for their feet to actually reach the floor, but, reluctantly, they dressed and headed off for the next ceremonial part of the whole event.

She returned to her parents' house for what was possibly the last time, and was promptly surrounded by her mother and great-grandmother, and as many of her married cousins and aunts as they could round up, who set to work preparing her for the presentation of the morning gift.  At least with most of her parents' possessions packed up for the move to Vedrarfjord, there was enough room for everybody. 

Seated and fussed over by the married women of her birth-clan, she relaxed as they got to work.  Her kransen circlet was formally put away in a coffer for her own future daughter, a thought that made Astrid's heart skip a beat, but most of her thoughts were on pondering what Hiccup might give her for a morning gift. 

While she knew that she would find out shortly, it was fun to speculate about what Hiccup might have wrought in order to please her—and, according to tradition and legalities of how weddings were viewed, basically compensate her for giving him her virginity.  By that light, _technically_ , it was overdue by several months, given that their first time had been back in Nidaros, but that _might_ have raised some eyebrows at the time.

She took a moment and basked in the absurd images that thought had conjured.

Yeah…  She smirked humorously.

She knew that he fully intended to surprise her, and he'd been awfully secretive for weeks.  One of the things he'd made was that burning sword, but she suspected that there was more to his creativity than that. 

"Now there's a cheery smile," Aunt Aifric said, waggling an eyebrow as she intently braided a bright blue ribbon into a length of Astrid's hair. 

Her aunt Scraplet snorted as she handled another braid.  "What's not to smile about?  She's wedded and bedded to her great love."

Her great-grandmother, Ingrid, chortled evilly.  "Aye, and by the sounds of it, the _bedded_ part was good for her."

Astrid felt a slight flush rise in her cheeks, but gave her great-grandmother as dispassionate and level look as she could manage, which made Ingrid laugh harder. 

"Astrid, glaring at me for stating what the whole tribe knows to be true—and is _happy_ for you!—I mean, really."

She blinked as Scraplet gave another tug on the intricate braid, and accepted a pin from her aunt Badgerwit.  "What do you mean…?"

Aunt Aifric chortled.  "Well, _aside_ from the fact that you've spent every night at the Haddock house for the last month…"

Ingrid cackled.  "Aside from that, you need to have better shutters put on those windows, granddaughter."

Astrid flushed, and her clan-women all laughed. 

Her aunt Dingleberry, who was working the hot iron nearby on Astrid's formal clothing, getting the wrinkles out, commented in a false-mild tone, "Aye.  From what I heard the other night on my way back from the mead hall, false-foot or not, the lad still has two legs and can _dance._ "

Astrid felt like her face was going to melt from the teasing.  Instead, she drew herself up as haughtily as she could, "I won't dignify that with a response, but I'll say this much: It's not just the size of the sword that counts, it's the _hands_ that wield it too."

"Aye, and he has _clever_ hands," Ingrid said humorously. 

"And a way with… _words_ in his mouth," Aifric said, smirking. 

They all laughed.  Then her cousin Vigdis asked, "He's still a bit scrawny, especially compared to his father.  Is he able to keep—?" She cut herself off at Astrid's glare.

"You really can't keep it to yourself, can you, Vigdis?" Ingrid asked, shaking her head in disapproval.  "Not even today, of all days."

Astrid bit her tongue, softened her glare to a scowl, and then decided to let it loose.  "One more word against him, Vigdis, and I'll take it as a personal insult," she said angrily.

Ingrid patted her on the shoulder, reminding Astrid of the need to keep calm, and she took a deep breath and gave a nasty smirk at Vigdis.  "But if you _really_ must know, he can ride a dragon for a day and work a forge all night."  She gave a lopsided wry smile, her tongue between her teeth.  "He can keep up with me quite well, thanks."

There was more laughter at that, even as Vigdis scowled at her and left.  Astrid was happy to see her go, and leaned back to luxuriate in the moment, rather than let Vigdis ruin it.  Steinn, her husband and Astrid's first cousin once removed, was one of the die-hard dragon haters.

"Astrid, I'm sorry that she didn't behave," Ingrid said as she sat back down next to her. 

She nodded.  "Not your fault, Grandmama."  She forced a smile to her face.  "So!  Any thoughts on what the morning gift is going to be?"

All eyes turned to Astrid's mother, who met them all with an innocent look that turned into a smirk as they continued to stare.  "What?  Do you think that I'd actually _tell?_   And spoil the moment?"

Aifric whined, "You could give us a _hint_ at least!"

Gunvor's smile turned deadly.  "You're right.  I _could._ "  She swept in closer, taking out Astrid's jewel box and going through the meager contents.  "But I'm not going to.  You'll have to speculate."   She picked out the necklace and Mjolnir pendant that Hiccup had made for Astrid before they'd gone to Norway and set it aside near the wedding dress that Dingleberry was working over. 

Dingleberry glanced at it, and said, "Solid gold jewelry, that's my guess.  A whole fortune of it, to match that bride price.  Also, Astrid, what did you do to get some of these creases in here?  Let him rip this off of you and take you right there on it?"

Astrid flushed and didn't dare answer.  Then Ingrid noticed and started to laugh, which led to the others noticing.  "Oh ho!" her great-grandmother called.  "Did you even make it to the bed?"

Astrid glared at her, and Ingrid smiled back, unrepentant.  Then Astrid looked down at her towel-wrapped body before muttering, "… _eventually."_

They all clapped and laughed.  "Oh, you've got it _bad,_ dearest," Aifric said.  "Good for you!"

"Aye, it's always good to see that it's a love-match," Badgerwit chimed in.

"And you'd know," Scraplet said wryly.

Badgerwit grinned and waggled her eyebrows suggestively.  "Indeed I do.  And my guess is weapons.  Lots of them, the sort that make armies quake in their boots."

"He did that already," Scraplet pointed out. 

"Oh, you're right," Badgerwit said humorously.  "What's your guess?"

Scraplet shrugged.  "I honestly have no idea.  Knowing him, it'll be big, impressive, and completely excessive by any sane standard, because he loves Astrid that much and wants _everybody_ to know it."

"Aww, you have to make a guess at least!  No fair being that accurate and vague at the same time!" Aifric said mock-petulantly. 

Scraplet rolled her eyes.  "Fine.  He'll have made her a belt that he filched pieces for from Eitri and Brokkr's forge that will let her saddle Ratatoskr and go riding up and down Yggdrasil."

Aifric and Ingrid shared glances for a moment and then Aifric said, "I know that she's joking, but… if he could, he _would,_ and we know it."

Astrid giggled.  "He would.  Oh, he so would."

"Well, when you get that chance, be sure to steer the squirrel away from Nidhögg," Aifric said, and then finished with the elaborate braiding.  "There we go.  Ingrid?"  Astrid's great-grandmother came in and helped tie the braid off, and then Badgerwit held up a bronze mirror so that Astrid could see herself.

She blinked. 

A married woman looked back at her, her braids interwoven with pretty ribbons of red and blue and secured with ornamented pins; she looked happy, practically radiant.

As her kinfolk helped her dress in the ironed formal outfit, still teasing her with comments and innuendo, she kept returning to that image.  This was who she was now.

Wow.

Her party returned to the mead hall, where, true to her parents' intent, the feast was still ongoing; a few dozen people were still at the tables, eating, while more were trickling in, all of them wanting to see the presentation of the morning gifts, with speculation running rampant throughout the room.

And, on that note, she saw that Hiccup was already waiting for her.  He was pacing up by the head table.  On the table were a number of intriguing cases and boxes that hadn't been there previously. 

Astrid didn't consider herself to be a greedy person, but she was itching to get at them and see what her _husband_ had made specifically for her. 

She walking up the length of the hall to the high table, and then hugged him.  He hugged her back, and gave her a lopsided grin as the people around them applauded. 

"Let's make this quick," she whispered, and gave a significant, if surreptitious tug at his shirt.

He gave a soft snort and said quietly, "You're insatiable."

"I don't hear you complaining," she said quietly, grinning, and then waggled an eyebrow suggestively.  "Besides, I just had one of my aunts challenge me to beat her record from her wedding day, so we've got some catching up to do."

"Oh, Odin help me…" Hiccup moaned dramatically, and they both laughed and broke apart. 

Technically, this was a more private part of the ceremony, no public speeches or anything of that nature, but it was still done in public for all to see—if for no other reason than to keep divorcing spouses from claiming something that wasn't theirs.  Not that Astrid was worried about that. 

But that meant that there was a hush as Hiccup walked over to the first case, opened it, and removed what looked like some sort of weird crossbow and a quiver of bolts.  The arms of the bow were thick metal, as was the string, and there was an odd mechanism near the stock, and the usual goatfoot for cocking the bow was missing.

Quizzically, she pulled on the string with a grunt and could barely budge it. 

"What's the pull on this thing?"

"About thirty-six stone," he said with a grin.

She blinked at him—that was more than three and a half times her own weight.  "Hiccup, how am I supposed to load it?"

He mutely pointed at part of the mechanism attached to the stock; there was a small handle jutted out from the side, attached to a wheel.

A moment's fiddling showed that it turned.  She cranked it for a few moments, surprised at the resistance it offered; as she worked at it, it gave a _click-click-click_ sound that echoed against the stone of the hall.  Then she saw that there was a catch pulling back the string as she cranked the mechanism. 

She looked up at him, eyes wide, and continued to work the crank until the string was fully cocked, and loaded the crossbow.

There was a cocky whistle from nearby, and she saw that Gobber had a battered wood, leather and straw target held out on a spear, away from his body. 

"Care to try yer luck, Astrid?" the smith said with a grin.  "Hit the target and win a prize!"

She stuck her tongue out at him and took aim, and then pulled the trigger—and grunted as the stock of the crossbow slammed into her shoulder with bruising force. 

But it was worth it. 

The bolt leapt from the crossbow with a _TWANG!_ and hit the target, pierced cleanly through it, continued on through the air until it hit the tapestry on the far wall, and, by the sound of it, shattered on the rock of the chamber wall.

There was stunned silence for a moment from the crowd, and then her great-grandfather started to applaud, followed by the rest of her family. 

"A stupendous gift, is it not?!" her father called out from her side.  The crowd roared approval. 

Astrid handed the siege weapon that was innocently posing as a humble crossbow to her father.  She walked over to Hiccup as her father returned the weapon to the case it had come from.

The next case revealed a shining new steel ax for her, with a soft-leather wrapped handle, an odd pommel… and a familiar-looking latch midway up the shaft of the handle. 

She turned and stared at him, eyes wide, and he shrugged and smirked.  "I figured you'd want one too!"

Grinning eagerly, she twisted the latch, and heard the hiss coming from the ax-head.  Thumbing the small switch below it made the ax-head burst into flame a moment later. 

Giggling fiercely, she went through several swings, whirls, lunges, parries, and chops.  As usual, Hiccup had balanced the weapon perfectly for her, and she would have to take it out later for some practice throwing. 

Bouncing on her feet, she extinguished the flame and put the ax down on the table, and ran over to where he was standing at the next case, which turned out to be a padded chest.  Lying on the linen padding was an assortment of more normal weapons, including an ornamental sword, an ashwood spear, an oaken shield with Stormfly and Toothless painted on it, and a set of throwing knives and hatchets in a belt, all weighted for her.  The sword was encrusted in gold, silver and gems; Hiccup had crafted the grip and pommel to look like Stormfly, down to dyeing the leather of the grip blue and white, and making the crossguard in the shape of her dragon's spread wings and head-spikes, and the blade was gilded in golden swirls for the first five or six inches above the quillions, obviously supposed to be her dragon's breath.  Above that, though, the rest of the blade was bare steel, honed to a cutting edge, even though it was clearly intended to be ornamental, especially after the gift of that ax. 

She picked the blade up out of the case and swung it, testing the balance.  Even with the ornamentation, it was perfect for her.  She went through the motions of the sword forms she'd been taught, and the blade was like an extension of her hand as she parried, thrust, feinted, cut, and bashed.  Pausing by the scarred roof beam near the entrance, she glanced at Hiccup for permission—he nodded—and she swung.

The blow was perfect; the sword sank into the wood and the blade chimed from the force of her swing. 

The watchers applauded as she pulled the sword free from the wood.  She came back over to the head table and placed it reverently back into the cloth-lined case, and then grabbed Hiccup by the hair and gave him a passionate kiss.  The watchers continued to applaud, a few started to whistle, and then she heard Ruffnut heckle, "Save that for later!  There's still more boxes!"

She made a rude gesture at her friend, but reluctantly released her husband so that the formal gift giving could continue. 

The next piece was some kind of leather and wood harness.  She looked quizzically at him, and he said, "This one's a little more complicated…"

He hefted it up off of the floor.  It looked like he'd taken the straps to a rucksack and attached them to an arcane mechanism made of wood, cloth, leather and rope.  She examined it, cocking her head from side to side.  The mechanism was clearly meant to be strapped to something, and there were two long cloth-and-leather covered boards extending out from the mechanism, down towards the ground.  She squinted and took a closer look, stroking her chin.

It wasn't a saddle; it couldn't be.  For one thing, the rucksack-like straps were sized for a person, not a rideable dragon.  Plus there were those two boards, which looked a bit fragile to support someone's rear. 

He opened his mouth, and she held up a hand.  "No, don't tell me, I want to see if I can figure it out."

With a shrug, he closed his mouth and continued to hold the harness-thing out for her inspection. 

She stepped back and paced around him three times.  Hiccup smirked and affected a flirtatious, coy posture, holding out the harness like it was a freshly removed garment, which made her and the assembled watchers all laugh.  At least one person in her hearing commented that it was clearly for some sort of bedroom games with that attitude, which made Hiccup roll his eyes and return to a more normal stance. 

Then someone got it—she heard the gasp.  She turned and saw Fishlegs staring, his hands clamped over his mouth.

"No, don't tell me!"  She turned back and scowled, half-amused at Hiccup's gleeful expression.  "Fine.  Am I supposed to put it on?"

He nodded and shrugged.  "Won't hurt you, I promise."

She rolled her eyes, took two long strides over to him and started to strap herself into it. 

"It's still a prototype," he said apologetically, "and if people could clear some space…"

The bubble of watchers around them immediately grew by eight or nine paces.  Hiccup _still_ hadn't beaten her challenge for having five of his creations function on the first try in a row, and everybody knew it.  Just last week, Hensteeth and his carpenter crews had needed to replace the roof to the smithy again.

"Okay, now, pull on that…" he said, pointing to a rawhide cord dangling from the strap.  She obeyed, and the harness _jerked_ behind her, nearly knocking her off-balance.

Someone gasped, and she looked behind herself.

_Hiccup had made her wings._

They weren't very big, and were made of leather and wood, but he. Had. Made. Her. _Wings._

She gasped and tried to hug him, only to find out that her balance was a bit off.  He caught her and steadied her before she fell and possibly ruined the gift.

Eagerly, she asked him, "How do they work?"

Grinning, he sighed ruefully and said, "Not very well—yet.  I've been experimenting with a set of my own… and, well…"

"Toothless kept saving you?"

He nodded.  "They're still experimental, but my _hope_ is that you could leap off of Stormfly and use these to fly alongside her for a bit.  I'm still working on refining the design, though.  Consider this to _also_ be a promise for future versions."  He reached over and, with a grunt of effort, pulled on another rawhide cord; the wings collapsed, and he showed her how to fold them back into themselves.

She was giddy at the thought of being able to fly on her own with Stormfly.  Around them, the watchers were staring, amazed, and there were many whispers of awe as he helped her take the flight-harness off and place it back into its case reverently. 

The next gift was almost disappointing in comparison to the previous ones, being 'only' jewelry and coin, but it was still a fortune, and it belonged to her and her alone.  But the only thing that Hiccup had made himself in the entire gift was simple: a gold arm-band that he had etched with blessings from the gods on their conjoined names, a highly polished and beautiful piece in its own right.

Slipping it onto her bicep, she grinned.  It fit perfectly. 

The last object in line was a small lacquered wooden scroll case, embellished with a carving of a flying Nadder and Night Fury, riders on their backs.  Flipping open the catch, she opened it and pulled out a beautifully illuminated scroll of parchment.  Inside the decorated border of flying dragons was what looked like a contract or some other legal text.

She started to skim it, paused, and then started to read more slowly from the top.

Someone nearby asked in a whisper, "What does it say?"

"I bet it's a love poem," someone else said.

"Watch and see how red her ears turn, and we'll know!" someone else said.

She shot the last one a glare, coughed, and began to read it aloud.

_"As a final portion of the Morning Gift between Hiccup clanheir Haddock and Astrid clan Haddock, Astrid Hákonsdoittor_ _clan Haddock is given full legal and autonomous authority over the Haddock Clan's flock of unclaimed Wild Dragons, and matching authority over all dragon riders and mounts bound in fealty to the Hooligan Tribe.  While neither Hiccup Stoicksson or Stoick Hamishsson clanhead Haddock renounce any of their authority over the dragons and riders, Astrid now has equal legal standing and authority with both of them in authority over Hooligan Dragons, without reservation or requirement for collaboration with Hiccup or Stoick."_

Her eyes wide, she swallowed hard and handed the parchment off mutely to her father, who nodded as he read it.  "And that's the morning gift, as agreed."

Someone nearby whimpered, while someone else said, "And here I was wondering what he'd come up with to match that bride-price…"

Another voice, hoarse, said, "I think he managed!"

Her father returned the parchment to the case as the whispers spread. 

With the gift-giving over, Stoick looked out over the hall and boomed, "My son and his wife!  May their marriage be long, prosperous, fruitful and full of joy!"

People laughed, whistled, and applauded as she grabbed him by the front of his vest and dragged him back off to their home.

As they walked, Hiccup asked, "Which aunt…?"

She smirked.  "Badgerwit."

Hiccup blinked.  "Astrid… she has two husbands."  Technically, she had one husband, Ingi clan Hofferson, and one of the rare male concubines, Declan, but the three of them were all known to be lovers—and enthusiastic ones at that.  Badgerwit made no secret of _that._

She grinned broadly, showing him her teeth, and cackled.  "I know." 

"So… um… which wedding day?" he asked in mock trepidation as they entered the house.

She gave him an innocent look.  "The second one, of course."

He eyed her up and down and then, as they mounted the stairs to their bedroom, started to shake with laughter. 

They emerged again, a bit disheveled, after noon to eat from the banquet.  As they entered the mead hall, there was general applause. 

###

Hookfang flew over the assembled Varangians with Sigurd and Harald on his back.  The soldiers below looked up and pointed at them from their positions in the ranks.  The weather was cool and humid, and the clouds hung low over the rugged hills. 

"Take us up high, soldier," Harald said, and Sigurd nodded, and urged Hookfang upwards.

At their new lofty height, Harald looked out and down, muttering to himself, while Sigurd kept himself occupied with flying circuits, although he could see the fortress that was their objective, placed atop a hill several miles distant. 

"I see that I will need better maps…" Harald commented wryly to himself, and then said aloud, "Take us back to the formation and hover."

Sigurd nodded, and they returned  to the five hundred Varangians waiting for them. 

Harald signaled Kristoffer at the lead of the column, and gave his orders with a bellow and some exaggerated gestures.  They were to move off to the north and east, through the narrow valley ahead. 

As the column blow began to move, Harald said, "Soldier.  Take us high.  But not as high as we were before; we are going to scout ahead of their path."

"Aye, sir."

What followed next set the pattern for the next few hours, as Harald directed them to fly up and around, coming back towards the Varangian column from a low altitude.  On the way back, Harald gave a satisfied growl as they spotted the scouts lying in wait for the column.  They dodged around the scouts, and returned to the column, which Harald ordered off in another direction, out of sight of the waiting scouts. 

Harald used the vantage point that Hookfang and Sigurd gave him to find the scouts that were lying in wait for his men, and to find superior paths through the rough terrain.  At one point he ordered the column to split into three portions in order to move through three passes; each pass would have been too small on its own to handle the column, but together they were sufficient to allow all of the Varangians to pass at once.  But without Hookfang's scouting capacity, it would have been a foolish risk, one that was obvious to Sigurd—it would have been nearly impossible to tell if there was an opposing force waiting, and the reduced pieces of the column would have been weakened, perhaps fatally. 

Instead, the column flowed through the valleys and hills like water under Harald's guidance. 

And they did it again and again over the next several hours, dodging the more numerous formations sent out to find them, until finally, as the sun hung low in the sky, the Varangians arrived at the fortifications and unslung their axes with a howl of victory… and then fell upon the men manning the fort with cheerful embraces. 

As Sigurd and Harald landed, the men were laughing and cheering.

"It was like wrestling with a ghost.  We barely got a single report of your men _anywhere_ ," Jorn reported with a grin to Harald.  "I'm sure when we get the scouts pulled back in, there will be sightings of the dragon and signs of your passage, but you dodged around every single forward formation that I sent after you, you cheeky bastard!"

Harald laughed.  "Aye, it was like having God's own view over the field.  It was like having the blindfold lifted and the gloves taken from my hands!  Ah, Jorn, I pointed and they took me!"  He grinned and then sobered.  "We will need better signals that can be read from the ground for a commander on dragonback, and it is well and good that the beast can carry two—one to ride the beast, and one to ride the army.  But we will need more."  He turned to Sigurd.  "Soldier!  You did well today!"

Sigurd saluted, his chest puffing out.  "Thank you, sir!"

"There are dragons in the mountains to the east and west of the Empire; if some were captured and brought here, could _you_ break them to the saddle and train others, like myself, to ride them?"

Snotlout's— _Sigurd's_ eyes widened.  He had sworn an oath not to lead dragon-riders on raids.  But this wasn't on _raids,_ not going a-viking as he'd specifically sworn _._  

"Well?" Harald asked impatiently. 

Sigurd gazed at his commander.  Harald looked every inch the true Viking lord.  Tall, blond, and fit, he carried himself as a warrior-lord.  The only physical flaw that he had was that one eyebrow was slightly higher than the other, but that made it seem as if he just had a permanent sardonic expression aimed at the world.  Even his battle scars seemed to be ornamentation. 

And Harald was asking him this, _specifically,_ as something that Sigurd could do for him.

Slowly, Sigurd nodded.  "Aye, sir, I think I can."

"Can you? Or not?"

Swallowing, he shouted back, "Yes, sir!  I can!"

"Good!  I will talk with the Emperor about financing a capture mission next year.  We will complete your training as a Varangian first, and then, and _then,_ my boy…" he stared off into the distance, at something that Sigurd could not see, "we will give the Romans the sort of weapon that their ancestors in old Italia could have only dreamed of.  And the name of the Varangian Guard will echo across the seas!"

The assembled Varangians cheered, and, caught in the moment, Snotlout cheered with them.

###

Starting to feel a bit unhinged from desperation, Heather lifted up her bed, frame and all, to look and see if her shoes had managed to make their way under there, despite having searched under the bed no less than six times already.

Nothing. 

She bellowed, " _I still can't find my shoes!"_

Her mother called back, "They're not down here!"

Heather balled her fists and rubbed at her head in frustration.  She was already late for work at the mead hall; the wedding feast was still ongoing.  While she appreciated the extra pay greatly, the hours were currently brutal.  She'd come home last night dead on her feet… and now her shoes had wandered off.

She looked outside and moaned.  It was overcast and drizzling, and the grass was noticeably wet.

But she was already late.

Bracing herself, she ran out the door and tried to make it up the hill to the mead hall as quickly as possible.  Despite her efforts at speed, by the time she got there she was shivering and her feet were numb and muddy, but at least she'd managed to avoid slipping and falling on the mud and wet leaves and grass.  She entered the hall with a sigh of relief at the warmth and looked around as she shivered. 

It was five days into the week of the wedding feast, and true to Astrid's parents' intentions, the tables were still packed with people, feasting through all hours of the day. 

Which meant that the kitchen staff had to be there.

At all hours of the day.

So Heather dragged herself up to the doors to the kitchens, reflecting that it would at least be warm from the ovens in there.  As she entered, though, several of the other kitchen workers—Karolina, Twiglet, Gallbrat, Vexwit, and Horsefly—spotted her and immediately ended their conversation.

Heather held back a sigh.  Twiglet wasn't apparently giving up; the Thorston woman had her eye on Fishlegs, despite being his elder by three years, and despite the fact that he'd publicly reaffirmed their courtship. 

Fishlegs was still oblivious, of course.  He'd been oblivious to it before, during their month of estrangement, which was when Twiglet had started her whispers.

It was tempting to respond in kind, but… Heather was determined not to escalate things further.  While her reputation was already stained, dragging it into the mud further wouldn't help.  So… even though it was hard to resist the temptation to retaliate in the gossip, she instead turned to the waiting platters and carried out the next one, filled with bread rolls stacked to a height of two feet, to the sideboard, to replenish what people had eaten.

As she stepped through the door, the heavy platter in her arms, she bumped into someone going the other way, and the impact almost knocked the platter from her hands.

Then whoever she had hit stepped on her bare toes and she almost screamed—and _did_ drop the platter, sending bread cascading everywhere.

 Burl Woodnutsdoittor blinked as a bunch of rolls hit her in the face, and with a yelp of her own, scrambled to catch the platter.  She succeeded, and even managed to save a third of the rolls.

Her feet in agony, Heather snapped, "Watch where you're going!"

Burl scowled at her and shoved the platter back at her as the Terrors and dogs in the hall pounced on the bread rolls.  "You're the one carrying things!  _You_ be careful!" and she walked off with a huff.

Heather scowled at her and put the diminished platter on the sideboard, and then grimaced.  Great.  Nearly two dozen rolls lost. 

She went back into the kitchen to tell Magnhild, who wasn't pleased.  A few moments later, she was back in front of the massive beer barrels, with instructions to serve the drinks to the thirsty crowd.

Thicknut clan Thorston came up with an empty tankard a few minutes later, and, with a muffled belch, wordlessly handed it to her.  Heather took it and turned to the spigot, and twisted the stopcock firmly.  Normally, that would have resulted in a nice, steady stream of ale into the tankard, especially since Hiccup had redesigned the valves that Berk used to be more reliable and efficient (as a side benefit of his water-tank Zippleback gas compressor). 

Instead, the spigot was loose in the bunghole, and came loose in her hand—and a flood of ale hit the spigot, the tankard, and Heather, soaking her from the waist down.  Panicking, she tried to shove the spigot back into the bunghole, and managed after a few tries, and then used a nearby mallet to hammer it back in.

Then she looked up and saw that half of the room was watching and laughing. 

Her training had burned out most of her sense of embarrassment… but there was enough still left to make her flush to the roots of her hair at the mocking laughter and applause.  Her bare feet were in a puddle of cold ale, and her clothes were soaked with it.  Feeling frustrated almost to the point of tears, she gave Thicknut his ale, which he took with a chuckle at her soaked state.  As he walked off, she went to get a clean smock from the kitchens. 

As she emerged, tying the apron around her waist, she found Fishlegs standing nearby, looking for her.  "Heather!…  what happened to you?"

"I've had a shitty day so far.  What's up?"

He held out her shoes sheepishly.  They were dirty and had teeth marks on them.  "I found some Terrors playing with them."

Heather looked down at the shoes and unconsciously wiggled her toes, still wet from the ale, and then slumped. 

"You okay…?" her boyfriend asked tentatively. 

"I'm… could I ask a favor?"

"Of course!  What do you need?" he said.

"Could you run to my house and get me my spare shirt and pants, and a towel?  I just got drenched by the ale barrel."

He nodded, and left after handing off her boots, and Heather got back to work.  She took a moment to duck into the kitchen just for a warm-up in the oven-heated space, and then went back out to the barrels with a mop to handle the spilled ale.  As she cleaned it up, another pair of thirsty drinkers came over and pounded their mugs on the table. 

"Be right with you!" she said.

She put the mop aside to drip above one of the munge buckets, and went over to the pair, who took mead—and she spotted that the spigot was loose there as well, before it could soak her.  A simple whack with the mallet put that to rights and she poured for them.  As the mugs filled, she made a mental note to talk with Magnhild about whoever had run the taps before her, because they were apparently a hamfisted bartender. 

But this was nice.  Sure, there was the issue with Twiglet still apparently having it in for her, but… being completely honest with herself, Heather would be ecstatic to be a kitchen cook for the rest of her life, and never have to touch her spy training ever again.  Hopefully, in time, the nightmares would fade, and she could take her place here as just another Hooligan, with a passel of kids and a loving husband. 

That would be nice. 

She idly started to picture her future here as she managed the taps for her thirsty tribesmates.  She could work in the kitchens, maybe one day get to be one of the senior cooks and get to make dishes from exotic ingredients and spices from far-off lands.  She could hone her skills to excel in that manner, on her own merits, rather than being forced into it by someone like Adalwin.  And since she wrote a fair hand and knew a number of languages, she could help with some of the Ingerman's library scribing alongside Fishlegs.

Her boyfriend returned at that moment, with a bag containing her other set of clothes, which she gratefully took and went over to a side storage room to get changed.

She opened the door—and there were a pair of yelps from within. 

She shut the door in a hurry.

A moment later, Orvi clan Hofferson and Chuffnut clan Thorston came diving out of the storage room, both of them breathing hard and disheveled.  Barely meeting her eyes, they darted off down the corridor that headed back to the main hall.

Heather watched them go, briefly amused, and then pondered telling Magnhild… and then felt ill at the thought. 

No, her days of reporting on people were over.  Even if she wasn't going to do it for her own advantage… the thought of turning Orvi and Chuffnut in for their moment of privacy was making her sick.

She slipped into the room and changed quickly, putting her soaked clothes into the bag that Fishlegs had brought. 

No.  She was going to put those days behind her.  She wasn't going to be that backstabbing paranoid that Alvin had tried to make her into.  She was going to be her own person again. 

She reentered the hall and went over to the drink barrels, where Fishlegs was waiting for her, along with half a dozen drinkers.  As she refilled their tankards, she chatted with her boyfriend amiably, and sighed happily. 

Yes.  Peace and quiet and love.  Much better than fear and chaos and suspicion.  She could live like this.

###

Astrid hugged her father, her eyes filled with tears.  "I'll miss you."

He patted her on the back, his own voice thick.  "It'll be all right, Astrid.  We're an afternoon's flight away.  We'll see you for Thawfest, if not sooner."

"I know, I know, I just…"  She sniffed. 

"It's part of growing up, dearest."  He chuckled.  "Although normally, it's the _daughter_ getting sent away."  He shook his head.  "Your husband tends to treat tradition as a polite suggestion, doesn't he?"

"And we're all richer and healthier for it," she said, grinning.

"Ayep."  Her father chortled.  "I've got that book full of ideas and designs that he gave me, and I look forward to giving him a tour of the city when you two come visit in the Spring."

"We'll come.  He'll be happy to see what you've managed to build," she promised.

"I've got a list… and twenty tons of silver to fund it," he said.  "And it's not like I've got much else to use it on!"  Astrid snorted.  Her parents' tastes, outside of their clothing and weapons, tended towards the austere.  "So, some new ship docks, and possibly that shipyard—I have the distinct feeling that fishing is about to become a major endeavor down there—a new granary, some decent housing for the freedmen, and as many of Hiccup's watermills as I can stuff along that river."  He nodded dramatically and put his hands on his hips, affecting a considering look.  "Yep.  That ought to be enough for one winter."

Astrid shook her head and laughed.  "You're as bad as he is."

"Given how much you adore him, dear, I will take that as the highest compliment you could give me," her father said fondly.  "But come.  It's time.  We want to be there before sunset and it's getting late."

She and her father left the emptied Hofferson house, having finished their final checks for any last wayward possessions, and rejoined the rest of her family outside.  The emptied house would be filled again in the next week by some other members of her clan, alleviating some of the crowding among her cousins.  Karolina had already thanked her personally for getting the chance to snag Astrid's old room to have all to herself. 

Outside, it was a mob of milling humans and dragons.  Her parents were taking about two dozen members of her clan—pretty much every single member of her grandfather Morten's branch, aside from her, actually, which had resulted in the emptied house—and a dozen others from other clans along with them, and an equal number of the riders already there would be staying.  They'd have plenty of dragons to help with the construction that her father had outlined for her. 

And there was one other factor on top of it all that her father had confided to her.  During the negotiations for her marriage, after Hiccup had offered that stupendous bride price, her father had protested that there was no way for them to match it.  So Stoick had taken him aside in private to acknowledge it—but said that he wasn't going to rein in Hiccup's enthusiasm for something this important to him.  So her father and father-in-law had shaken hands to acknowledge that there was an imbalance of honor between them… and that Hákon clan Hofferson would do his best to make Vedrarfjord into a shining gem in Berk's crown to make up the difference. 

And if there was one thing that her father and mother took seriously, it was their honor. 

Joining the assembled throng, she found Hiccup quickly.  He was standing off to the side with Toothless, watching, his arms crossed, a smile on his face. 

Her parents and the rest of the Hooligans joining them mounted up on their dragons, and, with a final wave, they took flight.  They circled Berk once, making a lap around Raven Point, and then headed south. 

Standing atop the bluffs of Berk, she watched them go, her husband standing at her side, along with half of the village, all of them cheering and waving exuberantly.  

###

The courier stared at the head of the Lyon garrison, appalled, even though he'd been expecting the news.  The passes through the southern Alps through to Turin were filled with early winter snow.  He would have to take the southern road along the coast, down to Marseille and Nice, and add many miles to his journey. 

There were also reports of dragons in the high passes of the Alps… and given the reports that he carried, the courier did not dare give Satan's servants such an easy opportunity to impede the servants of God. 

The south road it was, then.  He was a third of the way to Rome.  He would not falter now. 

###

The sacred grove looked much more skeletal with the coming of winter, Hiccup thought, as he, Wulfhild, Magnus, Yngvarr, Stoick, and Henriksson stood in the grove around the front of the altar.  There had been a last few golden and red leaves on the trees at his and Astrid's wedding, but those were gone now, and only the green needles of the pines and firs remained now.  He looked at Wulfhild, who was standing next to him, and his stomach roiled.  She was beautiful, there was no question of that.  But this whole thing wasn't what they _wanted._   He didn't love her.  She didn't love him.  And the thought of sex with Wulfhild without that love, the love that he did share with Astrid…

It made him want to shiver all over.

For Freyja's sake, it sometimes felt like the only reason he _didn't_ call it all off was because she _was_ his friend.  As much as the thought of passionless lovemaking between them pained him, the sickening thought of her weeping in the arms of someone she hated, having been taken to bed unwilling… 

No, he'd spare her that much, and spare them all a war. 

He braved a smile at her as they held out their arms together.  They were then bound at the wrists with a length of colorful cloth by Gothi.  His wizened grand-aunt then recited the formal blessing over them.  There was no mead, no rings, no grand sacrifice or feasts, or the presence of the goddess Frigga on her day.  Just oaths on the air before the gods that he would bring this woman, hearthless and homeless, into his clan, and shelter her and provide for her and her issue. 

Hiccup sighed as he finished speaking his oath.  Then Wulfhild spoke hers with barely a stammer—that she would acknowledge him as her head of household, and bear him issue. 

By law, if her heart desired another after their time together was passed, he would provide for her the means to marry.  Hiccup barely wanted to think about the time in between.  He was bringing his friend under the protection of his clan, and that was what he was focusing on. 

Gothi finished with her blessing, and then Henriksson stepped forward.  He'd stated that he'd wanted to bless the union in order to prevent sin, and since that was such a concern of his and it seemed to make Wulfhild happy, Hiccup had agreed to it without question.  He still felt anxious and heartsick over the whole thing, and if it assuaged his friend's worries, he was fine with it. 

Henriksson began to speak in Latin, but far, far too quickly for Hiccup's limited skill with the language to be able to understand what the priest was saying in the specifics.

" _Hiccup Stoicksson, vis accípere Wulfhild Olofsdoittor, hic præséntem in tuam legítimam uxórem iuxta ritum sanctaæ matris Ecclésiæ?"_

He'd at least been coached, and gave the appropriate answer after a moment as he heard someone suck in a surprised breath from behind him; it sounded like Magnus.  He could sympathize with that.  This whole situation was still a shock to Hiccup.

_"Volo."_

_I do._

_"Wulfhild Olofsdoittor, vis accípere Hiccup Stoicksson. hic præséntern in tuum legítimum marítum iuxta ritum sanctæ matris Ecclésiæ?"_

_"Volo."_

Henriksson took their bound hands in his, and said something quickly, such that Hiccup could barely catch it.

_"Ego conjugo vos in matrimonium, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.  Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini. Qui fecit caelum et terram. Domine, exaudi orationem meam.  Et clamor meus ad te veniat.  Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo."_

Hiccup blinked as the words sped past him and his limited comprehension of the language.  But it all sounded nice, as he picked out the words for mercy and strength, and then he released their hands. 

The Christian blessing concluded, Hiccup smiled at Wulfhild and they removed the knotted cloth from their wrists. 

"Welcome to the family," he said as earnestly as he could manage.  This might be awkward in the extreme, but he was still doing this to help her, as his friend, and now she was, as far as Berk's laws were concerned, his acknowledged legal partner—almost, but not quite a wife—for the next year and a day, unless they both chose to extend that or she was pregnant at the time, and she would still be of his clan even once they separated. 

She gave him a hesitant smile.  He mirrored it, and reached out questioningly.  When she nodded, he pulled her into a friendly hug.

Love or not, lust or not, she was now his responsibility, a part of his family and clan.

And a chief protected his own.

###

Magnus waited until they were alone in their Berk house before exploding at Father Henriksson, for which Wulfhild was grateful.

"What in God's Name was _that!?"_ he demanded of the priest.

The Father looked at her brother, a small satisfied smile on his face.  "Your sister is now married, milord.  Congratulations."

Magnus stuttered to a halt, his jaw hanging open.  He looked stunned at Father Henriksson—for what, Wulfhild couldn't guess.  But something was wrong, and that made her cringe a bit. 

She turned to the priest.  "I thought you said that my brother approved!"

"He did!  I asked him—"

"You never asked me anything of the sort!" Magnus interjected, furious.

"Yes, milord, I _did._   Back when you and your wife were discussing the letter to reply to the jarls." Magnus looked as if he were furiously searching his memories for the moment in question, but then the priest continued.  "But what does it matter?  The pagans have their rites, we have had ours, and I have _saved your sister from the sin of fornication!"_   He drew himself up and huffed.  "You should be _thanking_ me, milord, not yelling at me!"

Magnus stared at him.  "How… but…"  He stopped, drew himself up in response, and said, "Annul it!"

"Milord, I can't, not without the approval of His Holiness for an annulment.  You know as well as I do that from now on, your sister is married in the eyes of the Lord, until death parts them.  Even that aside, though, I _would_ not."

"I'll, I'll—"

"You'll _what,_ sire?  Clap me in irons?  I'm your chaplain.  You'd have a revolt on your hands.  Tell the Hooligans?  Oh, I can't see them taking that well."  He reached out and put a conciliatory hand on Magnus's shoulder.  "Milord, I did this at the request of your sister—"

Magnus gave her a shocked look, and she returned with a wide-eyed stare of denial.

"—in order to save her from sin.  I will keep it secret, and suggest that you do the same.  This is between us and God, nothing more, nothing less.  And I suggest that you tell Jarl Yngvarr to keep his own council as well.  But I was not about to leave a Christian woman on an island of pagans to be subjected to repeated sin!  Not when there was an alternative!"  He turned to her.  "Milady, you are now married.  I wish you the joy of it, and will remind you of the proper ways in which a nobly born Christian wife should act to her husband, even if yours is a pagan."  He bowed and said, "May I be dismissed?"

Magnus scowled.  "We will speak of this later.  Go."

Father Henriksson strode out, a satisfied bearing in his shoulders, and Wulfhild winced as Magnus glared at her.  "I can't believe you.  Why?!"

"I didn't!  The Father suggested it and said that he spoke of it with you!"

"And you didn't ask me!?"

"When would I have?  This is the first I've seen you without either Ruffnut, Hiccup or Astrid with us in weeks!"

Magnus scowled.  "I… yes.  That's true enough." 

"And the Father assured me that it was all right!" she said desperately. 

"He did, did he?" Magnus asked.  "On what grounds?"

"Well, he, he said that the pagan rites made things problematic…"

"There's an understatement if I ever heard one," Magnus muttered angrily. 

"…but that this would be enough to keep me from engaging in fornication out of wedlock in the eyes of God!"

Magnus hissed out a breath through his nose.  "And this was his suggestion?"

She nodded mutely. 

Magnus turned away from her, made a fist, and punched it into his other palm.  "Damn the man!"

She stepped back, suddenly horrified at the blasphemy—and what it portended.  "What!?"

Magnus gave her a narrow-eyed glare.  "Did he mention that the Church specifically _outlawed_ polygamy centuries ago!?"

Wulfhild felt those words like a knife to her chest.  "What?"

"Yes.  I can't remember exactly when or where, but I know that one man cannot be validly married to many women, and that has been the case for centuries."  He took a deep, angry breath.  "For obvious reasons, it was something that was important to me during my education."

That hit the ground like a limp body.  For all that they were siblings, and reasonably close… she was legitimate.  He wasn't.  And they'd had fights over that pair of facts in their youth.

She swallowed against a lump in her throat.  "Magnus, I…"

He cut her off with a chop of his hand.  "Save it.  It's not your fault.  This is all one big tangle, and I haven't the wisdom or the learning to unravel it.  Whose takes precedence?  Yours, under Christian rites?  Theirs, under the old ways?"  He shook his head and scowled. "I don't know.  I know this much, though."  He turned and looked her dead in the eye.  "We don't dare tell Hiccup or the others."  He clenched his hands and relaxed them.  "This would be an insult that would undo everything we've just worked to build.  So he was right about that much."  He exhaled sharply again.  "I don't know what he was thinking when he suggested this, but he was right about that much.  Astrid would claim insult in a heartbeat, and I would not blame her."

Wulfhild felt a lump in her throat and nodded painfully.

They stood in silence for a moment.  Then she spoke up hesitantly.  "Magnus… does it change anything?  I will still stay here and be with him.  The Father was right in that regard.  At least now… at least now I'm not going to be accumulating sin away from a confessor."

Magnus sighed.  "I suppose that's true enough."  He gave another sigh, and relaxed, and gave her a hug. 

At that moment, Yngvarr stepped in, looking alarmed.  "Milord, please, please, _please_ tell me that you knew nothing beforehand of what just happened."

Magnus scowled, snorting air out of his nose angrily.  "I was as shocked as you.  I have no idea what the Father is playing at, but he did not get the idea from me."

Yngvarr looked at the pair of them.  "You swear?"

"Yes, Yngvarr, I knew nothing of Father Henriksson's attempt to make our alliance with Berk collapse out of an _insult!"_ Magnus said hotly.  "I don't need to justify myself to you!"

Yngvarr went to one knee and bowed his head.  "I'm sorry, milord.  I overstepped my bounds, and ask for your forgiveness."

Magnus made another angry snort and stepped away from Wulfhild.  "Rise, Jarl Yngvarr.  I accept your apology.  You are not the one I'm upset with."

Yngvarr stood up and nodded, his eyes still a little wide in shock.  "I… may I inquire as to Father Henriksson's justification for marrying Wulfhild to Lord Hiccup with the Lord's rites when he is already married to Lady Astrid?"

Wulfhild choked and managed to get out, "He… he told me before their wedding that I would be fornicating out of wedlock, after the talk we had with them on how to respond—remember when you suggested that I become their almoner?" Yngvarr nodded.  "Well, I came back here and he was, was… lying in wait, I suppose.  And told me that I wouldn't be able to withstand being a lone Christian here—"

Yngvarr made a surprised noise.  "But there _are_ Christians here.  Not many—I've met two, both clanless Eirish freedmen—but they sought me out."

Wulfhild felt like she was choking.  "Did he tell me anything of the truth during that entire talk!?"

"I… I cannot say, milady," Yngvarr said.  "But he convinced you that this was the proper course of action?"

She nodded.  "And… and now… Magnus just told me that one of our marriages is illegitimate… but he doesn't know which one."  She looked at Yngvarr with hope, knowing that he was a wise and learned man.  "Do you?"

Yngvarr pondered for a moment and then paled.  "Oh, God in Heaven… " he blasphemed, "is that…"

"Is what?" Magnus asked with trepidation.

"I think I see the shape of his plan… assuming that it is a plan, and not just him being earnest but misguided in his efforts to help Lady Wulfhild's soul.  But…"  He swallowed.  "Milord, milady… if we petitioned for a ruling from the Pope, as would be required due to your rank…  How do you think the noted integrity and lovingkindness of our pontiff, Benedict the Ninth, would react upon being presented with Berk's wealth for the aggrandizement of his uncle, the Count of Tusculum?"

Wulfhild could feel her last meal clamoring for an exit.  She knew enough of the current pope to know that he was a vile, greedy man… and he'd think nothing of issuing a ruling that made Astrid into Hiccup's mistress and Wulfhild into his wife. 

Well, that would never happen if she had anything to say about it. 

"So… which of us is married to him?" she asked plaintively. 

Yngvarr shook his head.  "I don't know.  I could see arguments either way.  Most of them go to Astrid… but a clever man, or a conscienceless one, could make a convincing argument for you, milady." 

She slumped into a nearby chair, overwhelmed. 

What had she done?

What had she _done!?_

She swallowed, bile burning her throat, and said, not meeting either of their eyes, "Magnus… you were wrong.  This _is_ my fault. I could have been braver.  I could have accepted the sin in the service of our House.  Now…"  She choked. 

Magnus reached over and patted her gently on the back.  "I said that it was not your fault, Wulf.  How could you have known?  You trusted him.  How were you to know that it was misplaced?"

"Actually, milord… it is her fault," Yngvarr said candidly, making both her and Magnus whirl and stare at him.  "Not of her own volition, surely!  But she still made the choice of her own free will, and accepted the word of the Father without question, despite knowing of its dubious nature.  Am I correct, milady?" Unable to speak, she nodded.  "And while I do not know if there was a sin committed here… acknowledgment that a wrong was done is needed before one can be contrite, much less confess or engage in penance."

Magnus scowled.  "How ironic, then, that the fear of not being able to confess was what got us here in the first place."

Yngvarr's words echoing in her head, Wulfhild got to her feet and started for the door. 

"Wulf?  Where are you going?"

"To tell Hiccup and Astrid.  I'm not going to keep this a secret from them.  I am contrite for it, I will confess to it, and I will ask them what penance they want from me."

Magnus rushed after her.  "Wulf… is that wise?"

"I don't know.  But I don't want to lie to them," she said softly, and opened the door.  Magnus walked with her up the short length of the hill between their house and the chief's. 

And then she heard the shouting—and her name in it.  She froze.  Did they know already?

She inched closer to the chief's hut, her heart in her throat… and listened.

###

Astrid glared at Hiccup.  Why wasn't he _listening!?_

"Hiccup!  Look.  You can't leave Wulfhild alone in that house.  Not for long, and _definitely_ not for the next month!" she yelled.

"Astrid, it's our honeymonth!" he yelled back, waving his arms for emphasis.  "I've brought her into the clan, we're giving her shelter, I'll even… even… argh!  But I'm not giving up any time with you!  I can't believe that you're actually arguing _against_ this!"

She huffed and growled back, "Hiccup.  That's the thing.  You're _not_ giving her shelter!  I've been dealing with outsiders wanting to drag you away from me for the last _two months._   Now that it's actually happening, you need to recognize that _appearances matter!"_   She pointed to the wall, towards the guest lord's house.  "Tomorrow, Magnus, Ruffnut and the rest will be leaving.  Wulfhild will be _alone._ "  She stamped her foot angrily.  "Who _else_ in the village lives _alone!?"_

Hiccup paused in thought.  "Uh… Nobody.  Well… Mildew."

"Yeah.  _Mildew._   The half-banished _hermit_ who everyone hates _._   The guy whose house was built _outside_ of the village—away from help, away from everybody!  Sure, concubines don't necessarily live in the same house as the married couple, but they live with the rest of the clan!  That's half the _point!_   You have another pair of hands to help maintain the house!  Banishing _her_ to live alone?  Hiccup, why don't you just knock on every door in the village and tell them that you're abandoning Wulfhild to her own devices and her own support!"  She didn't bring up Gothi; while she also lived alone, there was a constant stream of apprentices coming in and out of her house who helped with the upkeep—and she arguably lived with the gods as roommates. 

"What, Dad and I lived alone!" he huffed back.  "It's not that unusual!"

"Yes, it _is_ , Hiccup!  He's the chief, you're the heir!  And you both had people coming in constantly to help with the cleaning, the cooking, the upkeep…"  She huffed angrily.  "Don't tell me that you're going to make them clean and maintain a whole empty house just for Wulfhild!  Oh, sure, _that'll_ go over well with everybody!"  She crossed her arms and said, "Hiccup, Mildew has to _beg_ or _hire_ people to help him maintain his hut when he can't do it himself.  Putting her in that house alone is basically saying that she's being _shunned._   That she's practically outcast from the clan _."_   She walked right up to him and poked him in the breastbone with each word.  "Do you really want to hand Einar _that_ kind of weapon against us?"

He grabbed her hand and scowled.  "Why is this so important!?"

"Because if I'm going to put up with this, I'm going to do it _properly_ , and not in a half-assed way that will make it that much worse when it falls apart!" she yelled. 

He released her hand, stepped back and paced away from her. 

"Don't you walk away from me!  We're not done!" she said and moved in front of him.  "Either you bring her in here as soon as you can manage, or we might as well not have done this at all!"  She poked him again.  "And we've sacrificed too much to do _that!_ "

He sighed and said, "Astrid, you're upset and—"

"Finish that sentence and I will make you eat it," she said dangerously. 

He paused.  "How would that even _work?"_

She scowled at him, not getting baited in a distraction. 

Finally, he gave in and said, "Astrid… I just want… want you.  But do you really want _this?_ "

She scowled.  "What I want has nothing to do with this, now does it?  This is for politics."

"But do you _want_ this?"

She lost her temper and yelled, "No, I don't _want_ Wulfhild in this house! It's my honeymonth and I don't want to have to share it!"

"So then why are you arguing for it!?"

"Because this is the only Haddock clan house in the entire village!  There's no other place to _put_ her!  So I'd rather have her here than have those blasted jarls hearing that we've effectively exiled her like Mildew!  You _always_ have a household to help you out, and to help out!  If you don't, then you've been outcast!  Don't you _get_ it!?"  She paused, and then looked at him, and then the house, glancing around, her brow furrowed in thought.  "Wait.  You _don't_ get it.  You've been living with your dad and nobody else for so long, and you were so ostracized as a kid, that you don't know how it is for the rest of the village."  She reached out and grabbed his hand.  "C'mon.  Let's pay a visit to some of my cousins so you can see what I mean."

He resisted a bit, but she dragged him out towards her old house, determined to get her point through his _thick_ head.  Gods, and she thought _Stoick_ was stubborn.

###

Wulfhild, Magnus and Yngvarr watched Astrid drag Hiccup off towards the rest of the village, and shared looks from where they were standing alongside the house.  Wulfhild felt like weeping.  Or screaming.  Or something. 

Her friends hated her.  Hiccup wanted nothing to do with her.  Astrid's only concern was politics. 

She sniffed and Magnus reached over and patted her on the shoulder.  "It'll be okay.  It was over the honeymonth… remember?"

"They… they were arguing about me, Magnus…"  She sniffed.  "Those two.  Arguing.  They never argue like that."  She sniffed again, longer and harder, trying to clear her nose.  "And if I tell them now, I'll lose them as friends forever…"

Yngvarr patted her gently on the other shoulder.  "Milady.  Perhaps wait until tempers have cooled and bridges have been rebuilt?  And in the meanwhile… I'll… I'll do some research and make inquiries when we return to Norway, and see if I can find a way out of this tangle.  There must have been other cases similar to yours in the last century in our kingdom.  I'll see what I can find that might offer some guidance without the need to petition the Pope for a ruling."

She blew her nose and nodded.  "Thank you, Jarl Yngvarr.  I accept."

As they returned to the guest house, she thought about what they had said before. 

Yngvarr was half-right.  It was her fault… and she had sinned.  The sin of envy, the sin of pride… even the sin of sloth, from her desire to accept what she'd been told at face value, even when it seemed to be too good to be true. 

Contrition she had.  Confession would wait until she knew more.

But, in God's Name, she could begin her penance.

###

The next morning, Magnus, his eyes shining with tears, gave Hiccup, Astrid and Wulfhild yet another round of hugs before mounting on the saddle behind Brand's head.  In the air nearby, Barf and Belch were already flapping to hover as best they could, Ruffnut and Tuffnut mounted behind their heads.  Circling overhead were the rest of the small flock belonging to his various courtiers.  

With a sigh, he and Brand took flight off the side of the cliff, followed quickly by Toothless, Hiccup, Stormfly, Astrid, Wulfhild and Mistletoe. 

The day  had portended to be beautiful; the sky was blue, dotted with fluffy white clouds, and they looked to have good weather for the entire flight home to Nidaros, where Magnus was already planning on starting to clean house.  The jarls' heirs would offer a place to start, in order to begin to fracture the tenuous coalition that had united in fear of Berk. 

He already had plans in mind for when spring came, of using Tuffnut as his envoy.  Not to the jarls, no.

To the common folk. 

Much like Hiccup's own plan to make the dragons into familiar mail carriers and thus reduce the feeling of threat in the eyes of the peasantry, he wanted Tuff—gregarious, friendly, humorous, _silly_ Tuff—to be on a first name basis with half of Norway.  He felt some guilt at using his brother-in-law so, but Tuffnut was no pushover in a fight, and his… _unique_ charm would undoubtedly win over many whose hearts would otherwise be ambivalent towards Berk and the dragons. 

Meanwhile, Magnus and Hiccup took up formation alongside his courtiers and their dragons.  Magnus looked at him and supposed that, regardless of how the specifics of Father Henriksson's marriage ceremony went, either way, Hiccup was now his brother-in-law—in spirit, if not potentially in the eyes of God. 

Which, of course, brought him to the fact that his chaplain had played him like a flute.  What was going on there, Magnus had no idea, but he was finding himself trusting Father Henriksson much less all of a sudden—as in, not at all.  He had recalled the conversation where the priest had gotten his approval for the 'blessing', and resented how easily he'd been manipulated by the priest—and it was crass manipulation.  The fact that the man wasn't afraid of being dismissed or even imprisoned, however, was enough to make Magnus hesitate at doing exactly that. 

Even if it was tempting.

So he was holding off, if for no other reason that having to explain why he was having the good Father taken down into the dungeon would lead to… _complicated_ explanations.  But he had to know that Magnus would never trust him again… meaning that Yngvarr's speculation of a ruling from the Pope that would make Astrid into a concubine in the eyes of Christendom had a terrifying plausibility to it in Magnus's eyes. 

For the moment, Henriksson was flying on one of Yngvarr's spare dragons, the Scauldron, Wavecrest, far down the length of the V-formation.  Even if it was tempting to just leave him on Berk, or perhaps somewhere else along their route home…

Magnus turned to Hiccup.  "Lovely day for flying, isn't it?"

Hiccup grinned.  "Yep!  We said we'd stay with you for as long as we can see Berk.  Looks like that will be a while!"

"Excellent!"  And it was.  For all that he resented the corner into which they'd been pushed, and the inscrutable plot on the part of his own chaplain… Magnus was grateful for one thing.  Hiccup was now his brother in at least some fashion. 

They chatted aimlessly on topics of minor consequence—the weather, Hiccup's abysmal skill at King's Fist, and minor bits of gossip, mostly, although Hiccup regaled him with a description of one of his intended inventions for several minutes.  Magnus could even follow some of what he was saying, which was an improvement.  Apparently, it was an improvement to a grain thresher, using water power, that would help thresh the grain even more effectively than the water-powered hammer that he'd built for his in-laws. 

Unspoken between them were the politics and maneuverings of Magnus's jarls… and now his own advisers. 

And they remained unsaid, as they finally lost sight of Berk, and Hiccup and his family turned back to their home. 

Magnus watched them go.

They would send the last rider of the season back to confirm that they had arrived in Nidaros safely, but this would be the last he would see of his friends, his _kin,_ for months.

As they and their dragons vanished into the distance, Magnus turned back, the morning sun warm on his face, and his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath of the chilly December air. 

His jarls had make a mistake.  He had a family to protect and a kingdom to lead. 

Stoick had taught him as much during his time in Berk, and the first lesson was that a chief—or a king—protected his own. 

And he would do so, and be a puppet no longer. 

###

End of Autumn 1041

End of Book 1

* * *

**A/N:**  So ends Book 1.  As I noted before, if people want, I'll happily generate up an epub of chapters 1-31 for their downloading pleasure and put the link here.  

Next week starts Book 2; as I noted, the rating will be going up to Mature for violent content and the like (although most of that won't show up for a while), and I'm going to reworking the story tags this week, along with the Appendix.  My current status on the Buffer is chapters 32, 33, and 34 are all finalized, which is enough to go through New Years, and 35-38 are being worked on.  

In the meantime, if anyone has a certain priest that they'd like to murderize, the line starts behind Astrid.  Take a number. 

I also want to thank my beta reader team for helping bring this story to the high degree of polish that it has; it wouldn't be this good without them.  

*crawls under rock to hide* 


	32. First Flakes...

_**Trigger Notes:** Implied Threats Of Non-Con/Rape (see A/N at end of chapter for explanation) _

~~~~~~

**Winter, 1041-1042 CE**

**Book 2, Year 2**

~~~~~~

**Chapter 32: First Flakes** **…**

_Draconic social structures grew, much as human social structures, based on the general social and communal nature of the species.  Much like humans, dragons have a distinct tendency towards obedience to social authority and power structures.  However, unlike humans, draconic society was vastly affected by the species' dependence on breeding nests in order to incubate their eggs.  These rare locations, the only ones suitable for the raising of dragon whelps prior to Hiccup Haddock's creation of artificial Brooderies, rendered dragons vulnerable to human hunting parties.  A successful attack by dragon hunters could wipe out an entire cohort of young dragons with ease.  This location-based dependency also made them vulnerable to control by powerful individual dragons._

_Case in point for this last aspect was the classic example of the Green Death; this dragon controlled a single breeding nest for nearly three centuries in the Alban Hebrides.  The dragon operated by essentially demanding food as rent in order for prospective breeders to be allowed to access the reproductive potential of the nesting site—and, according to primary sources, she also did not hesitate to use more direct force to get her way, up to and including the use of deadly force and cannibalism on her subjects if they failed to pay up._

_—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd._

**_December, 1041_ **

**_Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

Hákon Mortensson clan Hofferson looked out over the city of Vedrarfjord from the top of the newly rebuilt keep and inhaled, trying to keep an absurd, overwhelmed laugh from escaping. 

He was a _miller_ and warrior, not a Freyr-cursed jarl! 

Except now his son-in-law had made him into one.  And his wife, too, thank the gods. 

_You and Mom act like warriors first, and husband and wife second!_ he heard from his memories, and cringed a bit.  That accusation—that astute _observation_ —had hurt like Hel's own knife in his innards. 

He'd been very wrong that night.  He'd hurt his daughter while believing that he'd been helping her out of love. 

His hands gripped the wood of the balcony's railing.  More fool he, then.  He looked up at the sky and said in an exaggerated Alban-accented drawl, "Odin, Frigga, I get the message.  Yeh needn't repeat it again." 

And that message was the one that his son-in-law embodied. 

Love.  Trust.  Compassion.  Reaching out with an open hand instead of a closed fist. 

He was hardly a young pup, but he didn't feel like too old a dog to learn new tricks.  Especially when these tricks _worked._  

He bit his lip as he looked out over the city that was now his responsibility. 

And here, in this city, he'd _show_ that they'd work.  He'd set down his ax and pick up his quill, and pledge himself to Hiccup's vision of how the world _should_ be.

Because he'd finally had the lesson hammered home.  It hadn't sunk in when Hiccup had ended the Dragon War by making a friend.  It hadn't sunk in when Hákon had made his own scaly friend that day, and Cloudfox was near and dear to his heart now.  It hadn't sunk in when Hiccup and Astrid had come back from a diplomatic mission with a _king_ as a best friend. 

No, he'd continued to think that Stoick and Hiccup would act as lords always did—for their greatest advantage, not for kindness or general betterment.  That his daughter would be set aside because she didn't offer _them_ enough advantage.  He'd thought that to the point where he'd fought and argued to have his own daughter be given as a concubine to Hiccup, just so that she could be with him in some way.  He'd fallen in the same trap—as much as he wanted her to be happy, there was also the cold calculations of it all. 

It was well known back on Berk that they had been lovers for months, after all.  While that connection to Hiccup might have been enough to offset the loss of her virginity to potential husbands looking for a bride of Berk, it also might not have.  So he'd also made a choice that had been as pragmatic as it was sentimental.  He _had_ done it because she was his daughter and he wanted her to be happy… but there was also no doubt that having his daughter close to the man who had dragons follow him around like eager puppies had been a consideration.

And that shamed him.  It shamed him because he'd considered Hiccup and Stoick to be just as expedient as any other lord.  And they had shown that they _weren't._   And because they weren't _,_ Hákon and his wife were now wealthy and powerful… and intimidated and confused as to what to do with it all.  

So they'd follow Hiccup's path as best they could for a pair of old warriors and dragonslayers. 

They owed their son-in-law and their own honor no less.

And Vedrarfjord would be fertile ground to put Hiccup's ideals, as executed by those who were _not_ the Hero, to the test. 

It was a fine city, built on a triangular spit of land perhaps six hundred paces long, set between the Abhainn Naomh Eoin to the south and east and the Abhainn na Siúire to the north, and fenced in with stout wooden walls along the exposed western side.  The rivers protected their other two flanks, although there were rather basic walls out along them as well, not that they needed the help.  The Abhainn Naomh Eoin, in particular, made for a delightfully defensible muddy marsh that would swallow an army, belch, and ask for seconds—and apparently _had,_ several times over the last century.  The keep— _his_ keep, even if it didn't feel like it yet since Spitelout had given them control of it the other day and fled back home—was built at the point of the triangle where the banks of the two rivers met, on a little artificial hill made of carted dirt and stones that was supposedly shorter now than it had been a few decades ago during the rule of Ivar ua Imair, who had ordered it made.  Inside the walls were about a hundred and twenty houses and other buildings, and about another sixty—mostly farmhouses—were outside, but within a short walk of the wall.  All told, there were about two thousand men, women, and children living within a mile under his authority, and perhaps another two thousand across the nearby hinterlands that were nominally under his control.

He heard the door open behind him, and turned to see his wife step out, her cloak wrapped around her. 

"Enjoying the view?" she asked with a smile. 

"Equal parts that and intimidated," he admitted. 

She walked up and took her own spot at the railing.  "What's to be intimidated by?  After all, we're _nobles_ now, not a pair of former millers wondering what in Tyr's name we've gotten ourselves into," she said, her tone a mix of sarcasm, awe and fondness.

He snorted in a breath.  "Exactly."  He sighed out the snort.  "Well, I have a list of ideas, thanks to Hiccup.  The rest of it… we'll handle as we go." 

She nodded.  "Before we left, I asked Bladewit to have a copy of the Laws written up and sent over with the mail, so we'll have that as a reference once it's done."

Hákon blinked.  "Oh, Tyr, I hadn't even _thought_ of that!"  He made a pained noise and looked out over the city.  "We're going to have to get them used to Hooligan Law, aren't we?"

"Ayep," she said tartly.  "It'll be like wrestling with a Jorgenson, I wager."

"And that… how, exactly?" he asked.

"Exhausting, pointless, and even after you beat him, he claims that it was his idea all along," she said, quirking an eyebrow. 

He snorted.  "If Spitelout's experiences were anything to go by, it'll be _worse."_   He drummed his fingers on the railing.  "Well, we'll take it one day at a time.  Housing for the freedmen first.  Then jobs.  Mills.  Lumber.  Ships.  We can teach them what it means to be part of the Hooligans one day at a time."

There was suddenly a rush of air, and a pair of dragons landed on the balcony.  The purple-pink one made inquisitive noises at the pair of them. 

Hákon looked at Cloudfox, and didn't have to guess what his friend had just asked. 

_Want to go flying?  It's a better view._

Of course, the fact that Sunflower, with her golden-yellow scales, was holding both hers and Cloudfox's saddles in her mouth and talons _might_ have been a clue as well.

He shared a look with Gunvor and they both laughed.  "I think our friends want to stretch their wings.  Shall we oblige them?"

She nodded, grinning, and went up to her dragon to take the saddles from her.  "You two have us well trained, don't you?"

Sunflower bobbed her head in what seemed to be a sarcastic manner to Hákon.  He stepped forward to accept his saddle from his wife, and then whipped it a few times to get off as much of the dragon slobber as he could. 

Both of the Nadders giggled, and he gave Cloudfox a sardonic look.  "Why you couldn't carry your own saddle is beyond me, Fox."

The dragon gave him an innocent look and bounced excitedly from foot to foot.

Hákon snorted.  "Well, here we go," and helped slip the leather and wood saddle onto Cloudfox.  While it wasn't as fancy as Astrid's own saddle for Stormfly, it was still ornate enough to make the vain dragon purr, featuring tooled buff leather and silver-washed buckles. 

Once the last buckle was cinched closed, Cloudfox immediately knelt and practically tipped Hákon into the saddle.  And _up_ they went!

The Eirish countryside spread out before him to the west, and the Eirish Sea to the east; vast swaths of gray clouds covered the sky, and Sunni was hiding among  them.

He urged Cloudfox to fly higher, and with a happy chitter, his friend did so.  Shortly, they broke through the top of the clouds, to see the sun casting long winter shadows across the white expanse.

It was beautiful in a way that was nearly impossible to express, and Hákon had _tried._   But he was not a skald.  He was a warrior and a worker.  When men and women brought forth beautiful things to the eye and ear, he stood back in awe at what they had made.  The most beautiful thing he could claim to have ever helped make was his daughter… and he knew that the credit there lay not in him.

But, perhaps… while he was not a skald or an artist… he could be a builder.  Not just of buildings, but of cities and of societies.

Hiccup had shown him the way, after all.  It was a road that he could follow. 

###

**_Nidaros, Norway_ **

****

The familiar sights of Nidaros came into view, and Ruffnut whooped in glee.  They were home!

And how strange was that?  Nidaros was now just as much _home_ as Berk. 

The flock of dragons banked in the air over the fortress, and Ruffnut glanced down over the side, and then snorted.

It really went to show how much familiarity bred contempt.  Five months ago, every single person in the city had been in the streets, staring up at their dragons.  Now, after months of the mail and their earlier visit, only the occasional face was glancing upwards and then continuing on with their business.  That amused her. 

It was just about noon; the days had grown so short they couldn't make the trip between a single sunrise and sunset, and had stopped for the night at one of the cities along the coast.  Nidaros was so far north that, this close to Yule, there were barely five hours of sunlight at all, which explained the urgency of the pedestrians in the streets—the sun was only coyly drifting above the horizon to the south, and the shadows were long in the dimness. 

They landed and immediately started to help their dragons get their saddles and saddlebags off, even as grooms from the stables came hurrying up to help.

Other faces appeared as well, and Ruffnut was glad that her hands were occupied with the buckles on her saddle when Einar appeared.  She couldn't kill him.  Aside from sparking a civil war, he was Astrid's to kill.  Her friend had made her swear that much on her honor before they'd left.

More familiar faces appeared, including one that was incredibly out of place.

" _Vladimir!?"_ Magnus's incredulous voice called out.  "What are you doing here?"

Magnus's step-cousin had appeared out of the doors to the main hall as she was getting the saddle off of Belch's neck.  The Rus' prince half-ran over to them, and pulled Magnus into a hug, pounding her husband on the back with audible thumps. "We left Berk too late in season to get home before snows.  I figured we throw ourselves on your hospitality for winter."

"You have it!" Magnus said gleefully, clasping Vladimir's forearms with his hands.  "Ah, is good to see you!  We barely had chance to talk on Berk before you left!"

Ruffnut blinked.  Magnus's accent was starting to audibly shift as he talked to Vladimir, who glanced in Ruffnut's direction and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.  "Da, a new wife will do that."

Magnus snorted and motioned Ruffnut over.  "Love, you remember Vladimir, yes?"

She nodded and gave the Rus' prince a polite nod and smile.  "Glad to see you again."

"Da, is good to see you as well.  I understand congratulations are in order, yes?"

She managed to keep from rolling her eyes and nodded.  "Yes."

"Well, I look forward to meeting my new kinsman next year!"  He turned and clapped Magnus on the back with bruising force, making her husband grunt and give Vladimir a sidelong grin.  "So, I heard about battle with King Harthacnut.  Happened day after I left, yes?"

Magnus nodded.  "What did you hear?"

"Great things.  Powerful things.  Things that say you, Magnus, have married _well!_ "

Ruffnut looked at him quizzically.  "If you left the day before, then when did you hear about it?"

"From dragon rider mail stop on way home, in north Alba," Vladimir said in a tone of admission.  "Was all anyone could talk about when we sailed in."  He grinned.  "But I will hear story not from drunk sailors or gossipy bartenders!  I will hear story from you, who were _there!"_

Ruffnut raised an eyebrow.  Ahhh.  That explained Vladimir's presence.  She caught his eye, and he gave an infinitesimal shrug of admission in response. 

Well, that wasn't a surprise.  As she'd put it, Hiccup had told the world that he could kick anybody's ass, and the message was written in burned longboats.  Vladimir obviously wanted to get the news straight before he went home.  And she really couldn't blame him for that. 

Besides… he had siblings, right?  Like the one that his father had tried to marry off to Hiccup.  So, while he was no Hiccup, there _was_ Tuffnut, and, if he wasn't good enough, there was also their younger half-sibs.  Admittedly, that might end up being a long wait, as Softnut and Stonenut were both still under ten, but…

Well, she could definitely think of worse winter guests to have. 

And if Magnus was going to be trying to bring his jarls to heel… Well.  Having a family ally right at hand could only be helpful.

Oh yes… this would be nice.   

###

 

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

Fishlegs scowled as the lump of half-molten glass cracked in half, tinkling as it cooled.  More cracks were visible, growing like roots through the interior of the lump.  At least this one hadn't exploded like the last few.

Meatlug made a mournful, disappointed noise, and then gurgled questioningly. 

He nodded.  "Yeah, get it out of there."

She burbled, and spat up another lump, which proceeded to cool and crack like its predecessor over the next few minutes as Fishlegs poked at it, dejected, with a pair of iron rods that Gobber had given them.  He twirled up a bit on the rod, and watched the small mass of glass start to cool and crack within a few moments. 

Heather, holding a noteboard, peeked over the wooden barrier that they had put up after the first few pieces of experimental glass had sent shards flying everywhere.  "Is it safe?"

"I think so."

She looked down at the cracking and cooling lumps sadly and made a note.  "Looks like that didn't work either."

Fishlegs shook his head and patted Meatlug on the head.  "Nope.  I can't tell what we're doing wrong, or even right.  Do we have time for another attempt?"

She shook her head.  "Not today, I think.  Too much going on."  She made another note.  "I've been thinking on the notes that you found, from Pliny and what you got out of the traders before they left.  It looks like we need something to help the glass melt, and doing the melting in Meatlug's stomach is probably not helping things; we need an actual furnace." 

He nodded, looking irked at the pile of slag which was busy cracking itself to pieces on the stone-topped bench.  Taking a deep sigh, he looked up at her, and smiled.  "Well, I guess we know one other thing that doesn't work, now."

"Yep," she said.  "Shame though.  It's a really good idea, and goodness knows we have enough sand."

He laughed.  "And enough salt, too, thanks to that steam seawater salt remover that Hiccup made last winter.  We have an entire tunnel filled with barrels of the stuff now."  He paused.  "Well, had, before we started laying down salted fish for the winter.  But we don't need _that_ much for this."

She shook her head, smiling, and gave Fishlegs a kiss on the cheek.  "We need to get back to work.  But…" she looked around the little space attached to the smithy that they had set up for the glassmaking attempts, "I love this, and I think we're going to have fun this winter just playing around in here."

Fishlegs nodded and then, after a moment, reddened and looked around to see if anyone had overheard the comment.

She laughed.  "Not like that!"  She smirked and whispered, "But, hey, if everyone's saying that we are…" She winked and walked out, heading off to help in the kitchens. 

Fishlegs just stared at where she had left for a few moments and made little helpless meeping noises, which made Meatlug walk over and nuzzle against him. 

###

Heather left the smithy, walking carefully up to the mead hall along the paths, which were damp with rain.  The last week had featured nonstop pranks and harassment, ranging from the absurd to the painful.  She had started to take great solace in Fishlegs' experiments in the smithy with the glassmaking, because it had become the one place where nobody seemed to be willing to mess with things.

But now she had work, and wondered what the harassments would feature today.  Out of the mead hall kitchen's two dozen workers, she was still on speaking terms with less than half—and of that half, only a few were anything approaching still friendly.  And, of those, they were mostly the prep workers, like Heather. 

The kitchens were Magnhild's private fief—or at least she ran it that way.  Heather didn't know exactly how the kitchens worked in regards to actual ownership of it, but there was no doubt that the Jorgenson elder held it.  And she organized it like an army.  The prep workers processed the raw ingredients—peeling, slicing and dicing vegetables, plucking fowl, deboning meat, drawing water, churning butter, and so forth—while the senior cooks assembled the dishes from the prepared ingredients. 

For her own part, Magnhild tended to work on her own dishes, as well as move around to make sure that everyone was doing their jobs correctly.  And she was a big believer in cross-training as well.  Heather, for example, was trusted to bake the bread loaves at the ovens, and Twiglet was allowed to make a few of the soups. 

Lopsides, on the other hand… well, gossip had it that she had her job as prep cook because she was Magnhild's step-daughter by way of Clodgall's concubine Shona.  From what gossip Heather _had_ heard before being ostracized—thank you, Karolina—prior to last spring, Lopsides had been the dishwasher.  But now they used dragons for that—and rather than fire Lopsides, she had instead been stuck with peeling vegetables.  Heather hadn't had the courage to ask her how she felt about that. 

Especially in the face of the other bit of gossip she'd heard about Lopsides—specifically, she had an _adorable_ four year old daughter named Wart… and no husband.  She wouldn't even admit who the father was.  And, unlike Hiccup and Astrid—or even herself and Fishlegs in public perception—Lopsides was still a social pariah in Berk's tightly knotted society for relations out of wedlock.  Heather had seen her get repeatedly propositioned by some of the unmarried young men, and that had turned violent at least once. 

It made for a hell of a warning to her…

But she was getting off-focus, and she continued to review what she knew. 

Out of the two dozen or so workers, Heather only worked with half of them regularly, as she was on the morning shift.  She and the coveted afternoon shift had worked together during the frenzy of Hiccup and Astrid's feasting week, but that had been after she was getting the cold shoulder from everybody and she barely knew most of their names, much less anything about them.

What she did know was that Twiglet Woodbolesdoittor clan Thorston was interested in Fishlegs for herself.  She'd been one of a handful who had been spreading nasty gossip and rumors about Heather when she and Fishlegs had been estranged.  Now she was the only one still continuing, despite the fact that Heather and Fishlegs had publicly patched things up. 

Out of the dozen on her shift, there was her, Twiglet, Lopsides, Gallbrat, Vexwit, Horsefly, Karolina, Sven the Fat, Smidgen, Snippet, and the Jorgenson triplets, Ack, Ick, and Oof.  Of those, only Lopsides, Karolina, Smidgen and Oof were willing to talk with her.

She cautiously entered the mead hall, using several older and larger Hooligans for cover; she'd already gotten in the habit of not walking through doorways by herself, not after she'd barely dodged a cow's bladder filled with blood that had been perched atop one door.  She wondered what today's pranks and harassment would feature.  Rotten turnips and parsnips hidden in the piles of vegetables that she was supposed to process and prepare?  Swapping out the knives in her workstation with all of the dull ones in the kitchen again?  Or maybe they'd confine themselves to whispers and nasty looks again—that would be nice.  Last time, she'd been so twitchy about watching out for their pranks that she hadn't properly relaxed to enjoy the reduced harassment. 

They couldn't get _too_ overt, though.  Magnhild came down on anyone who went too far in the kitchen like a ten-ton boulder dropped by a Gronckle carry-crew.    Ack's attempt to use a lit twig to give Heather a hotfoot yesterday had resulted in him getting suspended for the day from work and docked a week's pay—and only because she'd caught him before any harm was done.  Otherwise, it would have been much worse.

That, of course, meant that much of the harassment was happening outside of the kitchens.  She'd already found her undergarments dusted with shaved bits of what she _hoped_ was beard hair—undoubtedly done to make her very itchy.  And then there had been other bits of hazing, such as being told to fetch things from the storage tunnels that didn't actually exist, although that last one had been entertaining; she'd been told to get 'a long stand'.  Rather than stand around and wait, she'd gone to the smithy and borrowed from Gobber the largest stand that she could carry.

Well, whatever today's prank would be, she was using her skills in spycraft to try to spot them and disarm them before they did too much harm. 

Walking carefully up to the kitchens, she pressed herself up against the walls, and heard people talking. 

Specifically, Twiglet. 

Well, this should be good…

Twiglet was grumbling to Lopsides, about her, as they chopped vegetables.  "Freedwoman or not, I don't think she belongs here."

Lopsides sighed.  "So you've said.  Repeatedly."

"Look.  There was an Understanding between my family and and his.  I'm three years older than Fishlegs, but it was understood that I'd wait."

"So you've said.  He's a scholar.  You're bookish.  I get it.  And then in comes the freedwoman and pushed you out of the way.  Do I get to skip the rest of it now?"

Heather clamped down on a snicker, but it was a close thing. 

Twiglet huffed.  "I know, I know.  It just… gah!  The _nerve_ of that woman!  She seduced him, flouted the law, and was planning on betraying us all along!?  And now everybody is going along with it as if nothing happened?  What in Hel's name is this shit?"

Heather considered for a brief moment popping into view and waving cheerfully at them.  She rejected it, mostly for the reason of not giving away her position, even if it would have been deeply satisfying, but also because Twiglet was holding a knife… and accidents (and "accidents") happened when someone was startled. 

So instead she sneaked off and reentered the kitchens more obviously. 

She was going to have to talk to Tyyni about that Understanding later on, after her shift was over.  That, and see if she could pry any information out of Lopsides on what else Twiglet had been venting about. 

But at least she knew what was motivating Twiglet now.  As motivations went… it wasn't _bad._   On some level, Heather was even sympathetic; it couldn't have been easy for Twiglet to swallow being unknowingly pushed aside by a freedwoman, and it wasn't like Heather had won any prizes for honesty when she'd arrived.  She'd avoided the letter of committing treason against her new tribe by the skin of her teeth, and only because she loved Fishlegs as deeply as she did.

But that was the situation.  Heather loved Fishlegs.  He loved her in return.  Twiglet didn't. 

Heather considered replying in kind, but rejected it after a moment's consideration.  First, she needed advice; one way or another, she'd be spending the rest of her life with the Hooligans, and starting a long-simmering clan dispute seemed to be a _terrible_ way to thank the Ingermans for accepting her.  And second… for the first time in years, she had people that she _could_ go to for advice without fear of betrayal. 

For advice and information only, though.  She would handle this herself.  It would do her good to be able to practice without everything being a life-or-death-by-slow-starvation-or-fast-beating situation, and… well… she had burdened her new tribe enough.  Disturbing Stoick over something this minor?  No, he'd done enough for her, and it wasn't like most of the other clanheads had any positive thoughts in her direction.  She knew that Bladewit barely tolerated her, and she was with Bladewit's grandnephew. 

So, yes.  Information, maybe a little aid when she needed an extra pair of eyes, but, other than that, she was on her own for this, and her goal was to unravel it as peacefully as she could.  Yes, that was a good goal.

She stuck her hand into the bowl of vegetables at her workstation, felt something slimy, and sighed.

Ack, Vexwit and Twiglet were pointedly not looking in her direction, she noticed.  Sighing again, she cleaned out the half-rotted onion from the bowl and got to work. 

###

**_Faaborg, Denmark_ **

 

Tears streaming from his eyes, Markus Ulversson gazed upon the port of Faaborg, heedless of the cold wind and salty sea spray.  After escaping death… he was home. 

His family farm was actually further down the coastline, but others aboard the ship were from elsewhere, so they were coming to return the ship to the jarl and would then return to their homes.

Once the ship pulled in, he and the remaining crew dispersed like feathers dropped in a high wind.  Markus nearly ran the four miles to his home, praying that all was well, fearing that it was not…

So many things could have gone wrong in his absence.  The harvest could have rotted in the field, leaving his family to starve.  His creditors could have taken his family as thralls on the assumption that he was dead and unable to pay his debts.   Or any of the other disasters that could befall a farm… pests, rot, hail, frost…

…fire…

He swallowed at the image of his farm ablaze from dragonfire and hurried on as fast as he could.

He reached his farm an hour or so before dusk. 

The fields were harvested, and there was hearth-smoke issuing merrily from under the eaves.  He could see his wife, daughters and thralls working with the sheep.

Overwhelmed with relief, he fell to his knees and wept.  The women looked up at the sound and rushed over. 

"Markus!?  You're alive!?" his wife asked, astounded.  "We feared the worst!"

"I'm alive.  The demons didn't get me…"

"Demons?  You mean the dragons?" his youngest, Berit, asked.  "But they were so helpful…"

He whipped his head around so hard that he felt something in his neck protest.  "What?!"

She looked away hesitantly, and then his middle daughter, Ida, said softly, "Berit, Papa went to go fight them, remember?"  She turned to him.  "Papa, the dragon riders came and brought home all of the men that they captured, without a ransom.  And they had dozens of little dragons come and help bring in the harvest.  It was done within a day…"

"Aye, and they had a list of the men who were known to have died… and we held out hope, because you weren't on it…" his wife added.

Markus felt like the world was spinning.  He was feeling so lightheaded, even as he remembered staring at the Dragon Chief atop his blue mount, the man casually sparing their lives when he could have snuffed them like a guttering candle. 

He swayed, and his wife said, "You've had a hard journey.  Come.  We'll put you to bed so that you can rest."

His eldest, Jyette, smiled.  "We're just glad that you're home safe, Papa." 

Stunned, he nodded, and allowed himself to be hauled up and led inside without any resistance. 

Was the world going mad?  Dragons had been to his farm… and instead of burning it… they'd helped _harvest_ it? 

But… but… but he'd _seen_ the ruins of the Brycgstow _burh!_   How…

He was gently but firmly pushed down into his own bed by his wife.  His head hit the pillow and sleep claimed him in moments. 

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

As the last panel slotted into place on the newly expanded chief's house, Hiccup and Astrid whooped together.  Then she enthusiastically hip-bumped him without checking to see if he was ready, sending him half-sprawling across the grass.

Hensteeth cocked his head from where he was standing on the roof.  "Violent wife you got there, lad," he said, grinning.

Hiccup snorted and got back to his feet.  "Believe me, I know!"

Astrid gave a dramatic evil laugh and put her arm around Hiccup's waist possessively. 

Hensteeth rolled his eyes as he clambered down.  "Well, we're done here with the major changes.  I'll send over a caulking crew tomorrow to get the cracks taken care of."

"Thanks!" Hiccup called.  "It's getting chilly out."

"Yeah, and we're a little short of hands to get all of it done," Hensteeth said, and hopped down the last few feet to the grass. 

Hiccup shared a glance with Astrid, and then turned back to Hensteeth.  "Send over some oakum and pitch.  We'll do what we can ourselves."

Hensteeth gave them a skeptical cock of the head.  "It's still your honeymonth, lad, lass.  Your bedroom's going to be warm enough not to worry about drafts."

Astrid quirked a sardonic eyebrow.  "While I'm not going to confirm or deny that, I will say that I like a room without chilly breezes paying a visit."

"Well, wasn't that the point of that fancy stonework that Hiccup had us build?" Hensteeth asked humorously, giving a glance to the stone shaft sticking up out of the roof.  He had taken one look at the designs and called it absurd, and said that they'd freeze their toes off in the night from the drafts, and was still harping on the point.  But he'd still had the masons build it over the last few days, only completing the final top sections today, when they'd opened up the house in order to expand it.

Hiccup and Astrid gave him matching unamused looks. 

"All right, fine, fine, I'll send some supplies over.  I'm still going to assume that we're going to end up doing all of the work, though."

"Thanks, Hensteeth," Hiccup said in an unamused drawl.  "But we have _some_ self-control."

Hensteeth snorted.  "Aye, which is why I feel safe standing here talking to yeh without covering my eyes."  He walked off.  "Have a good evening!" he called as he reached the path.

Hiccup rolled his eyes, while Astrid chortled. 

"So, let's take a look, shall we?" she asked, and took him by the arm.  They entered the expanded house; it smelled of sawdust, pine resin, and the still-curing mortar for the stones of what Hiccup was calling a _skorsteinn—_ because it looked like a pipe or funnel made of stone, designed to carry the smoke from the hearthfires up and out of the house. 

So now the hearth on the ground floor was surrounded by the shaft of mortared stones, with three arching gaps at the base to allow the heat and light out into the room and to give people access to the fire.  Up on the second floor, the stone shaft bulged out again, to allow for a similar design of arches to light and warm the second floor where their bedroom was.  But it was just a similar arrangement; Hiccup had discovered the hard way in his model tests that just opening the shaft and putting what amounted to holes in the side would let the smoke out into the room.  _All_ the smoke.  So while the ground floor arches allowed for a full circle of light and heat for the room, the second floor hearth had a shaft sticking up through the back, up against the wall, and the smoke from the second floor hearth went up into its own shaft, which rose for several feet before the two mixed and would allow for all of the smoke from both hearths to exit the house from the roof, while leaving the fires to warm and light both floors. 

Or, at least… it would.  In theory.  They'd made some small-scale tests, and Hiccup considered the design sound… but they'd find out now if it would work.

Astrid built the fire as he paced, giving him an amused grin every so often.  "You okay?"

"I'm thinking of what a giant pain the ass this will be if it doesn't work."

"Eh, what's the worst that could happen?  You drilled a giant hole up the center of our house for cold air to come right in, or the house burns down?"

He paused in his pacing and gave her a reproachful look.  That wasn't helping.

She grinned in response, and put the last log on.  "Well, here we go."  She whistled.  "Stormfly!"

The Nadder bounded in a few moments later, and then cheerfully lit the fire when Astrid asked her to.  Hiccup held his breath, but the stone shaft didn't crumble, melt, or explode.  Instead, the fire burned merrily, and the smoke went up the shaft.  If anything, without the smoke hazing the room, it was both brighter _and_ warmer. 

Stormfly eagerly bounded back outside.  She, Toothless, and a bunch of the other dragons were currently playing with a new toy that Hiccup had put together for them: a giant leather ball the height of a teenager, stuffed with straw—and dragon-nip.

There hadn't been any injuries reported yet, but the dragons thought that it was the greatest thing since fish stew. 

In the meantime, Hiccup went upstairs to check to see how the smoke was flowing up there.  With his luck, their bedroom would be flooded with soot from the lower fire, and he'd have to calibrate the shaft's flow to get the smoke to leave. 

Reaching the expanded second floor, Hiccup whooped.  The most he could smell was a slight scent of woodsmoke—the feared clouds of soot had gone up the _skorsteinn_ instead.

"Hey Astrid!" he called down the stairs.

"Yeah?"

"That's three!"

There was a pause, and then Astrid snorted loud enough for him to hear upstairs.  "Two more and you'll finally have reached five creations in a row that worked!"

He smirked.  He was going to beat that challenge of hers—even though it was nearly a year old now.  Thank Tyr he'd modeled the _skorsteinn_ extensively first.  "So, what do I get when I win?"

She appeared at the base of the stairs and started to climb up.  "Well, what would you want?" she asked, smiling as she reached the last stairs. 

"Um…"  He thought, and then blinked as Astrid, now smirking, started to pull her shirt off. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?" she asked innocently, dropping her shirt to the floor.

He laughed and kissed her. 

###

**_Banks of the An Fheoir, ten miles north of Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

The man and woman ran through the forest, the trees around them dripping with cold rain, their metal collars cold and clammy against their necks.

They had had names once, and lives of their own.  He had come from a village in the mountains, her a town along the coast.  He had been taken in a raid, and her parents had run into bad debts.  And so they had been enthralled, the iron collars snapped shut around their necks, made into chattel and sold.

For years, they had toiled, been treated as things, made to suffer every abuse.

And then, a month before, the whispers began.

That one of the cities had been conquered by the dragon riders to the north, that they had outlawed thralldom in their demesne. 

That any thrall who crossed into their borders was a freedman. 

And so they had fled on hope and rumor, making their way through the dampness and rain of the early winter towards the city where they could be people again.

The woman stumbled on a root, her belly heavy with the child of her owner, and nearly fell.  The man worked to steady her as they ran. 

They had been fleeing for days, avoiding roads and towns that would either keep them or send them back.  They were starving slowly, but kept moving, knowing that freedom was just a few miles further away down the river.

A woodcutter's hut near the forest glowed brightly with warmth and fire, and they shied away, trying to keep the river in sight. 

Just a little further…

The sound of hoofbeats came from behind them, and they looked at each other wordlessly and tried to run faster. 

As they climbed up the side of a steep hill to try to get away from the horsemen, her foot slipped on the wet leaves.

She slipped and fell down the side, screaming the whole way, and the hoofbeats continued to sound, making straight towards her. 

Hiding among the bushes and underbrush at the crown of the hill, the man looked and saw that the horsemen, ridden by their owners, had surrounded her.

"You've led us on a merry chase, girl," the lead rider said.  "But it's time to come home now."

She glared at him, defiant, and fought as the laughing men grabbed her, tied her hands together, and made her sit on the horse behind her owner.

Meanwhile, the man on the ridge watched it all, trying not to weep. 

It was not until they rode off into the distance that he dared to move, walking the last few miles to Vedrarfjord and freedom, alone and dispirited.

Even as they took him in, and gave him hot food and warm drink, and cut the collar from his throat, and asked him his name, all he could see was the young woman being dragged onto horseback, kicking and biting.

###

**_December 10, AD 1041_ **

**_Bucoleon Palace, Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

"Well, there's something for the histories," Ketil, one of the senior Varangians, said as he leaned against the balcony's parapet, drinking from a tankard.  "The Emperor's final order before going into seclusion was to authorize your dragon-capturing expedition, Trondsson."

Sigurd nodded wryly and continued to give Hookfang a full rubdown, making him purr.  "It's Harald's expedition.  I'm just following his orders."  He glanced around the balcony; he was off-duty, and spending a little time with his friend while chatting with Gunnar, Thorred, and a few other off-duty Varangians.

"Aye, that's the spirit!" one of them whose name Sigurd had forgotten said jovially, hoisting his own tankard.  "Don't get more popular than the man in charge, after all!"

They all cheered in cynical humor, and another man glanced up the length of the Mese, as they had been doing all day. 

Somewhere down that road lay the monastery (a word that Sigurd only knew from stories of Viking raids as a place to get great loot) where the Emperor had chosen to die.  Any day, any _hour,_ he might pass.  They had returned from their training expedition just in time, less than two weeks ago, just before Michael the Fourth went into seclusion, dying from dropsy after an extended illness. 

Gunnar caught the glance and said sardonically, "I believe that the Emperor will die when he is ready to do so, not when it is convenient for us due to being off-duty."

The Varangian glared at Gunnar and said, "Don't cheek me, fresh-face.  I've done my bit to help keep Emperor Michael alive for the last few years."

"Aye, and yeh're fresh here and getting to join in like that?  Not really that fair, if yeh ask me," Ketil said sourly. 

Gunnar shrugged.  "A few weeks in the other direction, and you would be gloating at myself and Sigurd here for having missed our chances."

"Damn straight," Ketil said, hoisting his tankard up in a mock toast.  "Yeh're here for luck, and not much more."

Gunnar bowed politely, and said, "I will keep that in mind, sir."

Sigurd shrugged as he wiggled a loose scale free from under Hookfang's wing and tossed it in a nearby bowl with a few others that he'd already plucked free. "So, what have you fought against to protect him?  Battles?  Attackers in the palace?"

The Varangian shrugged.  "There have been plots—discontent over taxes and the like.  A few revolts—Bulgaria, Antioch, Nicopolis.  Plus the Lombards and Arabs in Sicily.  We've been his elite strike force for the entirety of his reign."

"Aye," Ketil said, satisfied.  "And having an Emperor die of natural causes—real natural causes, not the kinds we joke about—means that we did our job, and did it well."

"And as a reward for a job well done, we get another job!"

"Aye!  But we also get to loot the palace, so that works out nicely!" Ketil said with anticipation, turning to glance up the length of the Mese before turning back to his drink.  He turned and looked at Sigurd and Gunnar, the youngest Varangians on the balcony.  "You two fresh-faces know the rules on that, yeh?"

Gunnar nodded and started to tick off on his fingers.  "One load of loot per individual person, and they will check, so no returning for a second pass.  There is to be no theft from other Varangians, nor dueling over loot, and if someone reached your intended loot first, that is regrettable, but you should go find something else.  No harming the staff—bullying, taunting, molesting, harassing, and so forth.  Team efforts for larger loot items is acceptable, but there are some things, like the Imperial Throne, that are off limits.  There is a strict moratorium on vandalism.  And this is strictly an off-duty exercise—we are all expected to be on-duty again for the Empress and the new Emperor tomorrow.  Also," he glanced around the circle of off-duty Varangians, "if you are on active duty, you must wait until your shift is over."

"Aye.  And, finally, if yeh break the rules, and you answer to Harald, _personally,_ if yeh survive that long," Ketil said, smirking. 

Sigurd nodded emphatically.  He'd heard Harald discussing on what to do with those who committed infractions during the upcoming palace loot—and that had been enough to cure him of any temptation on his part to step outside those lines.

There had also been an incredible moment when Harald had called him aside personally when the meeting had ended and asked him what his plans were for his loot.  When Snotlout had confessed that he hadn't really thought about it yet, Harald had smiled amiably to him and suggested sending it off somewhere safe to be held in trust—his loot from the death of Emperor Romanos Argyros, plus other loot he'd acquired fighting for the Empire, was being held for him by Prince Yaroslav in Kyiv.  He'd offered to help Sigurd make similar arrangements, and Sigurd had smiled and agreed. 

"Sigurd?" Gunnar's voice called him back to the present. 

He blinked and nodded.  "Yeah?"

"So, what do you have your eye on?"

"For?"

Gunnar rolled his eyes.  "For the _polutasvarf._ "

"Oh, there's a…"

There was a sudden hush on the palace grounds, as the background chatter suddenly ceased, not just from the palace, but from the city itself. 

Sigurd and every other man on the balcony—every other man and woman in sight on the grounds of the palace complex—turned, to see a pair of messengers in Varangian colors, both running up the length of the Mese.

As the messengers reached the gates, they called, in Greek and in Norse, "The Emperor has passed, refusing to see his wife unto the last!  Our great burden has ceased, so now we may feast!  Open the gates, so that our thirst can be slaked!  Godspeed to His Highness, Michael the Fourth!"

Cheering and whooping, the Varangians dispersed like feathers in the wind.  Some were heading for specific spots, aiming to get some particular piece of loot in advance of some rivals, while others meandered, grabbing little bits here and there as if it was a trip through the stalls in the marketplace. 

As he'd been about to tell Gunnar before he'd been interrupted, Sigurd had his eye on some specific bits—a chest of gems and jewelry near the empress's apartments—but, by the time he had gotten there, the room had already been nearly cleaned out of the easily carried stuff. 

Another Varangian was looking around, also disappointed, and looked up as Sigurd entered the room.  "Looks like we're not the only ones that had this idea," he said.

Sigurd scoffed.  "Nah, you think?"

"Some days, when the centurion isn't looking," the other man snarked back.

"Bad habit, thinking.  Cost my cousin his leg back home," Sigurd said as he started going through the dresses to see if there was any jewelry hanging on them.

"Best stick to drinking then!" the other man said with a grin.  "But, since we're both out of luck for the easy stuff, I have an idea for a two-man loot, if you're willing to split it with me?"

"Aye, I'm listening."

"Come with me," the other man said, and they left the room. 

As they walked, the other man said in Norse, "I'm Benjamin Axelsson, from the Danes.  You're that dragon rider, right?  Sigurd?"

Sigurd grinned.  "That's me."

"That's pretty amazing.  How did you tame the beast?  I heard rumors of some epic battle against a giant dragon.  Was that you?"

"Aye, I was there," Sn… Sigurd said with false modesty.  "The saga didn't even mention that I whacked the giant thing in the eye with my hammer before jumping off onto another dragon."

"Amazing.  Any chance you could get dragons for the rest of us?"

"Harald is looking into it, and I'll see about putting in a word with him," Sigurd said charmingly.  It was the most common question he got these days, and he enjoyed answering it. 

With a whoop of eagerness, the other Varangian, Benjamin—and what kind of weird name was that?  It didn't sound Norse—pumped his fist in the air and jumped.  Sigurd grinned at his enthusiasm. 

They jogged along down several corridors, and then Benjamin turned down a side corridor towards the kitchens. 

"What's down here?" Sigurd said, frowning.  Looting food…? 

"Only some of the most precious stuff by weight in the entire palace," Benjamin said with a grin.  "I went for the jewels first because those don't spoil, but," he opened the door and the kitchen staff froze for a moment, before getting back to their business, "a barrel or two of exotic spices will be worth their weight in gold and more down at the market."

Sigurd grinned and inhaled deeply.  "Oooh.  That smells nice."

"Cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom…" Benjamin waves to the cooks and said in slow Greek, "We're exercising our right to the palace loot.  The Emperor is dead.  Take what spices you will need to cook the Empress's supper, and we're taking the rest."

There were mute nods from the staff, and a short while later the two young men, huffing and puffing, carted out a heavy chest carried on poles between them.  It was trailing what seemed to be a near-visible miasma of pungent spice.  The chest was made of solid oak and large enough for Sigurd to use as a cramped bed, but that wasn't the hard part.  The hard part was that the smell of the spices was so intense that it was actually somewhat hard to breathe.

"So… Benjamin… mind if I call you Ben? Keep it or sell it?" Sigurd asked from his spot at the back of the chest. 

"Your call.  I say we take it back to our barracks, split it and do what you want with it.  It's expensive here, but it'll be worth more than its weight in gold back home."

Sigurd smirked and then coughed from the tastes coating his tongue.  "Sounds good to me!" 

They huffed and puffed their way over to the main doors of the palace where they were met by the harried team of scribes.  Their loot was listed and tallied by the impassive administrator and his men, who were standing by and watching a steady stream of valuables be removed from the palace and drift off to the barracks. 

As they entered Ben's barracks' room, which was located on the ground floor, instead of the third floor like Sigurd's, they could hear the bells of the city were ringing to announce the death of the emperor.  They set it on the ground with a grunt and slumped next to it, panting.  Then Sigurd reached over, popped the latch, and opened the chest.  It was packed with small sacks with labels in a language he couldn't read—Greek, he assumed. 

"So… what's worth the most?"

"Uh… I didn't get that far in my planning."

They looked at each other, looked at the chest, and rolled their eyes.  The greedy part of Sigurd had a few pithy comments on their lack of preparedness. 

"Too late to go back to the kitchens and borrow one of the cooks to ask?"

"Probably.  Unless you want to swear an oath that you won't mess with it, and I'll run back and find someone.  Besides… you're famous around here.  I'll know where to find you."  He grinned.

Sigurd considered that and nodded.  "Yeah, yeah.  I promise to sit tight on our loot.  Now go find someone that can help us divvy it up!"

"Awesome.  And, not because I don't trust you, but because, hey, it makes sense," he closed the lid and turned the key in the lock, and then pocketed it.  "Sit tight.  I'll be back in a bit."

Sigurd shrugged, sat back on the knee-high wooden chest and looked around the room.  It was filled with off-duty Varangians who had already finished with getting their shares of the loot, and it was growing increasingly boisterous. 

Some of the Varangians were jesting and roughhousing, or playing with their trophies; one man was taking out every necklace from the very chest that Sigurd had coveted and was putting them all on and admiring himself.  Still others were passing around unwatered wines, either toasting the late emperor or just drinking themselves silly.  There was a party atmosphere in the barracks, while the city mourned.  People were telling stories of the late emperor; apparently, he'd been a simple moneychanger and forger of coins before catching the eye of the Empress nearly ten years ago.

Benjamin came back alone after perhaps a third of an hour; Sigurd was listening to a nearby group of men reminisce about the last palace loot, when Zoe had had her previous husband murdered and replaced with Michael within the day. 

Ben slumped down next to the chest.  "So… no luck.  They all wanted an equal share.  I'd rather just guess." 

Sigurd shrugged.  "Agreed.  How about this?  I can't read the labels, but we can try to divide it all equally by weight and type.  That way, neither of us gets cheated." 

"All right, then."  Benjamin pulled out the key and reopened the chest.

With a grunt, Sigurd hauled himself to a sitting position and they emptied the chest out on Benjamin's bed.  It made for an impressive—and pungent—pile, and Benjamin wryly noted, "I'm going to smell that for weeks." 

They set to it, sorting the piles by type according to the labels; it should have been boring, but it was actually rather fun.  It helped that Ben seemed to be interested in cultivating him as a friend, and Snotlout was eager to start doing the same with him—if for no other reason than he wanted to start expanding his connections beyond the other new recruits that he'd arrived with.

As they worked, he commented, "So, Benjamin… what sort of name is that?  Doesn't sound Norse."

Ben shrugged and critically examined an opened sack filled with what looked like little dried brown flowers.  "I think these are cloves.  Um… It's from the Bible?  You don't know it?"

Snotlout shook his head.  "Never heard of it before."

"Well, my father is a thane in Denmark, and when I was born, he asked the priest for suggestions," Ben said, putting the sack of cloves off to the side with the other opened sacks.  "Do you see any other bags with that label?"

"Denmark, eh?"  Snotlout looked over the labels in the neat rows of bags, next to the pile still to be sorted.  "Over here." 

"Okay, so that pile is cloves.  See any more opened sacks?"

They dug through the pile as Ben talked.  "Yep.  Ah, Denmark.  A frigid flat pile of sand stuck up into the North Sea like a giant middle finger.  The weather is coy and chill like a woman, the sun teases like a pretty girl, and we spend all three days of summer getting ready for winter."

Snotlout laughed.  "Sounds like home to me!"  He sniffed at a bag to try to determine what was in it, but the mixed smells from all of the spices were so strong that it was a little hard to tell the differences.

"Oh, and where is home for you, oh great dragon rider?" Ben asked, grinning.

"Alban Hebrides," Snotlout said with a smirk.  "A tiny little isle smack dab in the middle of the sea.  The weather is cold and cloudy, and rain isn't just miserable weather, it's a visitor who decides to move in and move the furniture around for his own liking."  Ben cackled.  "We spend _both_ days of summer getting ready for winter, and, until last year, that meant fighting off dragons who wanted to steal our food."

"And now you ride one.  Wow," Ben said, picking up another opened sack; it spilled out what looked like curls of thin dried tree bark.  "Ooooh.  Cinnamon.  Very nice." 

A moment's searching found the other bags labeled with the same, and they formed their own neat pile. 

"So, what's it like riding a dragon?" Ben asked, digging through the piles and finding an opened sack filled with the little black balls that Snotlout recognized as pepper. 

Snotlout shrugged and grinned, aiming for nonchalance, and failing.  "It's… it's… okay, I have to say, it's _glorious_.  Flying through the air, seeing the land and sea spread out below you…"

Ben gave him a innocent smile.  "Any chance you'd be willing to give your partner-in-looting a ride at some point?"

"Heh.  We'll talk.  But probably."

They continued to work as they chatted.  Snotlout learned that Ben was the third son of a powerful thane in Denmark, and had been serving in Constantinople for three years, having decided to come here because there was no way his inheritance would be amount to much of anything after his older brothers' shares and his sisters' dowries.

Snotlout had sympathized on that last point, and referenced his own suddenly reduced inheritance in roundabout ways. 

But, mostly, Ben wanted to know about dragons. 

"Is it true that they sleep on beds of gold?" he asked as they started to divvy up the bags of spices.

Snotlout shook his head.  "Hookfang prefers stone slabs.  Most of them do."

"What about the ones that don't?"

"Well, I think there was one breed of small dragon that seemed to like resting in trees," he said, taking one of his bags and placing it in the growing pile. 

They reached the end of the stack of cardamom bags and were left with the opened and half-empty bag.  Ben shrugged.  "You take it.  And give me a dragon ride some day soon in exchange, okay?"

Snotlout grinned.  "Sounds good to me!"

In the end, Snotlout got most of the opened bags, in exchange for a promise of taking Ben out for dragon rides, and Ben got the massive chest.  Snotlout was going to have to get one of his own, but the coffer he already had should be enough for the moment—and he didn't really relish the thought of carrying the heavy oak chest up three flights of stairs.  Bad enough that the spices were bulky and heavy; he'd ended up making a sack out of his shirt to carry his share away. 

Finally, he waved goodbye to Ben, and left.  He had just stepped out of the door when a woman shrieked in the barracks nearby, which made the surrounding conversations pause.  Then Sigurd looked around as there was the _slapslapslap_ of bare feet on the polished stone of the floor nearby; a girl of about his age came barreling around the nearby corner, her head turned to look back over her shoulder.  Sigurd tried to dodge, but she was moving too fast, and plowed right into him, knocking them both to the ground, and sending his shirt-sack sliding down the hallway, leaving a small trail of cardamom on the stone.

Other footprints sounded in pursuit down the hallway.  He did his best to get back to his feet, even as he felt a shiver as the woman, panicked, scrambled against him, her hands and arms touching his skin as she fought to do the same.  But the group of other Varangians that came running up in pursuit were a bit more distracting. 

"Hey, thanks for catching her before she ran off with our coin!" one of them said to Sigurd, as several of the other Varangians moved to surround him and the girl.

Then Benjamin burst out of the door to his barracks room and ran over to stand next to Sigurd and the girl.  "What's going on?  You know the rules for conduct!"

"She's not staff—she's just a peasant girl from the city who took our coin and won't do what she agreed to!"

"Doesn't matter!  You know the rules!"

The girl was whimpering between Sigurd and Benjamin, trying to impose them between her and the other men. 

Benjamin pulled out a sack of something pungent from his own loot and tossed it to the man.  "There.  Sack of spices.  Probably worth a hundred times what you paid her.  Leave her alone!"

Sigurd looked at the girl with an assessing eye.  Pretty enough, with dark hair and dusky skin, needed a bath.

"Hey beautiful, don't worry, you'll be fine," he said.

As he spoke, the lead man from the other group threw the sack of spices back at Benjamin.  "Feh.  What good is it to me?"  He leaned forward into Benjamin's personal space, within an arm's length of the girl.  "I paid my coin, and I'm getting my money's worth out of her, not you."

Before anyone else could react, another set of doors slammed open and one of the centurions, dressed in full armor, strode in, his hobnailed boots clicking sinisterly against the stone of the floor.  " _What's going on in here!?"_ he boomed.

"Sir!  These two fresh-faces are stealing our woman from us!" the leader of the other group said back.

"Your woman!?  She doesn't look to happy to be with you, soldier!"

"There was a misunderstanding, sir, but coin had already been exchanged!"

The century commander scowled.  "You know the rules, soldier."  Addressing the girl in Greek, he said something too quickly for Sigurd to understand, and she nodded and pulled out a pair of copper coins from her belt and put them on the floor between her and the other Varangians. 

"There.  You have your coin back."  He addressed the girl in Greek again, and she said something back that made Benjamin look at the other Varangians with wide, contemptuous eyes. 

The century commander had much the same reaction, and proceeded to curse at the men in Norse.  "You quarter-witted, wine-soaked disgraces!  Do any of you have the mother-sense to pick up your swords by the grip?  Look up at me, you!" he shoved one with his centurion baton.  "I've seen more light of brains in the eyes of my horse!  In the _back end_ of my horse!  You so much as _touch_ an unwilling woman again, I'll tie you to a post with as much clothes on as you have wits between the lot of you, give her a knife, and call it a _holmgang_!  Am I clear!?"

"Yes sir!" they chanted in unison, their eyes fixed straight ahead.

"Good.  Now get out of here.  You're all back on duty as of now," the centurion said.

As they marched off, the girl, still looking around wide-eyed at the Varangians, made to leave.  Sigurd gently held up a pausing hand, holding it close to his chest, and asked her, in halting Greek, what her name was.

She looked at him confused, and Benjamin laughed.  "You asked her what her… nevermind."  He repeated the question, correctly. 

She smiled at Benjamin before replying, "Pelagia."

* * *

 

**A/N:** And here we begin Book II.  I gotta say, I'm heartened by the responses I've gotten for the last few chapters.  Your reviews, messages, and the holy-crap number of hits I've been getting make me so happy.  Thank you again!

Now, a quick note on my Trigger Warning setup for future reference:

**Threat** :The [act] is threatened to happen.

**Attempt:** The [act] is instigated and stopped/interrupted before it gets underway.

**Act:** The [act] is done.

**Implied** is not shown "on screen", versus  **Explicit,**  which is shown in the narrative.

I will tag for Non-Con/Rape, Heavy Violence, Torture, Mutilation (hi, Byzantines!) and Murder (and any others that people wish me to tag, and I will update this AN if necessary).  I will also state this categorically, because I've gotten some worried messages over it--I will not  _ever_ in the course of this fic write anything that would require me to write the trigger warning "Explicit Act of Non-Con/Rape".  Heck, I'll go one further, and say that I won't even have "Explicit Attempt of Non-Con/Rape" in here.  

Beyond that, here we go.  I'm hoping to make the upcoming arcs just as intense and well-written as my previous ones, if not surpass them.  

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you all next week!  


	33. ...In The Avalanche

**Chapter 33:** **…In The Avalanche**

_Sigurd Trondsson's arrival in Constantinople coincided with a period of upheaval for the Byzantine Roman Empire.  While Trondsson's actions cannot be blamed for the death of Emperor Michael IV, as he had been ill for years, there is no question to the fact that his arrival, and subsequent introduction of tamed dragons into the intricate politics of the Empire, elevated an already tense situation to new heights.  While it is generally agreed that his initial political awareness was minimal, this made matters worse in many ways, as he made alliances and promises without awareness of the deeper waters that he was treading over.  When, precisely, he shifted from pawn to player is still a matter of some debate, but there is a general consensus that his first year in the Empire was a period of great shock and growth to the previously coddled young man._

_—The Dragon Varangians: A History Of The Vikings Of Byzantium, 1882_

**_Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

**_December, 1041_ **

Hiccup filled in the first crack between the boards with oakum and felt the draft cease, and then he painted over the crack with a satisfied smile.  Good to his word, Hensteeth had sent over the supplies necessary for caulking the gaps—and there were a _lot_ of gaps from where the chief's hut had been expanded over the last few days.

Hiccup sighed at that. 

His father had actually offered to move out, or give them the now-empty house that Magnus had lived in for the last two and a half months, but they'd all turned him down due to the appearance of it. 

While concubines living separate from the main married couple's was the general rule (to keep from having all of one's eggs in a single basket back during the days of houses burning down all the time), typically they lived in other houses belonging to the clan.  And aside from his great-aunt's house, at the top of Raven Point, there wasn't another Haddock clan house in the whole of the village—and a distinct lack of Haddocks, at that.  While he had relatives aplenty in the village—a third of the Hoffersons were descended from his great-aunt Rhonda, Rikard's wife, plus his aunt Serena's kids—they weren't _Haddocks._   At this point, there were five of his clan left—his dad, him, Astrid, Wulfhild, and Gothi.  And Gothi's house was more of a spiritual retreat for the priestess—and not exactly next door to the chieftain's hut.  Plus there was a _distinct_ lack of room up there for a second person. 

So, after he and Astrid had paid a visit to her childhood house—now packed full with a different branch of the Hofferson clan in all of their rollicking chaos—he'd agreed to her point.  Putting Wulfhild in that house alone would be tantamount to banishing her in the eyes of the village, when they were all living five to ten to a house, plus dragons, with everyone having chores and responsibilities in keeping the place running.    Why _else_ would they stick the outsider princess in another house when they themselves weren't 'full', as the rest of the village considered it, unless she was unwelcome?

And it wasn't as if they would be wrong in that assumption, either.

Hiccup scowled, ran his hands through his hair, and moved onto the next crack that needed caulking. 

So he and Astrid had spent an evening figuring out how to expand the house to fit in another person and dragon.  Fortunately, he did have some designs already thought out from a few years prior when he'd tried to to show how helpful he could be by redesigning the houses. 

Berk houses had been designed to be assembled quickly, for obvious reasons.  What they essentially did was have a front frame and a back frame, and then slotted planks between them, like a longboat turned upside-down and with the bow and stern chopped off.  The steep roof kept the snow from accumulating and potentially crushing the house, and created a loft for children to sleep in.  Then, on top of those boards, they put a layer of wooden shingles to keep the wind from getting in through the gaps in the boards.    The shingles were easy—if boring—to make, and _much_ more fireproof than, say, thatch, and they'd long ago come up with the idea of pre-nailing shingles to the boards in completed sections so that they could be placed as one piece.

That did, however, come with the downside that there would still be gaps between the shingles where the boards met.  As a result, a thorough caulking before the winter to seal as many of the gaps as possible was traditional. 

Onto that basic design, Hiccup had contemplated how best to accommodate four people and four dragons, as well as the space needed to host guests for his father's inevitable meetings.  He'd gone through half a dozen possibilities before hitting on one that would work. 

He hoped. 

The chief's house was already one of the largest ones in the village.  He'd considered putting another hut directly adjacent, but that would inevitably trap the snow in the gap and damage the houses.  Stretching the house out sideways would make for a dangerous flat top that could accumulate snow and crush the house.  Adding on a lean-to to the house's frame would run the risk of the _lean-to_ getting crushed… which was not good either. 

So what he'd ended up settling on for Hensteeth and his carpentry crews to build was an extension to the house to the _back_ , effectively adding on another house where the back door used to be.  He'd put the _skorsteinn_ in where the hearth had been, towards the back of the old house, to help hold up the spine of the house.  The slope behind the house had put a limit on how far back they could put the addition without having to dig out significant amounts of dirt, so what he'd done was dig into the ground a little for insulation, and have the floor of the new space follow the slope up into the ceiling.  That new room was for the dragons to sleep, as a cozy cave.  And the second floor loft had been given over to a narrow hallway that allowed for a back door onto the slope, and Wulfhild's room. 

Of course, that meant that there were _lots_ of gaps and cracks that needed to be sealed.  Around all of the boards, around the old hatch where Toothless had slipped in and out of the loft, around the new frames, around where the _skorsteinn_ exited onto the roof, around the panels that plugged the holes that had once let the smoke out, around the boards where they had caulked last year and the caulking had worn away (worse than normal), and so forth.  Hiccup actually suspected that the dragons' habit of landing or lounging on the roof was responsible for the sad state of last year's caulking. 

So now Hiccup was busy with a pot of heated pitch, working to seal up each crack as he found them.

His father still had the bedroom that he had shared with Hiccup's mother all those years ago, so he and Astrid were in the the upstairs loft that had been Hiccup's childhood bedroom, although the new hearth and the stone shaft piercing the floor and up to the ceiling took some getting used to, not to mention the solid wall around the stairs, and the doorway to the new hallway to Wulfhild's room. 

Meanwhile, the dragons had the entire downstairs back space all to themselves, and Hiccup had designed and Hensteeth had built a cozy stone-lined nest for them.  There were partitioned personal areas for each dragon, with a shelf of rock for them to sleep on, plus doors that the dragons could open and close by themselves to get in and out. 

Tonight would be the first time that they'd all be in the same house, and Hiccup just hoped that things would work out.

Stepping back and examining his handiwork on the caulked crack, Hiccup nodded critically.  It would work.  He just wished that he could find an alternative to pitch—he disliked using the stuff as building material when dragons would be around on principle.  It was, after all, a _touch_ on the flammable side.  Ideally, he would find some kind of material that would let him patch gaps _and_ be fireproof, but he wasn't holding his breath.  For the moment, the stinky pitch would have to do. 

The front doors opened, and Astrid walked in, followed by Stormfly, who stepped in calmly, chittered, sniffed, and then sneezed irritably.  Hiccup snorted.  He didn't want to know how bad the pitch smelled to the dragon.  It stank, well, like hot pitch.  Toothless was refusing to get too close to where he was working, because of the smell.

Stormfly then followed Astrid to the back of the house; Astrid was explaining that they'd be living here now, and Stormfly was making what sounded like sarcastic comments along the lines of _No, really?_   He held back a laugh; the dragon had spent the last month and a half since he proposed still in Astrid's old room back in her parents' house, and had been waking them both up nearly every morning by singing below their window, wanting to go for a flight or demanding breakfast. 

Then Wulfhild came in, stopping at the threshold and glancing around.  Hiccup cringed internally when he saw her doing that—and remembering times when he'd done the exact same motion at that very door, back when he'd been Useless.  Then Mistletoe followed her in, and snorted hard when she saw Hiccup, with Toothless lying nearby, and pulled back. 

Wulfhild calmed her with some whispers and a soft touch on the nose, and led her back to the dragon room, but Mistletoe still gave Toothless a suspicious look as she walked past.  Hiccup sighed.  The Razorwhip seemed to be reflexively distrustful of other dragons—not that Hiccup could blame her.  After all, she and Windshear had been assaulted by a crowd of dragons that had outnumbered them dozens to one barely two months ago, during the egg laying. 

But she eventually also picked a personal partition—the one furthest from the door, high up against the slope of the hill.  Or, in other words, the one most out of reach.  She settled in, her head placed on the edge of the slab so that she could keep an eye on the room.

Wulfhild gave Mistletoe an exasperated look, her hands on her hips, and then turned to Hiccup.  "Got any dragon nip handy?  She's cranky."

Hiccup nodded and went to get some out of the chest where he kept it.  Toothless immediately perked up when he heard the latch, and stood by, looking helpless and pitiful, as Hiccup knelt by the chest that he'd spent an afternoon rendering as scent-sealed as possible, using the same sorts of caulking tools that they were using now. 

Toothless tried to nose his way in so that he could wallow in the sweet grass, but Hiccup took out another fistful and rubbed it on Toothless's nose.  The Night Fury promptly lost interest in raiding the chest and instead started to purr and rub the grass against his snout and body. 

As he watched his friend act like a giant housecat, Hiccup mutely handed Wulfhild the remaining dragon nip, giving her a quick deadpan look, quirking his eyes at the purring Night Fury, and then turning back to watch.

Shaking her own head, Wulfhild reentered the dragon room, went over to her dragon and gave her the fistful of nip.  Mistletoe was shortly in a much more cheerful mood and making purring noises of her own. 

Astrid watched this all with her arms crossed by the _skorsteinn_.  "Do you ever wonder what that stuff makes them feel?"

"Happy and mellow?" Hiccup suggested, watching Toothless roll and thrash happily, his eyes closed and tongue lolling out of his mouth.  After a minute or so of enjoying the nip, Toothless blinked lazily and then looked around at the other dragons before giving Hiccup a shrug. Hiccup gave him a scritch on the back of the neck that made his friend purr and said, "Getting a little crowded in here, isn't it, bud?"

Astrid came up behind him and tackled him. "Nope, you just think that because you can't swing your arms without touching someone," she said with a grin, tickling him.

Toothless gave a laugh as Hiccup collapsed like a dragon with its chin scratched as Astrid mercilessly tickled his sensitive spots, and was joined in laughter by the other dragons, even Mistletoe, and Wulfhild.

"No fair!" he managed to gasp out.

"That's not what you said last night, babe!" she said with an evil grin.

Still spasming from the tickling, he managed to roll a bit and pull her down for a kiss.  She melted into it and stopped with the intensive tickle, lowering down the intensity to merely a token. It was still the middle of their honey-month, and Hiccup was still in awe that they were together now, in every way possible.

After a few moments, Hiccup and Astrid broke the kiss and grinned at each other in a mutual embrace.  Their heads were fogged by lust, but duty called—and they both wanted the chance to smile smugly at Hensteeth when he came tomorrow to do the caulking and would instead find it already done.

As he and Astrid shared smiles with each other that promised 'later', Hiccup went back to work on stopping up the drafty holes in the walls.  Using a lit piece of green wood that gave a wisp of smoke, he walked along the seams and boards, and then sealed the cracks as he found them from the way that the smoke was blowing.  The sealing was tedious but simple; use the hammer to pound oakum into the crack, and then paint it over with warmed pitch. 

Meanwhile Astrid and Wulfhild were upstairs, working at organizing the loft with her stuff and Hiccup's; later, around dinner, all three of them were planning on very publicly carrying over Wulfhild's possessions from the guest house.  At present, the small space would definitely be enough for the princess, as she had very little here on Berk.  Her other personal effects that she hadn't brought with her months previously would be shipped over after Thawfest from Nidaros—mostly her hope chest, which they all found ironic, and a few other possessions. 

Hiccup hoped, for the thousandth time, that they weren't all making a mistake, but it was too late to go back on it now.  All they could do was move forward, and try to make the best of it. 

At least Wulfhild seemed to be enjoying life on Berk; she was always out flying with Mistletoe and exploring.  Hopefully, once the newness of the island wore off, she wouldn't grow bored.  Yes, she was in the chief's family and clan, but there was no question that it was a major comedown from the luxury she had enjoyed in Nidaros. 

And—he grimaced as he painted shut another crack in the wall—there was also the fact that he and Astrid were essentially ignoring her. 

Astrid… well, she was being carefully, one might even say _exquisitely_ polite to Wulfhild, but their earlier ease and friendship had been shattered in the aftermath of the concubinage arrangement.  She tended to get very possessive towards him whenever Wulfhild was around—like the tickling just now—and most of her actions towards Wulfhild were those of a host towards an honored guest… not a clanmate.  Even now, upstairs, the muffled discussion sounded very formal and was missing all of the joking and casual banter.

He remembered the three of them playing board games during Magnus and Ruffnut's feasting week.  How the two of them had cheerfully ganged up on him to poke fun at his lack of skill with the games. 

And how much he missed that now.  But how the friendship could ever get back to what it was before… he didn't know.  He _knew_ that Astrid hadn't gone and talked to her great-grandmother or great-grandfather, despite having promised that she would—and he knew that if he pointed it out, she'd dig in her heels. 

Of course, he wasn't any better.  He could have pressed the issue, but he felt so anxious on the topic that he'd somehow always found something else to do, in between time spent with Astrid. 

As for that time…  One wit—Astrid's uncle Snorri—had commented that they'd had the honeymonth before the wedding, during their brief betrothal, but Hiccup didn't agree with that.  Sure, it had been wonderful to share those few weeks with her, but they'd been careful to keep their public displays of affection as chaste as they could manage.  Now that they were married, the polite fictions were dropped, and the only niceties that they were really observing were the actual _polite_ ones, like not jumping all over each other in full view of other people—and even then, there had occasionally been close calls of near exposure, like the moment in the smithy the other day, when Gobber had nearly opened the door on them in Hiccup's side room.  That had been… memorably awkward, as they'd scrambled to get their clothes back in order. 

But those moments put his interactions with Wulfhild in extreme contrast.  Since the concubinage ceremony, they'd barely spent any time together, and none of that alone.  Mostly it had involved meals in the mead hall, and she'd still been sleeping at the house built for Magnus. 

He knew that he was ignoring her.  Not on purpose, and not to be cruel… but… gods, it was just _so_ awkward! 

At least she seemed happy enough, but when the thought occurred to Hiccup, he inevitably felt a touch guilty.  And embarrassed.  He _liked_ Wulfhild well enough, as a friend, but she didn't set his heart to fluttering or his insides on fire as Astrid did just by smiling at him.  He hadn't felt the sheer desire that Astrid inspired in him just by… being Astrid.  And he felt guilty about that, because, thanks to the oaths he had sworn, he would eventually have to…

He coughed, and bent to stop up another hole in the wall.  Whacking in a line of oakum with the caulking hammer and then covering it with a daub of pitch offered a nice distraction. 

He sighed.  They'd make it work.  At least Astrid and Wulfhild had the other women in Berk to talk to about this.  With the exception of Fishlegs—and Toothless, who was a great listener, but not the best adviser—the other men in Berk that he had tried to talk to had been… uncomprehending at best, and he'd stopped trying to ask.  And Fishlegs was currently working himself up over Heather, who, to be fair, was doing the same over him, and it was more than a bit unfair to try to redirect the big guy to _his_ problems, such as they were. 

The voice of Dogsbreath clan Jorgenson echoed in his thoughts from their 'talk' in the bathhouse last Washday.  _Look at you!  You've got it all!_ Two _beauties to warm your bed, the most powerful and rare dragon of them all, brains to rival Odin, and a king that calls you 'brother', and you want to complain?_

Yeah.  Not much help. 

From their perspective, maybe he had it all.  Sure, for argument's sake, imagine that he did. 

How could he share that fortune with the ones that he loved, so that they _too_ could 'have it all'?  Have friends, have loved ones, have peace?  He _wanted_ to give Wulfhild a happy life; she was his friend, and he honestly enjoyed her continued presence, but, at the same time, he didn't know if he _could_ give her the same kind of relationship he had with Astrid.  For Frigga's sake, he _wanted_ to give Astrid a happy life with everything that she could want, but he wasn't sure what that even _involved._   Beyond making her weapons and dragon-riding gear and making love to her each night.  But if there was something that would make her happier, he wanted to know what it was.

As he mused, Astrid came up to him with a sheet of parchment in hand, a satisfied smile on her face.  "When you've got a moment, Fishlegs got me the figures on the dragons."

He nodded, working at patching another drafty hole.

"All right, so…"  She started reading off her relevant notes from the parchment, giving him the final numbers on food, trained dragons, their specific classes of training, including combat, tunneling, patrol, mail, construction, and miscellaneous skills, and other areas of importance in relation to dragons. 

"…and we have seventy-eight firecocks in storage, and we're finally ahead on saddle production.  Fishlegs is also experimenting with taking the sand from the Boulder-type dragons and making glass out of it.  He's having some problems, but if we could make our own glass, we could really step up firecock construction and not have to rely on soapstone for kitchen materials."  _Firecock_ had become the generally accepted nickname for the soapstone pot bombs that he had created, as Wulfhild had observed that they looked like giant shuttlecocks from a game of battledore.

Hiccup grinned.  "That sounds interesting; I'll have to ask him if he wants help with that."

"Yep, and I'm curious too.  Problem is, none of us have any idea how to make glass, or what goes into it, so he and Heather haven't had much luck with it." 

He nodded and patched another hole, noting that the pitch was cooling too much.  The pitch was tricky to work with; it had to be kept warm in order to keep it liquid enough to work with, but if it was too warm, it got runny and wouldn't do more than outline the hole a bit or run off the oakum.  So he had to keep taking the pot off the fire and putting it back on… and his attempt to train a Terrible Terror last year to breathe fire on it for keeping it at the right temperature had resulted in a pot of burning pitch.  Attempting to train Toothless… had resulted in a shattered pot and little bits of burning pitch everywhere. 

So… he stuck with the old way of doing it.  Although he was sure that there had to be better ways. 

But the house was getting cold while he experimented.  Which was why he was stuck here with a pot of stinky, congealing pitch and a brush, hammering oakum into the cracks and then painting them closed. 

Wulfhild walked over and wordlessly took the smoking green wood from where it was sitting by the fire, and started working her way around the house, calling out cracks. 

Hiccup grinned as they worked together, grateful for the chance to try to rebuild their damaged friendship.  "You know, for a princess, you're pretty practical on these sorts of things," he said as casually as he could manage. 

"I want a warm house for the winter, Hiccup," she said back, with only a small, if genuine, smile on her face.  "And even in royal households, everyone has something to do.  Even if that's small things.  And you pick up useful skills when you spend a few years in exile from home."

"So what was that like?" Hiccup asked, painting closed another crack as Astrid stirred the pot of pitch with a scowl on her face at the lumps of pitch. 

He hoped that it was at the lumps.

"Cnut came when I was a little girl, nine or so; we had to flee over the mountains in the middle of the winter to my grandfather's court, but he didn't want to get involved, so I stayed while Magnus and my father ended up running all the way to the Rus'."

Astrid blinked, impressed.  "Over _those_ mountains?  In the middle of the _winter?_ "

Wulfhild nodded.  "It was… intense.  And that's when I learned about finding drafts and sealing them."

Hiccup and Astrid shared a look.  They already knew that Wulfhild was made of stronger stuff than she looked, but that was impressive, even by Viking standards.  Painting shut another crack, Hiccup asked, "So, what other practical things do you know how to do?"

"Sewing, needlepoint, embroidery, weaving, carding, spinning… the usual 'feminine arts'," she said with a snort, and then grimaced.  "No, that's unfair.  They really are practical, and I even enjoy making stuff with my hands.  It was just that was all I was _allowed_ to do under Einar's control."

Astrid grimaced, and Hiccup nodded.  "Well, you're not under his control any longer.  Was there anything that you enjoyed that you weren't allowed to do?"

Wulfhild slumped and looked at the floor.  "When I was younger, I was a dab hand with a short bow, good enough that, when we were traveling, I got to shoot fowl for the cookpot, and I know how to clean and prepare them for cooking.  Cooking itself…" she gave an apologetic smile at Astrid, "I'm about as good as Astrid is."

Hiccup's eyes widened and then calmed, as Astrid replied with a humorously exaggerated look of betrayal, instead of anything more aggressive.  "When did you try Astrid's cooking?" he asked carefully, as Stormfly gave a little giggle.

"I didn't, but I got warned."

Astrid stuck out her tongue at Wulfhild indignantly as the other two laughed, and then joined in with the laughter. 

"Got it.  We'll be eating at the mead hall then," he said with a smirk. "Meanwhile… Wulfhild, you said that you're a good shot with a bow?"

She nodded, whacking in a piece of oakum with the caulking hammer that had vanished from the shelf that Hiccup had put it on.  "Yes, but I'm a bit out of practice—if I wanted to get some shooting in, I had to sneak out to do it.  Einar views women carrying weapons as being something unnatural.  I still have my archery callouses, but they're fading—which he saw as a good thing."

Astrid scowled.  "Does the guy have _any_ redeeming qualities?"

"Uh…"  Wulfhild seemed to consider half-seriously that for a moment.  "He has a sense of humor?"

"Anything else?" Hiccup asked, trying to get her to vent.

Wulfhild gave another mock-considering look.  "Good taste in food?"

Astrid hissed out a breath and said acidly, "Well, we know that he doesn't have a sense of honor.  Just a sense of practicality that pretends to be one."

That killed the growing levity, and Hiccup suppressed a groan.  It had been so fragile…

But then Wulfhild grimaced and slumped.  "This wasn't even the worst part of it."  She snorted.  "What he did to… to us?"  She waved to indicate the three of them.  "This is nothing."

Hiccup blinked.  "What do you mean?"   He pretended not to notice Astrid's fist clenching off to the side.

"We're all still standing and breathing and aren't living in exile."  Wulfhild waved the stick about for emphasis, leaving little ribbons of fluttering smoke drifting through the air.  "Well, you two aren't.  I am."

_No, you aren't,_ Hiccup thought, giving her a long look, his heart aching with sympathy.  _You're not exiled.  It may feel like exile a bit… but you're_ home _.  Even if we're still figuring out the hows of it._

Astrid bit her lip and said, "You're going to have to expand on that.  Because I don't follow."

"Simply put, Einar was part of the reason _why Magnus and I were in exile in the first place,"_ Wulfhild said sharply, and then calmed herself with visible effort.  "Einar and the other jarls sold us out to Cnut, because each of them wanted to be the viceroy of Norway."

"They haven't changed," Astrid commented acidly. 

"No.  They haven't."  She took a deep breath and grimaced. "In fact, most of them are are still the same people—like Einar."

"That explains a lot," Astrid said, "like how they had the sheer nerve to send that letter."

  "My father died ten years ago in battle, trying to regain the throne when Cnut's viceroy died.  Two of the jarls fought against him and killed him.  Can you guess what Einar was doing at the time?"

Hiccup shook his head, and saw Astrid mirroring the gesture. 

Wulfhild gave a humorless smile.  "He was in London… trying to convince Cnut that he should be given the position of viceroy."

Hiccup held up his hands.  "Wait.  He went from being able to talk to King Cnut to being your brother's regent?  _How?"_

"Cnut put his wife and son in charge instead of Einar.  Einar didn't like that.  Neither did the other jarls."  Wulfhild narrowed her eyes.  "So they went and found Magnus a few years later and put him on the throne with my uncle's help.  And since 'they' included the men responsible for our father's death, Einar managed to get them exiled by Magnus… leaving him," she said lightly, with an edge, "in charge."

Astrid whistled, impressed.  "That's cold.  And yet, I'm somehow not shocked."  She nodded to Wulfhild.  "And point taken.  That could have been much worse."

Which, Hiccup reflected, was a way of saying that this situation was not good by itself.  Covering a sigh with a grunt of effort, he drove another length of oakum into a crack with the caulking hammer.  "So…" he began, casting about for a new subject, and then found one.  He shrugged.  "Wulf, want a new bow?  I'm not a bad bowyer—Gobber trained me on the basics when I was younger—and I had a thought on making recurves with some of the shed dragon horn…"

Wulfhild grinned at him, her eyes dancing.  "That would be excellent." 

"Mind you, I'm going to be experimenting.  I'm not that skilled."

"Hiccup, I'd happily try them out."  Then she motioned to her scarred cheek.  "Besides, if the bow snaps, it's not like it can make my face worse."

Astrid grimaced, but said nothing, and instead scraped at a lump in the pot, her tongue between her teeth as she worked at it.

Hiccup grimaced.  "Well, I'll do my best to keep that from happening."  He painted shut another crack.  "So… Bows.  I can get started on that soon.  Any preferences on feathers for the fletching?"

Wulfhild shrugged.  "I'm not at the skill level where different feathers make a difference in my abilities.  Maybe one day, but not yet."

"Well, we'll just ask Featherwits the Fletcher to make you a bunch of target points, sound good?"

Wulfhild nodded with a grin, and then deftly hammered in some more oakum into another crack down by the floorboards.

"So, you're thinking about making some recurves?" Astrid asked—and then gave a grunt of triumph: the lump had given in, rendering the pitch smooth and bubbly. 

"Yep.  We have some ram and dragon horn to use, and some yew wood from Ad—Alvin, and I heard that recurves are a great way to pack in more power into a smaller bow."

"Hence why I'm volunteering my cheek," Wulfhild said with a smirk.  At Hiccup's sound of protest, she smiled, bringing the thin red line of the scar into contrast.  It wasn't that bad of a scar—maybe four inches long, and thin, across her right cheekbone below her eye.  It was starting to fade slightly, but it was still red and easily visible.

She saw him looking and shrugged.  "Hey.  Don't worry about it.  I'm a Norsewoman with a dragon and a badass scar to brag about."

Astrid gave a small laugh, and then hesitantly looked at Wulfhild and gave a stunted, lopsided, but _real_ smile.  "It really is only fun if you get a scar out of it."

Hiccup rejoiced inside.  It wasn't much, but he'd take the joke and be happy with it. 

Wulfhild grinned at the two of them and filled in another crack.  "So… I know what people do in the winter back home—they drink, play games, drink, go to the sauna, drink, challenge each other to contests, drink, and sing songs and drink.  What do you do here?"

"Well, there's drinking," Astrid said with a small smirk.  "And people carve things, or roll giant snowballs to put in front of other people's doors—"

Hiccup laughed and Wulfhild blinked. 

"How big a snowball are we talking here?"

"Oh, about Stoick's size," Astrid said mildly.  "And then you just… _lean_ it up against their door."

Wulfhild covered her face with her hand, an appalled grin peeking out from under her hand; she was obviously holding back a laugh.  "Oh dear."

"Yep!" Astrid said, waggling her eyebrows humorously.  "And then the person that you gave it to loves it so much that they have to give it back, so they roll it to your door as a thank-you.  And then there's snowball fights and snowball wars—"

"Ooh," Hiccup said with a grin as he stood and handed back the pot of congealing pitch to Astrid and picked up the fresh pot in his leather gauntlet.  "Astrid, we can have a snowball fight this year without worrying about Snotlout putting ice or rocks in the snow!"

She grinned at him.  "Right!"

Wulfhild grimaced.  "He's one of those?"

Astrid shrugged and nodded.  "Yep.  But no worries.  This year…" she grinned at the dragons, who were resting on the rock shelves with a skeptical air, clearly expecting them to sag and drop at any moment, "Well, we get to introduce you and Mistletoe to snow sports, dragon style."

Hiccup gave a little laugh and Wulfhild grinned.

"I'm looking forward to it," she said, grabbing more oakum from the pile.

Hiccup gave a pleased noise as he painted over the cracks that she had already prepared for him.  His artificial foot was annoying to crouch on, and Wulfhild was getting ahead of him in preparing the cracks with oakum.  A modified joint occurred to him as a possibility, but it would take some doing, because it wouldn't be compatible with Toothless's saddle…

Blinking, he dragged himself back to look at Wulfhild.  "Sorry.  Woolgathering."

"Not a problem," she said cautiously.   "I… I actually have something to, to say to both of you."  She smiled bitterly.  "Bit of a confession, actually."

Hiccup and Astrid both cocked their heads and looked at her.  "What, did you commit some crime?" Hiccup asked, confused.

Wulfhild choked for a moment as they looked at her and then she seemed to deflate like a punctured bladder.  Then she shook her head.  "Uh…  It's a… a Christian concept."  She seemed to be struggling to put the words together.  "If, if you sin against God, you can be given absolution and grace by confessing to a priest what you did, and performing a penance."

Hiccup blinked.  "That's… huh?"  That didn't make too much sense to him.  The word she used, _synd,_ meant unjust or guilt or crime, or even mischief.  And…  "Wulfhild, did you violate hospitality or break an oath or profane against the gods or something?" he asked, because those were the sorts of things that the gods would care about and arrange your punishment for. 

She blanched, stepped back, and shook her head violently.  "No, I, I, I… I was just… argh, I'm explaining myself _terribly._   Look, um…"  She gave them a weak smile.  "I just have something that I wanted to share, but, but…"

Hiccup shared a glance with Astrid.  His wife shrugged and lightly cocked her head towards Wulfhild with curious look.

"It's okay, Wulf.  So what did you want to tell us?"  He gave her a mischievous smile, trying to draw her out.  "It's not like you were going to pull a mischief against us, right?  Plotting behind our backs?"

She stepped back, her expression aghast and bloodless, and Hiccup grimaced.  Apparently that wasn't something you joked about with Christians.  "Sorry, bad joke!  My fault!"  He gave her a reassuring smile.  "You all right?"

She nodded mutely, visibly composing herself, and Hiccup mentally berated himself for the poor attempt at humor, and, irked with himself, turned back to the caulking. 

He had just patched another hole when Wulfhild said softly, "I just wanted to say thank you.  And what, what I was going to, to admit was that I… well, I have no idea what to do with myself here, really.  I mean, yes, I'm your almoner, which seems to be a more important position here than I expected, but, but… when I said that I wanted to stay," she glanced cautiously at Astrid, who looked back, nonplussed, "I was running from where I was.  Now I'm here… and aside from being with, with friends, and, and now, well, I spent my life preparing to get sold off for a treaty or alliance, and now that it's finally here… I just feel like…"

"'Now what?'" Astrid asked softly.

Wulfhild swallowed loudly and nodded.  "Hiccup, Astrid, you're both my friends, and I'm so happy to be here.  It's just… it's not what I imagined—thank God—but… well, now I don't know what to do with myself.  Aside from being an almoner.  But I don't want to become nothing more than a title that you might have to give to someone else someday…"  She trailed off, looking anxious and vulnerable. 

Hiccup shared another look with Astrid, who was looking sympathetic. 

"I can understand that," Astrid said.  She cheerfully elbowed Hiccup in the ribs.  "I think even he might, too."

"Hey!" Hiccup protested humorously.  "I've got lots of things to think of myself as!"  He started to mockingly count off on his fingers.  "Gobber's apprentice, Toothless's rider—"

"Hero of Berk," Astrid added in sweetly.

He gave her a humorous pout that made Wulfhild laugh, which was music to his ears. 

"— _Herald_ of Berk," he said firmly, "natural philosopher, and, oh yeah, your husband, milady." Astrid snorted and Wulfhild gave a wan smile.  He turned to Wulfhild.  "So, aside from Princess of Norway and high almoner of Berk, what sorts of things do you want to make yourself into?"

She hesitated and shared a look with Astrid.  "I…"  She looked at him, eyes slightly teary.  "Hiccup."

"Yes?"

"You're the first man to ever _ask_ me that."  She shared another look with Astrid.  "And Astrid was the first woman to ask it."

"Oh.  Um…"  He held out his arms helplessly.  "I'm not sure what to say to that."  Although he definitely understood it.  Joking aside, his father had spent much time working on making _him_ into what Stoick thought he should be.  It hadn't _worked,_ but he understood what it felt like. 

Astrid commented from where she sat by the hearth, poking at another pot of pitch, "You could always join me for shieldmaid practice."

"Maybe I will!" Wulfhild said back with a sudden grin.  "Or maybe I'll become a smith like Hiccup here."

Hiccup grinned back at her.  "Sounds good to me," he said.  "Of course, you'd have to start as an apprentice…"

"Meaning…?" Wulfhild asked with comical trepidation.

"Gobber's spare hands," he and Astrid said together. 

They all laughed.

As Hiccup continued to work his way down the length of the wall, patching as he went, he reflected that this was the first time in weeks that they'd been anything resembling relaxed.

Maybe… just maybe that meant things would turn out okay? 

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

****

Starting at the Golden Gate of Constantinople—which, true to Vidkunn's word, made the Golden Gate of Kyiv look small and pathetic in comparison, in Snotlout's opinion—the Varangians marched in formation down the length of the Mese, the great main road of Constantinople.  They were escorting the new emperor to the big temple, the Hagia Sophia, for his coronation as Michael the Fifth.  The sound of their boots as they marched in step echoed off of the walls and stones of the city.  The onlooking subjects looked impressed at the display of marital might… but the part that impressed them the most was not the five thousand strong mercenary army of Norsemen.

It was the man riding on the back of a dragon at the head of the formation, right behind the Emperor on his horse.

Sigurd was riding Hookfang, and enjoying the awed looks he was getting from the people of Constantinople.  Hookfang, meanwhile, was gamely walking along behind Emperor Michael's pure black warhorse.  He was confused as to why he had to walk on the ground instead of fly, but he was going along with it and enjoying the attention as well. 

It wasn't perfect, though; while the crowds were cheering, and looking on them with awe, Sigurd barely noticed them.  Instead, he was growing increasing familiar with the face of the new emperor.  He was maybe ten years older than Sigurd, with dark hair and even, bland features, very classically Greek as far as Sigurd could tell.  The problem with that familiarity was because it came from the Emperor regularly glancing at Hookfang covetously.

And that was making Sigurd nervous. 

Eventually, they arrived at the giant domed temple.  The Emperor dismounted and was met by the same splendidly dressed priest that had overseen Sigurd's oath, and escorted inside. 

Meanwhile, as a junior member of the Guard, Sigurd didn't qualify for getting to go inside the big temple during the ceremony.  Instead, for the several hours that the coronation took, he and Hookfang got to stand outside as part of the big circle of Varangians guarding the big temple and the people inside. 

He was choosing to take a sunny look at it—literally.  Instead of being inside of the giant temple to a god other than his own, bored out of his skull, he got to enjoy the cool winter morning here, which felt like a nice spring day back home, and admire the pretty girls coming up in the crowd to look at Hookfang—and him—in awe. 

As for the weather, it was cool, sunny, with just enough clouds to keep the sun glare out of their eyes, and damp with the sea air, which helped keep the cold from feeling truly nippy.  That was, at least, the general consensus among the Varangians anyway; while nobody talked during the hours-long ceremony, the contented sighs that the other guardsmen issued every so often said enough. 

It was less than two weeks before Yule, and yet it was warm enough that sitting out on the marble steps of a temple nearly the size of Sigurd's home village wasn't a hardship.  He was so very glad that he'd come here. 

While they waited, during the short periods where there was a dearth of pretty girls around to keep his eyes occupied, Sigurd thought of his pile of loot.  He had put the spices into a new coffer in his barracks room and put the key around his neck on a chain, both bought in the marketplace yesterday.  Now that he had it, he wondered what he was going to _do_ with all of it.  Selling it in the market seemed to be the best idea, as he didn't know how long they would last before going bad, and he didn't know when he was going to go back north and sell it there. 

Hookfang was getting antsy, so Sigurd dismounted and let his friend curl up on the stone steps.  He stood at attention as Hookfang sunned himself and basked in the warmth of the sun. 

After more reflection, he decided that he'd go and sell some of it on his next day off.  Also, he'd buy some cheap jars to collect some of Hookfang's flammable spit for sale.  That would help pay for his upkeep.  Yeah, that sounded like a great idea.

He also wondered how hard it would be to get a woman here as he scanned the crowd for petty girls, and finding them, more often than not, looking in his direction. 

Pelagia's face kept arising out of his memories, and he thought about finding her and seeing if she'd be more interested in going out with a dragon rider than just a normal Varangian.  He didn't see why not; he had money and a dragon and was from a far-off exotic place.  She'd be interested in all of that, for sure. 

After several hours, with the sun approaching noon, the chief priest and the new emperor came outside.  The emperor was announced in Greek that Sigurd could barely understand, but this was his new liege lord, and on that cue, he every other Varangian present knelt and swore oath together to their new Emperor.

###

**_Ingerman House, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

Heather and Tyyni sat together, drinking mulled cider, steaming hot from the cauldron.  "So, what's the question, Heather?" Tyyni asked. 

Heather hesitated, and then said, "I heard that Fishlegs was promised to someone else before I arrived.  Is it true?"

Tyyni snorted.  "Yes… and no."  She took a deep drink of her cider.

Heather blinked and gave a pained smile.  "So… which is it?  Yes, or no?"

"Complicated."

They sat there in silence, and Tyyni took another drink while Heather's heart pounded.  Eventually, she said facetiously, "If you're going to make me drag it out of you, let me ask Fishlegs for a team of Gronckles to do the heavy lifting."

Tyyni snorted.  "Funny.  But no, I was getting my thoughts in order."  She drummed her fingers on the table.  "Horsefeathers was married already, but his wife died during the Dragon War." 

Heather had no idea what to say to that, so she took a sip of her cider instead. 

"Fishwings has ended every courtship that she's entered into, usually violently.  You may have noticed that she does not suffer fools gladly, and," Tyyni smiled slightly, "most men are fools."

"What about Hiccup?"

"What about him?" Tyyni asked, a twinkle in her eye.

"Don't make me get that Gronckle team!" Heather mock-threatened, pointing her finger at Tyyni.

Tyyni smiled into her mug.  "Hiccup… no.  While he's not a fool, it was only a few short weeks between him being a walking disaster and him becoming the savior of the village—and Astrid had staked her claim very firmly at the end of that."  She put her mug down on her stomach and gave a small smile.  "Fishwings never had a chance, and I doubt that she would have been interested in him.  But that's an aside anyway.  Fishlegs… he has always been one of the most scholarly inclined among the Ingermans in this generation.  And we are the tribe's scribes and record keepers.  It seemed natural to expect him to be the next keeper of the archives in his adulthood."  She took another drink of cider. 

"And…?  Was he promised?"

"No.  And yes."

Heather turned and pounded her head on the table.  Twice. 

Tyyni laughed.  "Not formally, not in any sense, but, yes, several others in the tribe were eyeing him as a potential match for their daughters.  We were encouraging that, as it seemed that, left to his own devices, when he became an adult, he would likely wander into the library and starve to death over an ancient book."

Heather snorted.

"Yes, and that's one of the reasons why I approve of you so strongly, Heather," Tyyni said with a smile.  "The day he came home and all he could talk about was you…"  She sighed happily and laughed.  "But, in answer to your question… yes, there were girls in the village that we were negotiating with their families to tie him off to.  Some fairly seriously."

"Did he know… when he picked me?"

"No, he didn't."  Tyyni took another drink.  "Could you imagine how he would have reacted?"

Heather blinked, and a slow smile spread across her face.  "If he weren't _mine,_ I'd pay money to see that."

"You have a low and vile sense of humor," Tyyni said approvingly, with only the barest hint of a smile at the corners of her cheeks giving away her amusement. 

"Oh, please, I'm barely getting started.  Want to hear a song guaranteed to make Freyja blush?"

Tyyni laughed again, much more cheerfully. 

Heather took a drink of her cider and said, "So… no formal promises, not even anything that you would call an… Understanding?"

Tyyni frowned.  "Yes, I suppose, but it was in the vein of 'we will put them together and see if she can get his interest.'  That much was understood."  She focused on Heather.  "And then you happened.  And he's happy with you."

Heather smiled and ducked her head to hide the color in her cheeks.  Blushes came surprisingly easy when the topic was Fishlegs.  She thought that she had lost the ability during her training. 

"So… why do you ask?  You and he are courting now.  If I had said yes, would you have broken it off?"

"Broken it?  No.  Apologized to the person who I pushed aside?  Maybe.  But now…" Heather sighed.  "Now, I don't know.  But at least I know what I don't know."

Tyyni gave her a sidelong look and said, "That is a difficult thing to know.  But I also know this: you are the woman that he loves.  And I don't use that word lightly.  Taking you away from him would break him."  She drank.  "And I won't stand for that."

_And taking him away from me… would break me,_ Heather thought to herself.  She took another sip of her cider and nodded to Tyyni.  "I don't want to inform on anybody…  but I needed to know.  Because I heard that, that…" she trailed off, not wanting to say too much more. 

Tyyni peered at her over the lip of her tankard.  "Heather.  I don't know what they're doing to you, but I will say this much to you, as you're new to the tribe: while courting couples have to be chaperoned, they also have their own protections.  And one of those is that attempting to break up a courting couple is against both law and tradition."

"I… I don't want to start a feud, Tyyni," Heather said softly.  "I just want to be left alone."

Tyyni looked at her, her lips pursed, and then sighed.  "On your head, then.  I can't force you."  She stood and got a refill from the pot for both her and Heather.  As she sat back down, she said, "Now, about that song that would make Freyja blush…"

 

###

**_Chief's House, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Astrid lowered the chest to the floor with a grunt.  "That's the last of it," she said to Wulfhild.  The sounds of Hiccup working the caulking hammer downstairs echoed; they'd be giving him some more help soon, once they got some more pitch, and cleaned off the mess from Stormfly's scales.  Astrid had no idea why her dragon had even gone after the pot in the first place—she hated the smell, and was now about as happy as a sopping wet cat. 

And she looked as pitiful as one, too.  But for the moment, until they went and got more pitch, she and Wulfhild were bringing over her stuff while Hiccup caulked with the oakum. 

Wulfhild nodded at the chest.  "Thanks for… thanks."

"Don't mention it," Astrid said, and gave a curt nod.  "It was my idea, remember?"  If they were going to do this, it was better to do it right than not at all.  And that meant having Wulfhild as close as possible.  Hence the new bedroom right down the new hallway from Hiccup's bedroom.  From _their_ bedroom _._

But it made her skin crawl a little.  She knew that she needed to talk to Ingrid eventually about this whole issue, but she was finding excuse after excuse to avoid talking with her great-grandmother. 

Time with Hiccup.  Time with Stormfly.  Talking with Fishlegs about dragons.  Talking with Stoick about the house.  The days… had managed to fill themselves with awful ease over the past two weeks, and it was easy to find another excuse.  For Freyja's sake, it was her honeymonth, and while she was getting heartily sick of the sickly-sweet taste of mead, it was _expected_ that she and Hiccup would barely leave the house, much less their bed!  And that just made it easier to find excuses and avoid that painful conversation. 

But Astrid had always considered herself an honest, forthright, and honorable person, and this shirking of something that needed doing made her uncomfortable… especially since there was no fooling herself.  She knew that she was doing it. 

Wulfhild nodded as the sound of Hiccup working below on some modifications to the stone shelves echoed up the stairs.  "And it made sense, too."  She looked very uncomfortable, and then blurted out, "Astrid, if you want me to keep away from him, I will."

A lump of ice formed in Astrid's belly, and she choked out, "What?"

"We, we did this for appearances' sake, right?  Why not keep that up?" Wulfhild asked.  "We, we could make it _look_ like Hiccup and I are, are…" she swallowed and forced out, "having relations, but we don't actually _do_ anything."

Astrid gave her a skeptical glance.  "How… how would that even _work?"_

"Um…"  Wulfhild looked shyly down at her feet and blushed.  "Well… we could have it that… that he and I go off into my space, the gossipmongers around here hear squeaky noises coming from the bed, and then Hiccup leaves and comes back to you?  Things like that?"

Astrid dipped her head from side to side.  "So, what?  Have you and Hiccup _pretend_ to be bedding each other?"  She quirked an eyebrow at Wulfhild.  "You'd be willing to _do_ that?"

Wulfhild nodded slowly.  "If it meant keeping our friendship… yes."

Astrid looked at Wulfhild and felt a painful respect for the other woman.  She hadn't been willing to make the same sacrifice, and while their situations were very different, it still came down to the fact that, as much as she tried to deny it, as much as she didn't want to acknowledge it, her honesty forced her to admit it—that _Wulfhild_ was facing 'anger and resentment from the mother of the next chief'. 

Her. 

And she was even volunteering to let her bed remain empty, something that Astrid hadn't been willing to consider. 

"I… I… if you're willing, then let's do that."

Wulfhild nodded.  "I am.  I want… I want my friends back.  Please."

Astrid felt tears stinging her eyes and looked away.  "I… I'm sorry, Wulf.  But it hurts."

There was a creak, and she heard Wulfhild's steps across the wood of the floor, walking away from her.  "It's okay," Wulfhild said.  "I don't blame you.  But… thank you.  For everything."

Astrid's heart hammered against her chest; she wanted to give Wulfhild the friendship that she deserved for the sacrifices she was willing to make… but the sight of her, here, in this space, still set her teeth on edge. 

She was afraid, and threatened, despite it all.

But rather than voice those painful thoughts, she left to head to the mead hall for a meal, even as the tension in her shoulders made her back ache. 

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

With the coronation over, it was apparently time to get right down to business.  Sigurd went to return Hookfang to his nest on the balcony when a courier arrived—he was to join Harald and the rest of his officers in a meeting with the Emperor.  Ten thousand things needed the authorization or direction of the new emperor, and Michael was getting straight to work.  And part of that involved a meeting with the Varangians. 

Now.

Sigurd leapt to obey, and he tried to be optimistic about the order.  Clearly it was because he had impressed the Emperor!

…and the growing pit of dread in his belly was something that he was doing his best to ignore as he marched over to the main palace complex from the Varangian barracks, and found Kristoffer.

Shortly afterwards, he was in a large meeting room filled with courtiers and soldiers, some standing, some seated at large, fancy tables spread around the room.  In the center of the room was the Emperor, still dressed in his elaborate coronation outfit, all red and purple silks and a laurel wreath on his head.  Sigurd couldn't understand a word of what he was saying in his rapid Greek, but it sounded like orders.  And from the reactions of the men around him in the room, those orders were interesting ones. 

Then his gaze fell on Sigurd.

Sigurd gulped.  Michael's expression wasn't friendly, or awed, or amazed. 

It was greedy.

It was jealous.

It was _terrifying._

He said something in Greek, and Sigurd didn't understand the words, but he understood the meaning well enough. 

He froze, like a rabbit faced with a wolf.

The emperor repeated himself, sounding angry.

Then Harald stepped forward and said something in Greek to the emperor.  They conversed for a moment, and he turned to Sigurd.  "The Emperor wants your dragon for himself.  You are to give him up to the Emperor immediately," Harald said in Norse. 

"I… I… No, he can't take him!" Snotlout babbled.

"He can, and he will.  If you tell him no, it won't end well for you, boy."

"Uh…" Snotlout thought quickly.  "Tell him that the dragon won't obey him, but if he gets me more dragons, I can teach him how to bond with one and how to ride."

Michael was looking impatient and barked something in Greek.  Snotlout didn't need any help in understanding it.  _What's the problem?  I want my dragon._

Harald sighed, turned and spoke to the emperor in rapid Greek, with Jorn whispering a translation to Snotlout.

" 'He can't give you the dragon, it is bonded to him and would kill you—' 'I want the beast for myself, and he's lying, obviously.'  'He says that he can teach you how to train one for yourself—' 'We don't _have_ any dragons here.'  'We were already planning on an expedition to go capture some for training.'"

The emperor paused after Harald's last statement, clearly considering.  Snotlout felt his heart pounding in fear.  They couldn't take Hookfang away from him.  They _couldn't._   He was Snotlout's _friend._   This emperor just wanted to take him away just to have him!

The emperor stared at Snotlout with a scowl; all Snotlout could hear was his heart pounding like an entire regiment of hobnailed Roman soldiers doing triple-time marching. 

Then Michael nodded; his scowl deepened, but he seemed convinced, and addressed Snotlout in Greek.  Jorn whispered, "He says that you may keep your dragon—"

Snotlout fought to keep from sagging too much out of relief. 

"—and as soon as the trapping parties return with captive dragons, you are to train one for him.  Also, you are to take him riding as you did for Harald any time he wishes."

In halting Greek, Sn… Sigurd acknowledged the immense honor of the Emperor's attention, and that he would happily train dragons for him.

With a dismissing wave, Michael turned away to the next issue, and it took every bit of self control that Snotlout possessed to keep from collapsing, or even passing out, his relief was so strong.

###

**_Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Tuffnut wandered the halls of the fort, bored.  His sister was being no fun now; she was definitely pregnant, and was enjoying the attention, both from her husband and the court, and was barely spending any time with him.  They'd been back for only two days, and it was already getting boring. 

It wasn't that Magnus didn't like him.  It was more that Magnus liked Ruffnut more.  A lot more.  And, hey, Tuffnut could appreciate that.  They were married and went at it like rabbits.  He was happy for his sister.  Really, he was. 

He just… missed her.  He'd gone from being half of a complete whole to… well, half of a broken whole, or something.  He supposed that that was life—the same thing had supposedly happened to his dad and his uncle Chestnut when they'd started growing up—but it didn't mean that he _liked_ it. 

As much as they fought with each other, she was still his _twin._   They'd spent nearly every hour of every day of their whole lives together… and now they weren't. 

And so… now he was bored. 

The court skalds were cool, though; they knew all of the stories, and he had managed to corner them a few times since they'd gotten back from Berk and get them to tell him more sagas.

A weird language that wasn't Norse came around the corner and he paused.  It was deep, quick and guttural, and Tuffnut's eyes widened in interest. 

He poked his head around the door, to see Mark Leosson and Vladimir talking, with a couple of Vladimir's thanes following them behind.  Upon seeing Tuffnut, Mark rolled his eyes and made a shooing motion, and continued his discussion with Vladimir. 

Then Vladimir asked something—or at least Tuffnut assumed it was a question.   Mark sighed and nodded.

Vladimir smiled and gave him a polite nod of the head.  "You are Ruffnut's brother, da?" he asked.

Tuffnut nodded, and quirked an eyebrow.  "We're twins."

"Excellent.  And you have dragon of your own, just like Mark here, da?"

Tuffnut nodded. 

"Could I ask you questions about dragons and dragon riding?  If you are not too busy."

Mark, off to the side, was keeping his face studiously impassive.

"Sure.  I'm not too busy," Tuffnut said, and then an idea occurred to him.  "Hey.  Can you teach me your language while we talk?"

That took Vladimir back a bit.  "You wish to learn Rus'ian?"

"Is that what you call your language?"

"Da.  We are land of the Rus'."

"Then, yeah, I want to learn it.  It sounds cool, all growly and guttural."  Tuffnut grinned wider.

Vladimir cocked his head, as if puzzled.  "You… you want I teach you my language, in trade for talk to me about dragons?"

"I'll _talk_ about dragons… but I want to do it in your language."

"Ah."  Vladimir nodded and grinned.  "Ah, Mark, see, you say that you are too busy!  And Tuffnut here is not.  This will be good way to pass the time!"

Mark gave a brief chuckle and nodded.  "I'm glad that worked out for everyone then, sir."  He turned to Tuffnut.  "I'll leave you two to it then," he said and walked off. 

Vladimir clapped him enthusiastically on the back.  "Come!  I teach you Rus'ian!  I teach you great songs and dirty jokes and fine stories and romantic poems!"  He smirked.  "Just don't confuse them, eh?"

Tuffnut affected a dumb look.  "Dirty songs and great stories and fine poems and romantic jokes, right?"

Vladimir's smirk grew deeper, and he chuckled.  "I think I will like you, yes?"

"I hope so!" Tuffnut said.  "So, how do you say _dragon_ in Rus'?"

" _Drakon,"_ Vladimir replied, grinning. 

Tuffnut grinned back, and the lesson started in earnest as they went down the hall to find a spot to settle in. 

Ruffnut was going to be so jealous when he could sing sagas in more languages than she could!

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

It was two long, arduous hours later when Sigurd and the other Varangians finally left the council chambers.  Sigurd had barely followed most of what had happened after his confrontation with the emperor.  The bulk of his impressions were that there were a great many orders being given, but for what, and to what purpose, he had no idea.

They had only just reached the stairs as Harald reached over and seized Sigurd by the arm, and then shoved him by the shoulder, backing him into the wall.  "I just stuck my neck out for you, boy.  You now belong to _me._   Am I clear?" he said in Norse.

Sigurd nodded mutely.  He was still shaken by what had happened back in the council chamber.  He felt like he was falling without the benefit of riding a dragon—and watching the ground rise up to meet him.

"Good.  We are loyal to the office of the Emperor, not to the person, and he is only in that office because Empress Zoe has no spine.  And if you think you can show up in this empire with a treasure like a dragon and not become a valuable playing piece on this board, you are a _fool,_ and a danger.  You are now _my_ piece, do you understand?  I will work with you, I will protect you, because you are _mine."_

Sigurd nodded again.

"Good.  Now, listen.  You need to learn Greek, and you need to learn it now.  Also, boy, are you a pagan or a Christian?"

Sigurd stammered out, "P-p-pagan."

"Then you need to convert.  Tonight.  If the emperor found out that a pagan owned that dragon, you would be dead and he would take your beast."

"But…"

"Boy.  Your gods are far away and can't help you here.  We are in Constantinople, one of the centers of the Christian world.  If you do not bow down and acknowledge the Lord Christ, your beast will be taken from you and you will die, slowly, and at the hands of men who have made an art out of making the pain last as long as they can manage."

"I… I…"  He bowed his head and sighed.  "How do I do it?"

"We will take you to our priests and have it done before sundown, just in case questions are asked.  You are too valuable to be lost to the dungeons and the amusements of the torturers.  We need your knowledge on dragons."

Sigurd swallowed hard at the mention of dungeons and torturers. 

"Next, how long will it take you to train dragons?  And are you needed for the capture?"

"Uh… not too long."  Sigurd thought back to his initial training with Hookfang the year before.  "Maybe a few weeks?  It's training the people to work with them and getting the dragons to learn how to work with people that's the harder part."  He swallowed.  "I don't need to go with them for the capturing, but I will need to build a training space here."

"I see.  And, finally, boy, you need to learn the gameboard here, because I have too much to do to move you.  Am I _clear_?"

Sigurd gulped and nodded.  "Yessir."

"Good.  Come on.  Time for you to grow up and abandon dead gods."  He clapped Sigurd on the shoulder—hard—and started to walk down the stairs. 

Sigurd hesitated a moment, feeling sick and stunned, and then followed him. 


	34. Masses In Motion

**_Trigger Notes:_ ** _Mention of physical mutilation_

**Chapter 34: Masses In Motion**

_The era of the Papacy between 904 and 1046, typically referred to as Saeculum Obscurum (Latin: Dark Age), is generally accepted to be the lowest depths of the Catholic Church's moral authority in its recorded fourteen centuries of history from Constantine I.  During this time, beginning with the installation of Pope Sergius III in 904, and ending with the final deposing of Pope Benedict IX in 1046, the Church was controlled by a series of powerful and corrupt aristocratic families, who used the ecclesiastical power of the Papacy to increase their worldly influence, and visa versa._

_Corruption during this period was the norm, especially in the senior ranks of the Church, who set the trends for their underlings.  Routine acts of corruption during this time period included the sale of Church offices and roles (simony), the sale of indulgences, framing scribes with secular crimes to force them to take Holy Orders, bribery, extortion, blackmail, cronyism, and the occasional assassination, as well more personal venality on the part of the individual priests._

_—The Second Flowering Of Yggdrasil: An Analysis Of The Norse Resurgence, 1710_

**_December, 1041_ **

**_Mugna-Moschenog Monastery, West of_ ** **_Dubh Linn, Eire_ **

 

Alvin the Treacherous, formerly King Adalwin of Vedrarfjord, pounded on the monastery's door in the pouring cold rain with his fist, and was considering switching to using the hilt of his dagger if someone didn't open it soon.  It had been a long walk across the Eirish wilderness to get here, including an annoying detour around the Chill Mhantáin mountains south of Dubh Linn.  And, this being Eire, the rain had drenched him for nearly the whole way.

It was a beautiful island, yes, and he still planned on being its High King one day, but… it could have done with a _little_ less rain.  It was barely past midday, and the sky was a dreary mass of gray clouds dropping a steady stream of rain.

When there was no response—and no sound, other than the rain dripping into puddles—he pounded on the door again. 

Eventually, it opened, and the door warder looked at him. 

"Who goes there?"

"A humble traveler in need of a safe place to stay."

"We're full up and this ain't an inn.  Go'way."  He made to shut the door and Alvin held out his hand.

"Wait.  Tell your abbot that the man he spoke for is here, and in need of his help."

"Why should I?"

"He'll want to hear it—and he'll be upset with you if he found that I was left out here."

The door warden gave him a curious look, and shrugged.  "Aye, I'll tell him."

The door slid closed, and Alvin shivered in the rain. 

A long few minutes passed, and then the door opened again.  "Come in," said the door warder, looking disappointed, and motioned for Alvin to step inside.

He did, luxuriating in the dry and warmer air before taking off his insufficiently waterproof cloak and hanging it on a peg.

"The abbot will see you now," the door warder said, a note of irritation in his voice.

"Excellent service," he said with a grin at the man, who seemed… uncertain as to how to take it.

He followed the warder into the monastery, ending at the abbot's door, which was exactly as he remembered it from a few years earlier.

Entering the abbot's chambers, he nodded to the warder, who scowled and shut the door.  Turning to the abbot, he bowed politely to the man and sat.  The chair was a little looser on him than it had been last time he'd been here, but he hadn't exactly been able to get regular meals during his hike across Eire.

"Well, that went well," he said observationally. 

The abbot snorted.  "Got yourself dethroned, more like it.  Now what do you want?"

"Well, it occurs to me, Cináed, my old, _dear_ friend, that Rome will want to know about what just happened.  A group of pagans _did_ just conquer a Christian city."

"And your cover got blown in the process," Cináed said primly. 

"Aye, but they're a bunch of pagans.  I can always claim that it's an attempt to discredit me in order to legitimize their takeover.  Who would the Pope believe?  A bunch of devil worshipers persecuting the Faithful, or the attested and substantiated," he looked at the abbot meaningfully, "legitimate king of Vedrarfjord, come to tell the holder of Saint Peter's Throne about the dangers of the pagans from firsthand experience?"

"I see.  So that's your scheme this time?  You want me to smuggle you to Rome with letters of introduction, then?"

"It worked before," Alvin said reasonably.  "Besides, do you _really_ think that the pagans won't actually do what I'm going to accuse them of?"

Cináed growled.  "You are very good at twisting things, old friend."

"I know."  He preened.  "It's a gift.  And you're one of the few that actually gets to appreciate me."

"Because I have something you want."

"Well, aye, but if I killed you, you wouldn't be useful to me again in the future."

Cináed laughed humorlessly.  "Aye, that's your logic, isn't it?"

"If I go down, so do you, old friend.  Come now, I'll bring an army back up to Eire, and we'll burn out those pagans and take their dragons away from them, and I'll make you court chaplain of the new king of Eire."

"Feh.  Like I'd survive three weeks before my throat would sprout a blade."

"Oh, please, do you really feel that I'd respect you so little as to not take at _least_ three years to unravel all of your little countermeasures?"

"It occurs to me, now, Alvin," Cináed said, shifting in his chair, "that I could just make you… vanish, right now if I wanted, and remove you permanently from my side."

"Aye, you could… but then you'd still have dragon-riding pagans to deal with, plus _my_ countermeasures."

Cináed stared at Alvin for a long, long moment.  Alvin merely smiled back, nonchalant, projecting an air of complete confidence, even as his shoulders itched and he prepared to leap out of the chair and use the dagger in his sleeve.  He and his old friend had last parted on the best of terms—promising that they'd kill each other if the opportunity ever arose. 

But then Cináed looked away and sighed.

"Fine.  I will aid you this time, but do not darken my doorstep again without an army at your side, or I will toss you in the sea with a slit throat and take my chances, am I clear?"

"Thank you, old friend.  It's so refreshing to work with you again."

"Feh.  Get out.  I'll get you your papers and coin before nightfall.  I don't trust you under my roof at night."

"Much obliged," Alvin said with an insincere smirk, before standing and going to the door.  "By the way, old friend, I only counted eight knives within arm's reach.  You're slowing."

Cináed smiled thinly.  "You missed two."

"I did?" he looked around the small office, and, smiling, he sought out the hiding spots for the last of the hidden knives.  "Ah.  One there.  Two there.  And three _there._ "  He nodded at his old friend, with the acknowledgment of his ploy, and left, chortling.

###

**_Meadhall Kitchens, Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

"Heather, what is this?" Magnhild demanded, dipping a spoon into the bowl and coming up with a chunk of diced meat that had clearly gone off—it glistened green and she imagined that she could smell it already. 

Heather's heart sank.  She thought that she'd been covering her prep area from sabotage well enough.  She'd been wrong. 

Magnhild dug the spoon deeper into the bowl of chopped raw meat and vegetables; it was one of the new deep wooden ones made by the lathe that Hiccup had designed, and the sides were still polished and smooth from the carver's chisels.  Another chunk of spoiled meat was produced by Magnhild's digging and placed on the countertop.  "Heather, I know you're more careful than this.  Did someone else do this?"

Heather caught Twiglet with a triumphant expression on her face, standing behind Magnhild's back.   She considered saying something, but a sudden memory came boiling up.  Toiréasa glaring poisonously at her after Heather had informed to Adalwin what she'd been doing…

She shook her head.  No.  Her days of informing on people were past her.

"No?" Magnhild asked.  "No one did this?  This was your own mistake?"  Her voice was skeptical.  "Heather, someone could have gotten very sick if this had reached the main dishes.  As it is, this entire bowl is tainted and will have to be thrown out."  She leaned in.  "Are you sure that you want to claim responsibility?"

Heather swallowed dryly and said nothing.  For a moment, she was back in Adalwin's office, trembling and trying not to show fear as he questioned her, circling around her, hitting her with a staff if she looked down or away or hesitated. 

She swallowed dryly again, feeling like she was choking, remembering what he'd done when she'd refused to answer him in defiance. 

But she also remembered what happened to the people she had informed on.  And that was harder to get past. 

Magnhild seemed to realize that Heather wouldn't be answering her after another few moments, and then scowled.  "On your head, then.  Heather, you're docked the cost of the ingredients in the bowl from your pay."  Heather felt her heart sink.  That was prime beef shoulder chuck.  "Go and get fresh, _now_. We're serving beef stew to the high table tonight."

Heather scampered, painful memories flashing through her head, even as she saw the ugly looks of satisfaction on the faces of what seemed to be half of the men and women in the room.  She darted around Sven the Fat's skinny frame and was out the door, heading for the pantries. 

Once she was alone in there, she sank to her knees and burst out sobbing.  She couldn't.  Just couldn't.  Having someone with power over her, demanding that she denounce a peer or be punished?  Holding someone else's fate in her hands to be punished on her say-so?

She inhaled another ragged gasp of denial.

No…  Never again.  Never again!  She could take the punishment herself.  She deserved it… maybe not for this… but for what she'd done before…

She ended up lying on a sack of cabbages, her knees tucked up under her chin, sobbing. 

They called her a traitor, and a danger.  Well, they weren't wrong.  She had been both, once.  But, with the gods as her witnesses, she would do her best to keep them from being _right_ from here on out!

###

**_Fort of Einar Thambarskelfir, Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Tuffnut, twisting his face a bit, chanted in Rus'—or at least he tried.  The syllables were strange and odd in his mouth.  Around him, Vladimir—now his own distant kinsman by way of multiple marriages, come to think of it—and his guards sat back with sardonic expressions and listened as Tuffnut did his best to recite a simple children's counting song. 

"How did I do?" Tuff asked after reaching the end of the song.

"Not so good.  Your voice grates, you swallow half the words, and rest…"  He grimaced.

"What about the rest?"

Vladimir sighed.  "Rest, you shat out like bad meal."

"Cool!  That's better than I was doing before!"

"Indeed.  Again!"  Vladimir began to sing, and Tuffnut did his best to follow along as a few of Vladimir's Rus' guards made amused comments.  Then Tuffnut did another round himself.

"Better!  You shat out only third!  So, now, tell me about Dragonlord Hiccup some more.  I am not meet him for more than few minutes when I visit Berk," Vladimir said.  "He is hero, yes?"

Tuffnut grinned.  "Well, what does 'hero' mean?"

Vladimir pondered that for a moment, and then said in a contemplative tone, "Kill enemy, take their land, protect own land, win glory?"

Tuffnut mused on that for a few moments of his own.  He sat back in the comfy chair, and poured himself a drink of ale in the small side room where he was getting his language lessons.  Taking a slug of ale, he then nodded. "Yeah, I guess he is then.  He got a saga and everything.  Including the girl."

Vladimir rolled his eyes.  "Always girl there is.  Is that why our suit is rejected?"

"Yep.  Sorry, but he loves Astrid," Tuffnut said… neglecting to mention that Wulfhild was now Hiccup's concubine.  Thaaaaaat was something that Vladimir could find out from someone else. 

Vladimir shrugged.  "Ah, well.  So, tell me about battle with the English."  He leaned forward eagerly.  "You were there, yes?"

Tuffnut nodded.  He'd been one of the bombing crews, dropping the firecocks on the ships below from Swift's back.  He'd woken up from nightmares of that night three times since then.  Tuffnut would admit that he wasn't the nicest or most moral of guys out there, but that had been like spearing fish in a barrel. 

Screaming fish.  Screaming, begging, pleading fish.

And the nightmares were worse now than other nightmares he'd had when he was younger… and a large part of that was because, when he woke up in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat, the person that had always been there to help him get through it was missing. 

But rather than show weakness in front of the Rus', he shrugged and grinned.  "Yeah.  So, one of my friends went a-viking last spring, and raided this _burh_ down in England.  Then the English king heard about Magnus and panicked, thinking that Magnus was going to put his entire army on dragonback and come conquer England."

Vladimir cocked his head from side to side thoughtfully.  "Is not Magnus's style, but I see why he thinks that."

"Well, when he heard that, he got something like a hundred and fifty longboats together, took every fighter he could get his hands on, gave them all bows, and came to kill us."

"How many men in total?" one of the guardsmen asked. 

"Eight thousand," Tuffnut said with a tone of false modesty.  Yeah.  As nightmarish as that night had been, Berk had the backhanded compliment of being seen as so deadly that such a degree of overkill was needed.

One of the other guards whistled.  "So, what happened?"

"Well, it was really, really awesome.  We ran into a bunch of archers on the first attempt, and we couldn't get close enough to attack them, and then we ran back to home, and then everyone was running everywhere, and people were freaking out over what to do, and then Hiccup showed them exactly _why_ they call him the Hero of Berk, created a new weapon like that," he snapped his fingers, "and we blew up like a third of them in the middle of the night!"  Tuffnut grinned wolfishly. 

The Rus' men looked at each other uneasily, and then Vladimir said, "Wait.  A _third?_ "

"Yeah.  Well, maybe more like a quarter.  We captured a bunch too, and the rest ran away," Tuffnut said with glee.  "The best part was Hiccup and Toothless just _snatched_ the king right off of the deck of his ship!  I saw it—one second, Harthacnut is standing there, trying to do the whole 'you don't scare me, I'm the big bully-king' act and then Toothless and Hiccup zoomed on through and left his sword behind where he'd been standing, and I could hear the king screaming as they carried him off."  Tuffnut pinwheeled his arms.  "'Save meeeeee!  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!  AaaaaHHHHHHHHHHH!  SAVE ME!'"

One of the guards burst out laughing, and Vladimir grinned.  "So, what then?"  The other guard raised his tankard to his mouth, smiling.

"Well, the rest of the fleet ran away, and then we captured everyone that we could, and ransomed them.  Hiccup got the ransom for the king."  He paused dramatically, waiting for the guard to take his drink.  "A hundred thousand pounds silver."

The guardsman choked on his ale, and his buddy sitting next to him thumped him on the back.  Tuffnut, not bothering to hide his smile, took another drink from his mug of ale. 

Vladimir just mouthed the words _one hundred thousand pounds silver._   Then he slapped his knee and said, "Well!  Harthacnut's mistake can be lesson for us, yes?  Perhaps Dragonlord Hiccup would be interested in trading with the Rus', when he has so much silver?"

Tuffnut grinned.  "He doesn't have it anymore."

There was a pause. 

"What means 'he doesn't have it anymore'?  How… what did he do with it?  Toss in the sea?"

Tuffnut took another drink, and then said between swallows, "Bride price."

The room was dead silent aside from the sound of him swallowing his ale.

Vladimir waited politely for him to finish drinking, and then said, "I think I am misunderstanding you.  He uses some for bride price, yes?  But he still has most of it for trade?"

Tuffnut shook his head, grinning.  "Nope.  He got it, took Astrid off to a side room, proposed, and then gave her parents 'the sum entire' for her bride price right then and there."

One of the guards made a strangled noise of disbelief, and Vladimir looked like he was in agreement with him. 

Tuffnut acted like he hadn't noticed and said earnestly, "Yeah, it was really awesome."

Vladimir leaned forward.  "My Norse is not so good as I wish, so please, I try again."

Tuffnut made a magnanimous wave.  "Go ahead, my good man."

"Dragonlord Hiccup gets one hundred thousand silver in ransom for capture Harthacnut, king of Britons and Danes, yes?"

Tuffnut nodded.  "Yep."

"All right.  Then right away he takes money, proposes to wife, and gives all one hundred thousand pounds silver as _bride price?!"_   Vladimir's voice got a little high there at the end. 

"Yep.  Astrid _squeaked._   It was _hilarious."_   _Kinda like how you're squeaking hilariously now,_ Tuffnut thought.

Vladimir looked much like Tuffnut's dad had, that time when he'd opened the door to the twins' room to find Tuffnut half-naked and covered in honey and bird feathers.  Of course, Thicknut had taken one look and promptly closed the door again.  Meanwhile, Vladimir looked like he couldn't turn away out of horrified fascination. "All ransom.  All.  _Bozhe moi.  Nu ohuet teper.  Nu ti dajosh!"_  Tuffnut cocked his head attentively, eager to learn the Rus'ian swear words.  But Vladimir didn't repeat himself, but instead turned back to Tuffnut and said flatly, "Bride price all ransom," his accent having grown much thicker in the last few moments.

"Yep!"

"For wife."

"Yep!" Tuffnut grinned.  "Everyone thought he was nuts, but, hey, that's Hiccup for you!  He doesn't know how to do small!"

"And wife… worth so much?"

"To him?  Yeah.  He's been interested in her for years."

"Wife…" he hesitated, said something in Rus'ian, and tried again, "From king?  Noble?  Great alliance?"

Tuffnut thought that over for a moment.  "I mean, she's from one of our clans, but they're really good allies anyway… so… not really?"

"Then why? Why so much pay?"

"Because he loves her, and wanted to show it.  I thought it was cool.  Like something out of one of the sagas."  He set down his tankard and fiendishly drummed his fingertips together, deliberately setting himself with the most hammy evil grin he could manage.  "They were all standing there, and she has this look on her face like, oh, I don't know!"  _Well, actually like yours, but even more stunned._   "But the bride price was the whole ransom and a city!"

Vladmir glared at him, which Tuffnut met unflinching, still wearing his evil grin, and they held gazes until Vladimir blinked.  "Either hero crazy, or you lie."

"Oh, he's crazy," Tuffnut said with an even wider grin, "but it's a good crazy."

"I… well.  We make another try of song, yes?"

"Sounds good to me," Tuffnut said with a grin, and started doing his best to do the children's song again.  This time, he only shat a handful of the words, as Vladimir and the guardsmen continued to share incredulous looks.  

###

**_Berk Smithy, Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

Hiccup was cheerfully working away in the forge on his latest project—which would be success number two, after his latest attempt at making a flight suit had reset Astrid's challenge back to null—humming to himself.  Toothless and Stormfly were curled up nearby, enjoying the heat from the forge, while Astrid had actually climbed up onto one of the roof beams directly over Hiccup's head and was lying down on it to read a book, making occasional comments and noises of surprise or intrigue that piqued Hiccup's curiosity. 

He was just about to ask what she was reading when he heard Fishlegs yelp and something clattered from the attached lean-to where they'd put his glass-making experiments. 

"You all right?!" he called out.

Fishlegs appeared at the door a minute or so later.  "That was unexpected."

"What was?" Hiccup asked, not lifting his head up from the fiddly joint he was working on.

"Um… can I show you?" Fishlegs asked.  "It's kinda…"

"One moment and sure," Hiccup said, his tongue between his teeth.  It had taken him a bit of work to forge a round iron ball and attach a collar around it. 

"Uh…  Hiccup?" Fishlegs said.  "I really… well… umm…"

Hiccup sighed and put the experimental joint down on the table carefully, and stood. 

Fishlegs motioned him energetically into the attached lean-to.  Hiccup walked over, saying, "What is it… Oh, for the love of Thor…"

The iron cauldron that he'd made for Fishlegs to experiment with had _melted._   It was currently a glowing puddle of mixed iron and glass goo in the furnace, and a small rivulet of molten metal and glass was dribbling out and onto the floor.

"How hot did you _get_ it?!" he demanded, immediately running over and starting to bank the fire in preparation for quenching it—tossing water on the furnace right now would literally make the hot stones explode. 

"I was trying to get the sand to melt!" Fishlegs said despairingly.  "So I kept working the bellows, and it seemed like it was starting to melt, so I did it some more, and then—"

"The cauldron melted?" Hiccup said disbelievingly.  "How _hot_ is it in there?"  He ran over to the smithy and grabbed an iron shovel, and then went over to the glass furnace and shoved it in, trying to get as much of the soft iron and molten glass into it as he could.  Holding the shovel at arm's length, he staggered back over to the smithy and then paused.  Now what?  He _really_ didn't want to have to clean off the pan of the shovel if he let this mess cool on it. 

Well, there was one option…

Cringing at the thought of the mess that was about to happen, he stepped awkwardly forward, held the shovel at arm's length, called out, "Everybody, hold on, this might be messy!" and dumped the whole amorphous mass into the quenching bucket. 

A massive cloud of steam billowed up instantly, followed by a cracking noise that reminded Hiccup of hearing lake ice crackle in the midst of deep winter, and he felt several fragments of iron or glass hit his leather apron. 

Fishlegs stood staring by the door, as Hiccup went over to the tool rack, got a wide chisel, and started to scrape as much of the glass and iron off of the shovel as he could manage before the stuff hardened further. 

The two dragons were looking at the quenching bucket as if it had personally threatened them, and Astrid was peering over the side of the roof beam, an inquisitive look in her eye.  As Hiccup worked at cleaning the shovel, he glanced up at his wife and said, "This doesn't count against your challenge!  It wasn't my fault!"

She grinned and got back to her book as Hiccup chiseled off of cooling glass and iron until he had gotten most of it.  He then put the tools back, and turned to Fishlegs with a deadpan expression.  "So… let me get you a proper crucible.  Because I _don't_ think iron is going to work.  Not when I think that it's pretty clear that iron and glass both melt at around the same temperature."

Fishlegs nodded, looking contrite.  "I… I uh… I could pay for the damage, and for the crucible?"

Hiccup nodded and looked down into the bucket, and then winced.  "It looks like they exploded.  Lots and lots of little bits."  He shrugged. "I'll fish it out of the bucket and you separate them?"

Fishlegs nodded, still looking embarrassed. 

Hiccup shrugged and walked over to Fishlegs, and clapped him on the shoulder.  "Eh, don't worry about it, 'Legs.  Neither of us got hurt, and the only loss was the iron cauldron.  I'll go see about scrounging you up a crucible or something; I know Gobber has a spare around here somewhere…"

Still shaking his head, he left and made for the storage tunnels.  Wow.  That wasn't something he'd been expecting to see today. 

###

**_Chief's House, Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

Stoick sat down at the table in his hut, a mug of hot mulled cider in hand, followed by Griselda and Murray, their hands wrapped around their own mugs.  They were both looking better than they had a month and a half ago; there was a bit more flesh on their bones, and the new clothes they wore helped hide their remaining gauntness.  They were also both freshly cleaned from their baths on this fine early winter Washday, as was Stoick. 

Gobber was already at the table, his tankard hand filled with steaming mulled ale, and gave his gap-toothed smile to the pair of freedmen. 

Stoick held out his tankard over the center of the table.  "To Odin, for the foresight to reach this season; to Thor, for justice and protection; and to Frigga, for the bonds of family, be they born or found.  We thank yeh for yer blessings.  Skal!"

The other three adults echoed his toast and drank. 

After the first pulls from the mugs had quenched their thirsts, Stoick said, "Now, thank yeh both for coming."

Murray nodded cautiously.  "Yer the chief.  Kinda hard to say no to that."

"Aye, but I am not a tyrant," Stoick said mildly.  "I asked, and yeh came.  So thank yeh."  He rubbed at his face and hair with his free hand.  "I am not Alvin or Adalwin or whatever yeh want to call that monster who abused yeh and yer daughter.  Yeh're freemen here.  I called yeh here to talk about yer plans, nothing more, nothing less."

"Our plans…?" Griselda asked hesitantly. 

"Aye," Gobber said.  "It's been a month and a half since yeh came, and yeh've been mostly livin' off of Heather's savings, and doing odd jobs here and there.  But Heather said that yeh were the chieftain and chieftess of Claonaig… and, so far as we know, yeh haven't told Clan Murchadh that yeh're alive."

Murray and Griselda looked at each other hesitantly, and then turned to Stoick.  "Have yeh been having us watched?"

Stoick shook his head.  "No, but rumors spread anyway.  But tell me that I'm wrong, then.  Have yeh?"

The pair had another glance, and then shook their heads.  "No, we haven't," Murray finally said.

"And why not, is what I'm wonderin'?" Stoick asked politely.

"Because… well…"  Murray sighed.  "This is hard to say.  For several reasons.  Can I ask why yeh're asking?"

"Because I consider yer daughter to be part of my tribe.  And she's courting a friend of my son's, who is the likely future steward of my fief.  And because," Stoick shrugged gamely, "I _did_ rescue yeh both from thralldom, torture and death.  I figure a few questions are fair game."

Both of them winced, and Murray grimaced.  "Fair," he choked out.  He took another sip of his cider, and then said, "No, we haven't informed Dagur that we're alive."

"Why not?" Stoick asked.  It was like pulling teeth, but given how nasty and vicious Alvin had made his fief, Stoick wasn't terribly surprised.  He'd reminded himself repeatedly about the need for patience before calling this meeting. 

Murray looked down into his mug and then took another long pull.  Putting the mug down on the table, he said, "Because Dagur wants to kill my daughter."

"I've heard of his reputation—" Stoick said, and then Gobber interjected.

"Aye, crazy as a whole squad of berserkers, and would just as soon kill yeh as shake yer hand or call yeh friend!"

Griselda hissed.  "Sounds about right."  She looked to her husband and put her hand on his. 

Murray nodded, and said, "Yeh consider me daughter to be part of yer tribe?  Well, I thank yeh, but yeh should know what yeh're gettin' into."

"That's why we're here," Stoick said, spreading his arms by way of illustration.  "So, let's start with the basics.  Why won't yeh tell Dagur that yeh're alive?"

Murray fiddled with the handle of his mug, not meeting Stoick's eyes, and then said, "To be honest… I'm not that great of a chief.  I knew it, and I've had a long time to think on it.  I would rather stay here and help raise Heather and Mhairi and any other kids that we have, rather than go through _that_ again. … uh, no offense, chief."

Stoick laughed, deep and from the belly.  "None taken.  So, where were yeh going with that?"

Murray shrugged.  "Well, that's first.  I remember the bunch of ingrates I had to deal with, and I'm not in a hurry to go back there.  Plus…" he gave another shrug, much more dismissive this time.  "I already got captured and made into a thrall because I let the defenses lapse and the defenders go undrilled.  That seems to be a pretty strong statement as to my skills as chief.  So I don't want to go back.  But the other reason, the real reason, the reason that I'll tell _you,_ and not others that ask, is because Dagur is insane, and I want to keep his sister as far away from him as I can manage.  Right now, we're safe in obscurity.  Giving up chiefing is hardly the limit of the sacrifice I'm ready to make to keep her safe."  He sighed and crossed his arms.  "Gods know that I would have died to protect her during the last three years if it would have made any damn difference."

Griselda put a hand on his arm and they both seemed to deflate a bit.

Stoick nodded.  "I understand that.  So… yeh want to keep Heather safe from Dagur?  Can yeh give me the history there?"

Griselda scowled.  "Not much to say.  Oswald was a good jarl, and a good man, once he became a father.  He was once Oswald the Antagonistic, always ready to make war at the drop of a hat—"

"He shot a man's hat off once to declare war, actually," Murray said helpfully.

"—and then mellowed.  Oswald the Agreeable he was.  But his son was even more aggressive than he was.  One day, Dagur and Oswald went off into the woods on a father-son hunting trip.  And they came back out, Dagur alive, Oswald dead, with Oswald gnawed by wolves, and with the remains of the shaft of one of Dagur's arrows sticking out of his chest."

Stoick and Gobber shared a look, and then turned back to the pair, intent and curious.  "Surely it was an accident!" Gobber said.

Murray snorted.  "Hardly.  He _admitted_ it.  He _boasted_ about it.  He shot his own father and slew him in a fit of pique!"

"So then how is he still chief?  How did he get yer people to accept a kinslayer?" Gobber asked, incredulous.  Stoick nodded in emphatic agreement. 

Murray scowled.  "He was already the heir, and a skilled warrior that had impressed many with his prowess, and many people had been chafing under Oswald's agreeableness.  Others, I'm sure, were seeing him as a youth that they could manipulate."  He snorted derisively.  "Although it would be easier to get the tide to not rise than to manipulate Dagur."  He drummed his fingers lightly on the table, and Stoick noticed that the nails on his middle and ring fingers were half missing, and the last joint of his little finger was gone.  "With Oswald dead, there was a Thing to elect the new Jarl at the funeral.  And enough of the chiefs and other speakers backed Dagur that he was in as Jarl.  But then he turned to me and demanded Heather back."  Stoick looked carefully at Murray, but the man seemed lost in his recollections, his eyes distant and his brow tight and pained.  "Said that he  'wanted to keep his sister safe'."  He abruptly slammed the table, making everyone jump.  "Their father's cold body was still in the hall!  And he had the _gall_ to demand his sister be put in his power?  What, so that he could kill her too and make sure that there was no other heir!?" There was a vein standing out on Murray's forehead and his face was turning red with fury. 

Stoick reached over and gently patted Murray on the shoulder, and the man calmed.  "What did yeh do?"

Murray harrumphed.  "What else could I do?  I spat in the kinslayer's eye, picked my ten-year-old daughter up in my arms, and fled the hall as he screamed bloody murder at me, held back from violating hospitality by his own men.  I got what few allies I had to watch my back.  When I got home, Griselda and I told her that she was our girl now, and promised that we would raise and protect her as our own."

Stoick toasted with his mug.  "Heh!  Murray, I think that yeh and I will get along just fine."

Murray flushed slightly and said, "Thank yeh.  And thank yeh for fulfilling my oath for me.  Because I couldn't protect my daughter from the raiders that came and captured us, or from Adalwin.  But yeh could.  And I'll say this much: to the idea of trying to become chief again and bringing Dagur's attention back to his sister?"  He spat into the fire, which hissed.  "I'd rather my daughter be safe here, and me be a scullion or whatever other duties are needed around here, than tack Heather up as an archery butt for her brother to take potshots at."  He scowled.  "I'm damn near certain that those pirates were hired to attack our village and keep Heather _far_ away from the succession!" 

Stoick covered his eyes with his hands.  "Aye… about that…"

"What?" Murray asked.  "Do you know something?"

"Um…" Gobber started to say, and then hesitated.  "Well, yeh see… it might be a little bit hard now to find that out."

"Why?" Griselda asked.

Stoick sighed and said quietly, "Hallr the Stone and his crew are dead and buried."

Murray looked as if Thawfest had come early, and Griselda actually gave a small cry of triumph… and then the dawning realization that they wouldn't get answers for that question grew on their faces.  They both looked at Stoick intently, and Griselda asked, "What happened?"

"A Francian knight tried to kidnap my son for ransom, using Hallr's crew as the muscle he needed."  Stoick smiled thinly.  "They failed, and Heather accused them of being the ones that took her as thrall in the first place."

Gobber grinned nastily.  "Aye, and they were all thinking that they would get sold off and freed elsewhere—and then they found out how we view thrall-takers as being little better than murderers here on Berk. They hung in the sacred grove before sunset, and were buried in an unmarked grave before dawn."

Murray looked awed… and relieved, while Griselda looked satisfied.  Then Murray shook his head and said, "Well, it doesn't matter any longer, then.  If Hallr was hired, then Dagur will find out sooner or later.  If he demanded us back, what would yeh do, Chief?"

Stoick smiled unpleasantly.  "The same thing I always did when we freed thralls before the end of the Dragon War: Tell the messenger that if he or his lord wants some of my people, they had better come armed, in force, and prepared to lose a lot of bodies.  Because we aren't giving them up any other way."  He took a final drink from his tankard and slammed it on the table, empty.  "And the last man who tried that earlier this year came with a force culled from two kingdoms.  And we sent it fleeing for its life.  My _son_ sent it fleeing for its life.  And my son considers your daughter a friend."  He placed his elbows on the table and then rested his chin on his hands.  "Aye, if this Dagur the Deranged wants war with Berk, it will be nasty, memorable… and short."  He lifted his head back up off of his hands.  "But what else can yeh tell me?  Because I hope it doesn't come to that."

Murray nodded.  "Not much to tell.  He's oathsworn to King Donnchad, who liked to use him as his enforcer—or maybe attack dog."

"King Donnchad?" Gobber interrupted.  "Isn't he dead?"

Murray blinked.  "The king is dead?  When did that happen?"

"Last year, during late summer; he died on the battlefield after attacking Mac Bethad," Stoick said.  "About a month or so before we battled the Green Death."

Murray blinked again, looking stunned.  "Well.  The things you miss when you're a thrall."

Gobber snorted.  "Aye.  Mac Bethad is king now.  He hasn't really paid attention to us, but we've been getting traders from his lands regularly."

Murray's eyes widened and he narrowed his lips and exhaled in a long stream through his nose.  "Well, that's not surprising.  He was the king-in-waiting, and I guess he's waiting no longer.  And I doubt that things have changed there.  Dagur, unless he declared war on his own king, will be his strong sword arm."  He shrugged a little helplessly.  "I wish I could tell yeh more, but all of my news will be nearly three years out of date." 

Stoick nodded.  "Well, I appreciate yeh telling what yeh can.  So, what it is that yeh _want_ to do, or can do?"

"Well, I have skill with the shield and sword—or at least I did," Murray began, but Stoick shook his head. 

"While that's good, do yeh have any practical skills?  Carl skills?  We need skilled hands these days more than we need sword-arms."

Murray blinked.  "Uh… beyond what I did as a thrall, not much."  He shrugged philosophically.  "I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  I'm not young any more and in poor health—"

Gobber rolled his eyes.  "Murray, it's not like that.  We just don't keep thanes and carls separate.  Everyone has fighting skills, everyone has handy skills.  It's what was needed."  Stoick nodded in agreement.  Elsewhere, thanes were the trained warriors bound to the jarl, and carls were the freeman workers.  On Berk, they had needed every hand, for both labor and fighting, and the two classes had merged long before Stoick's birth.

"I, uh, I see.  Well, I guess I had best start learning a trade," Murray said, and smiled.  "I meant what I said before.  Yeh need me to be a scullion for Heather and Mhairi's sakes, and I will scrub pots from sunup to sundown."

Stoick grinned.  "That won't be necessary.  We get dragons to do the pot cleaning.  And I'm sure that I'll find something for yeh to do.  Or yeh'll find something on yer own." 

Murray nodded.  "In the meantime, should I get yeh another drink?"

Stoick beamed at him and handed over his tankard.  "Aye, please!"

###

**_The_ ** **_Naos tēs Hagias tou Theou Sophias, Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

Sigurd, feeling strange, filed into the Hagia Sophia with the rest of the Varangians.  It was Sunni's Day.  The Emperor had died on Thor's Day, and Michael the Fifth's coronation had been on Frigga's Day. 

And yesterday, on Wash Day, he had been taken to a small temple—well, small by the standards of the palace complex—where a priest and a small number of witnesses had been gathered.  He'd been given a white robe, and then brought over to the small pool at the head of the temple.  There, he'd been daubed with oil by the priest on his forehead, chest and back, after some very long prayers.  Then he'd been completely dunked in the water by the priest three times, which hadn't been that weird, all things considered.  It _was_ Wash Day, after all.  But then he'd had some more very long blessings said over him, made to walk around the pool three times, had more blessings said over him, had the ends of his robe soaked with water from the pool, and then had four locks of hair cut from his head, along with _more_ prayers, all in rapid Greek. 

Then, once it was over, Harald had handed him a wooden cross on a necklace for him to wear. 

And now apparently he was a Christian.  What that meant, he had no idea.  But he'd been told that he should take a new name, as apparently the old him was now dead, and he'd been reborn as a Christian.  So he'd reluctantly told Harald and the priest his name… and been confirmed as Sigurd Trondsson in their eyes as his Christian name.  That had been surreal. 

Once they'd done that, he'd been released as if nothing had happened, free to go about his life—although Harald had admonished him to come to this _blot_ in the Hagia Sophia today, and to make a point about doing so every week into the future.  But other than that, they were acting as if nothing had changed.  He was even back on his normal duty cycle. 

Lacking better options, he'd managed to corner Benjamin the previous night to ask what in Hel's name he was supposed to do now.  But Ben… had been less than helpful, apparently on his way out to go deal with something, and had pushed him back in the direction of the priests.  Which was the last thing that Snotlout wanted to deal with—he needed to know at least the basics to fake it, or he wouldn't be able to hide as a Christian.  And if that happened, then the Emperor would find out and then…

That line of thinking always ended up sending him into a near-panic, so he focused on what he did know.  Which brought him to where he was now. 

Specifically, now he was attending his first big _blot,_ called a Mass or something, and apparently there was to be a sacrifice of the god's flesh and blood, which was weird, and which he would have to eat and drink, which was gross.  But he had been told that part was towards the end of the _blot_ , so he just sat, fidgeted, tried to listen, failed, and tried to mimic the words that everyone else was speaking, and stayed quiet while the priests chanted.  Just to blend in.  Blending in was good.  Blending in meant no losing his best friend while getting tortured. 

The temple was huge, with the entirety of the inside being one gigantic room under the enormous dome, which stretched high above them.  He remembered Oddmund's awe at services in this place, and felt that he could understand—the place was pretty magnificent. 

After the service was over—the promised blood and flesh had turned out to be a piece of bread and a sip of wine, which was weird—he went and found Kristoffer as quickly as he could, and caught the senior man on the front steps of the temple.

"Sir…?"

"Yes, Sigurd?"

"I… I need help to fulfill Harald's orders."

"Which ones?"

"I need to learn Greek, fast, and I need to learn what's going on around here… and," he leaned in and whispered, "I need to know what it means to be a Christian."

Kristoffer laughed, and not kindly.  He led the pair of them off to the side, into the gardens between the Hagia Sophia and the smaller temple where he'd been baptized yesterday, the Hagia Irene.  As they moved into the bushes, he said, "I see.  You've landed in the deep waters, boy, and you've only now decided to learn to swim?"

Sigurd flushed.  "I was supposed to be a guard!  I thought part of the whole point of the Varangians is that we don't get involved in Roman politics!"

"Aye, but _you_ showed up with a dragon, boy.  _You_ are the one who showed up with _power_ , and a kind never seen before."

Sigurd took a deep breath.  "Can you help me, sir?"

"Oh, aye, I can help you.  I just want to be first or second in line for my own dragon when the time comes.  That's my price."

"Line right now is Emperor and Harald.  You can have third," Sigurd said.

"Fine.  That's a queue I don't want to try to jump anyway."

"So, Greek?"

"Start with politics first, boy.  I'll find you a tutor for the language.  I hope you weren't planning on having any free time in the near future."

 "Okay, then, politics.  What can you tell me?"

"Well, you're in the mess of it.  We have a new, young emperor, nephew of the old one, and he's undoing half of what his uncle did, starting with banishing his _other_ uncle, John the Eunuch."

Sigurd twitched.  "Wait, that's his actual title?"

"Aye, boy.  He's a beardless one.  They do it for a bunch of reasons, mostly for the guards for the women's quarters in the palace, although John ran the Imperial Orphanage.  But John is ambitious, and has… _had_ a strong grip on the Empress's attitudes.  He's one of the Emperor's _other_ uncles, you see, and he's spent the last ten years and more getting his family into positions of power, starting with his brother and moving on to his nephew."

Sigurd blinked.

"He's gone now, banished.  It was practically the first thing the Emperor did—along with making sure that the rest of the men of his family are no threat to his rule."

"…How?"

Kristoffer smiled unpleasantly.  "Well, lad, you see, the Romans have this belief that an Emperor must be physically perfect in order to serve as the anointed leader of God."

"…And that means?"

"Having no balls disqualifies you from the position," Kristoffer said with cruel relish. 

For a moment, it didn't make any sense to Sigurd.

Then Snotlout got it, and gagged, almost wanting to throw up into the small pond nearby.  He turned away, gulping air, trying not to disgrace himself, even as Kristoffer looked at him, cruel amusement on his face. 

Resisting the urge to cover that part of himself, he turned back to Kristoffer and said incredulously, "He didn't."

"No, he did.  And those were his own family men.  Well, eunuchs now.  That was done yesterday.  He's also banishing others and bringing back people that his uncles banished."

"Why?"

"Because he wants to have people that owe _him_ in places of power, boy.  We're in trouble, actually.  Before, with Michael the Fourth, Harald was high in his councils and esteem.  That makes us a danger to Michael the Fifth.  That meeting where the Emperor wanted your dragon?  That was the first, last, and only time he's met with Harald, one of his greatest generals, since he took power two days ago.  He's cultivating other Varangians as his personal guard, and our centuries are no longer in favor."

"What about the Empress?"

"She's a weak-willed woman.  The only things she has any eye for is pretty baubles for her neck and pretty men for her bed.  She's had dozens of lovers, and had her first husband killed because he no longer came to her bed.  She cares not one whit for governing the empire, leaving that to her husbands—and now her adopted son.  She takes the credit, though."

Sigurd grimaced.  "Great.  So the Emperor is going to hate me because I'm working with Harald?"

"Probably."

"And the Empress, what?  Just sits around and tries to have kids?  Isn't she in her sixties?"

"Aye, and apparently early in her reign, she tried all sorts of amulets and potions to conceive and continue her dynasty.  None of them worked.  She and her sister are the last two members of the Macedonian dynasty, and they're both well past their child-bearing years."  He shrugged.  "Probably in the next ten or twenty years, the Varangians are going to have an interesting time picking the next dynasty that gets to be Emperor.  I personally hope to be back in Sweden by then, a rich man, with a wife and three nubile concubines."

Sigurd snorted and then grinned.

Kristoffer looked at him.  "Aye, like you don't have similar ambitions?"

"Well… there was this girl…"

"Always is," Kristoffer said sarcastically.

"And my cousin managed to get there first, for some reason."  Kristoffer laughed, and Snotlout scowled at him before continuing.  "He's this little _twig,_ and I could snap him with one hand, and well, he doesn't have any strength or skill at arms, just a crappy Viking, and I figured that it was charity or something.  But when I went to protect her honor from him, she told me to go away and never come back without an epic saga to my name, or she'd laugh in my face.  So… I'm here."

Kristoffer threw back his head and gave a deep belly laugh.  "Oh, you poor, deluded _fool!_   Oh, this will be glorious to see!  Come, boy, let me help you in your own self-destruction!"

"What?"

"You're like something out of one of the old sagas!  You're destined either for greatness or glorious failure, and I have to wonder which one it'll be!"  He wiped at his eyes with a sleeve.  "You vowed to impress the girl with your epic saga, in order to woo her away from your cousin.  And so you came to Constantinople.  Of course."  Still laughing, he started walking.  "Come, boy.  Let's get you educated so that your tale may have a proper ending." 

* * *

**A/N:**  I hope that everyone has a Happy New Year! I started posting this fic nine months ago, and it's been vastly enjoyable watching the reactions and realizations as the plot unfolds. And I will continue to post chapters through the next year. I will continue with my Sunday update schedule, although I do plan on taking the occasional month off to avoid burnout and keep my buffer as full as possible. But with 52 weeks in the upcoming year, even without those planned hiatuses, I have enough material drafted at this point to continue posting weekly through to  _next_  New Years! So don't worry, I'll still be here!

As a side note, since I've noticed people speculating: The Byzantines-what we later called the Roman Empire that Snotlout is now working for-are the primary pushers behind the recent rating change. Because, yes, they were very fond of chopping off bits from people's bodies. Michael V, Snotlout's new boss, did indeed have his father, brothers, and remaining uncles castrated. Emperor Basil II, the great emperor that has been mentioned several times already in this fic, once captured 15,000 Bulgarian soldiers during his conquest of Bulgaria in 1014-and rather than kill them, he blinded 99 out of every hundred, and left the hundredth man with one eye to lead the rest back to their king, Samuel, who had a stroke at seeing what had happened to his men. He died two days later. And that's just one example of the sorts of horrible atrocities that one can find in this era of history. And while I'm not going to dwell on those acts, I'm not going to sugarcoat or ignore such acts either-although I will be courteous and warn people via the trigger warnings at the head of the chapters that such material is incoming.

Also, to put people's minds (somewhat) at ease, no, I'm not going to mutilate Snotlout (or, at the very least, I currently have no plans on doing so). But he's going to find out that being a bodyguard for the Empress and Emperor of the Roman Empire is not all glory and riches, and he's going to find out the hard way.


	35. Understanding Is A Three-Edged Sword

**Chapter 35: Understanding Is A Three-Edged Sword**

_In contrast to Hiccup Haddock's skills as a polymath and inventor, Fishlegs Hensteethson clan Ingerman (clan Frelsifrædi post-1061) was a natural research librarian (devising a crude but effective library classification system in his 20s) and polyglot, with a literate skill level in a dozen confirmed languages by the time of his death, and likely many more.  A significant part of the explanation of this skill level was simply early conditioning—the Ingerman clan held the unofficial position of being the Hooligan tribe's dedicated scribes, librarians, and archivists, and Fishlegs grew up surrounded by books.  However, even by the standards of his clan, he was exceptional, and the primary explanation for this was his own interest and talent._

_In his adult role as Haddock's royal librarian, Ingerman also presided over the founding of the Royal Library of Berk (later the Library of the Grand Thing), the establishment of several imperial universities, and the copying and dissemination of every book that he could get his hands on.  The monastic libraries of Ireland in particular, having faded from their glory days of the sixth to ninth centuries, were explored, revived, consolidated, and expanded under his aegis as part of an active campaign of scholasticism._

_—A History Of The Isles, Oxford, England, 1591_

**_December, 1041_ **

**_Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

Heather pulled herself out of bed, and stretched.  She yawned, did her stretches to keep herself limber, took out her knives and practiced with throwing them at the target she'd set up at one end of the bedroom.  She was able to get them all into the hand-sized piece of soft pine, even when standing ten feet away, and once with her eyes closed.  Then, both to test her limits on how well she could throw in unusual positions and just for amusement's sake, she attempted a final throw while standing on one foot and having her other foot touching her back. 

The knife whirled through the air, missed the pine by over a foot, hit the wood of the wall, bounced, and clattered to the floor. 

Sighing, she retrieved it and took a look at the wall, finding a very small dimple in the grain.  If she'd made that throw at a man, that would have only lightly gouged his skin and pissed him off unless she'd gotten lucky and severed a surface artery. 

Ah, well, it was a test anyway.  And now she knew that she lacked power and accuracy without being able to use her proper form with both feet on the ground and the ability to twist her hips to follow through with the throw. 

She grabbed the second of her two shirts—she was currently wearing the first one—and then hesitated.  Something was wrong.  She let go of the shirt, and then took a closer look at it, trying to figure out what it was that seemed off. 

Gingerly, she picked up the shirt, pinched between two fingers, and carefully lifted it to her nose.  It didn't smell off…  but there was something wrong about the seams…

Cautiously, she laid it out on the floor—not on her bed, as her first impulse had suggested, because if there was some taint here, she'd rather not spread it to where she was sleeping, thank you—and stretched it out.  The problem quickly became apparent—the seams were far too lumpy, especially under the armpits. 

Moving carefully, she turned the shirt inside out.  Then sighed, and swore, as a dozen or so brambles and other dried prickles came into view, crude stitches holding them in place, just right for her to get stuck and jabbed in tender spots if she had just thrown the shirt on. 

Scowling, she used the tip of her knife to cut the stitches free, and then spent several more precious minutes plucking all of the brambles and burrs free from the cloth.  While she worked, she checked to see what else might have been done to her clothing, but couldn't find anything.

One thing was for sure, though.  She was going to buy a lock from Gobber as soon as she could.  Because this was getting ridiculous.  On the positive side, at least Twiglet and her cronies weren't smashing up her room.  Although, she supposed, that would just lead to her getting sympathy—the village didn't have too many cases of burglary, it seemed.  Until she got the lock, though, she was giving serious consideration to taking Windshear out of the stables and putting her in the bedroom as a guard-dragon.  The problem there was that Heather's room was on the small side for the large silvery dragon. 

She donned the shirt, and then pulled on her pants, after first checking to make sure that there had been no surprises in them either.  They were clean.  Then she checked her boots, carefully—she'd found raw eggs in the toes yesterday after she'd taken them off for Washday at the bathhouse.  They were clean as well, which was good—she didn't want to have to buy new boots, either. 

Then it was over to the mead hall to help with the morning cooking shift.  The harassment today was more mild—Magnhild was getting suspicious, and was practically camping by Heather's workstation.  But that made Heather more anxious.  She didn't want the others to think that she'd been tattling to Magnhild. 

Really, she just wanted to be left alone.  Why was that so much to ask for?

Eventually, her shift finished up, once they'd done the prep for the evening meal.  She cleaned up her workspace, grabbed a tray, loaded it up with lunch for her and Fishlegs, and headed down to the smithy to help him with his glassmaking experiments.  He generally spent his mornings helping with the thousands of dragon eggs in the Broodery, organizing things in the supply tunnels, and scribing in the Ingerman archives.  But the afternoons were _theirs._

She walked into the forge, and gingerly stepped past Gobber, Hiccup, Astrid, and Murchadh, who were jointly manhandling some large arcane device, obviously in the process of assembling it—it looked like a pair of giant metal rolling pins mounted on a frame that would hold one above the other. 

Gobber nodded shortly to her as she stopped at the far side of the forge.  "He's in there, lass.  Got in a few minutes ago."

She nodded in acknowledgment and, balancing the tray on one hand, knocked with the other.  "Hey, love, I'm here…"

The door was flung open a second later, and she blanched—Fishlegs was looking at her, his face red, teeth clenched, and his nostrils flared.  He curtly motioned her in.  She noticed that there were two pieces of a broken charcoal stick in his hands, and it looked like the middle third might have been reduced to powder in his fist. 

"What's wrong?" she asked, suddenly scared.  This wasn't like him.

He took a deep breath and visibly calmed himself.  "It's… here.  Look," he said, and he pointed at the writing desk, where there were two pieces of parchment tacked to the board next to each other. 

Giving him a worried look, she cautiously stepped in, put the tray down, went over to the desk, and then started to read. 

She recognized the parchment on the left immediately—it was her own observation notes on glassmaking from the other day, including the point that sand and iron melted around the same temperature. 

She glanced at Fishlegs, who was visibly fighting to calm himself, taking deep breaths and holding himself stiffly, his motions over-controlled and jerky.  What was going on…?

She turned back to the desk and looked at the second piece of parchment; it was much lower quality—there were still bits of unshaved hair on it. 

She started to read it over, trying to determine what it was about it that had obviously infuriated Fishlegs so intensely. 

Immediately she quirked an eyebrow.  Well.  _Someone_ out there was missing a racy and explicit letter, addressed to Dogsbreath clan Jorgenson. 

Well, it was racy and explicit by Hooligan standards, talking about what they did together and planned to do later.  Whoever it was actually had some creativity, it seemed—especially the detail about the woman's hair, she noted.  But their handwriting needed work; it was sloppy, imprecise, and uneven, which made parts of it nearly incomprehensible to read, with distorted runes… that…

Her eyes bugged at the signature at the bottom.

It was supposedly from _her._

_Looking forward to tomrrw,_

_Hetder nio Osvalb_

She whirled to Fishlegs, seeing him standing there, looking furious.  "I found it on the floor by where we hang our coats…" he said, his voice tight and angry.

"I didn't write it!  I didn't!" she blurted. 

She glanced back to the desk, the reason for the layout of the two next to each other suddenly clear. A wave of cold went right through her, and her stomach clenched in sudden fear.

"Oh, _gods,"_ she breathed and unconsciously backed away from him as her blood chilled and her stomach dropped.He had checked her handwriting against the letter.  He had believed it enough that he had needed to check. 

But her reaction seemed to shake him. 

"Heather?"

"I didn't write it, I swear—"

He blinked and the angry tension in his shoulders suddenly went away.

"Wait… you thought I was angry with _you?"_

She flinched… and, not taking her eyes off of him, nodded. 

He stepped forward, and she twitched, and fought the urge to reach for one of her knives.  This was _Fishlegs._   He was fighting to control himself.  She could do the same… and it wasn't as if she hadn't already done him grievous bodily harm.

He held up his hands and said, "I know it wasn't you.  I know.  I checked.  That's not your handwriting." 

She let out a breath as the worst of the tension started to fade, and lowered her arms slightly, fighting for calm in the center of the sudden storm. 

Then, moving cautiously, he ever so slowly reached out and pulled her into a hug, which she molded herself into.  He started to babble apologies to her, and his hug tightened unconsciously.  "I'm sorry I suspected you.  I'm sorry I didn't trust you.  But I found it and I saw red.  And now I'm furious with whoever wrote it.  And I'm sorry that I made you afraid of me," he gushed out, as she held on tight to him, the pair of them rocking back and forth. 

But his arms were also like iron bands around her chest from the increasingly crushing hug.  "Fish," she gasped.

"Yes?"

"Air.  Need air."

He released her, looking sheepish, and said, "Sorry."

She inhaled deeply and said, "Accepted.  And you don't need to apologize to me, love."

"But I do!  I should have trusted you!" he said furiously, his face still red.

"Fish… the fact that you checked showed that you trusted me enough to not just believe it.  And thank you for that," she said, and glanced at the false love letter. 

"Do you know who wrote that?" he asked, following her gaze.

She shook her head.  "No."  _Yes._   "But I can try to find out." 

###

**_Inbhir Nis, Mormaer of Moray, Kingdom of Alba_ **

King Mac Bethad looked up from the report in his hand to the assembled privy council.  They were meeting in one of his private chambers with him and his wife, the walls insulated with a layer of Gruoch's favorite green linen. 

"The boy is offering to have his dragons carry _mail_?" he asked in a disbelieving tone.

"Aye, milord," Raghnell said.  "We've heard it from that merchant, Johann, and from Harthacnut's nobles, and apparently Magnus has already put a system into place for it; there have been reports all across the Highlands about seeing regular flights of dragons across their skies.  We've even seen some stop here in Inbhir Nis, for rest on their first or last leg of their trip from Berk to Nidaros."

"Well, of course his allies will actually use it as a mail system.  It will offer them such wonderful cover when they use it for scouting against the rest of us," offered Taskill.  "It's what I would do."

"Aye.  And given that he's already shown a pattern of using deception to sneak forces in for conquest, like they did to Vedrarfjord, I can't see any other reason for them to offer this other than to acclimatize their enemies to the presence of dragons in preparation for a strike," the marshal said.

There were nods around the table, including one from Queen Gruoch; she was silent for the moment, but Mac Bethad had no doubt she was listening closely. 

"Well, the trader offered to help fund mail stations in Alba.  Do we take him up on it when he comes back around?  Or even approach the Hooligans directly for the stations?" Raghnell asked.  "It makes sense for them to want us to host them."  He snorted.  "It's less than a hundred miles from Inbhir Nis to Berk as the dragon flies, after all!"

"Aye, and that's the problem," the marshal said quietly. 

Mac Bethad scowled, considering.  "I can see arguments both for and against allowing them bases here," he said after a moment.  "The strongest 'for' aspect is that we will know where to look for them and where to keep an eye on them, as well as having a spot to engage in a counter-ambush when it becomes necessary.  The best way to deal with an ambush, after all, is to act as if you haven't seen it and attack just before they spring theirs." There were more nods of agreement, ranging from the enthusiastic to the cautious, from the usual suspects.  "Against is obvious, however; we deny them the right to scout out ahead of time."

"If we do that, milord, we also announce that we are aware of their plans,  which means that they will come up with something else," Taskill said. 

"Aye, there's that.  Hmm…"  He considered for a few more moments.  "Allow them to build.  We will keep a close eye on them, and, when they appear to massing for their strike against us, we will attack first, slay the riders and take their steeds for our own use, allowing us to fight back against their second wave."

"Very good, sire," Raghnell said, making a note. 

Taskill leaned in.  "We can also assume that any mail that we do end up sending through their system will be intercepted and read.  While we should certainly make use of their system, to avoid suspicion if nothing else, anything of importance that we send by their dragons should be written in cipher."

There were more nods. 

"What about the offer for construction aids?" Raghnell asked.  "Those could be very helpful."

"I don't trust them anywhere near the fortresses or other military points," Mac Bethad said, scowling.  The thought of a dragon rider being able to casually fly over a training ground to count how large—and _where—_ his forces were was a terrifying thought, and the Hooligans had demonstrated that they would use their dragons as scouts; that was how they had caught Harthacnut's fleet before it had arrived. 

"All right.  What about using them for civilian buildings, and putting the serfs who would be involved in construction there to work on the forts?  We still get the advantage of improved building techniques," Raghnell asked insistently. 

"And we make ourselves look that much more attractive for later conquest if our tax income starts to increase from the use of those things that they _help_ us build; this is clearly a ploy to have us build more at our cost so that they can come in later and know what to take over and where it is."

"But if we _don't_ take advantage of the offer, again, not only do we alert them that we're onto them, we will lose ground in the short term against other kingdoms that _do_ take advantage of that offer."  Raghnell leaned in and looked around the table.  "Berk is not the only threat out there, and even with Harthacnut hamstrung, we should not pass up the chance to improve our own tax base.  If nothing else, we need the taxes to be able to keep the men that we recruited from Harthacnut's army paid, as well as recruit and provision any other warriors that we add to the standing retinue."

Gruoch scowled.  "So, if we accept his offer and have his dragons carry mail and build up the kingdom… we become that much riper for later conquest.  But if we do not, then we open ourselves to being conquered by someone else who _did_ accept that same offer?"

Raghnell scowled and nodded.  "That seems to be the size of it, yes, milady."

"Damned if we do, damned if we don't," muttered the marshal. There were angry mutters in agreement at this.

"So what _do_ we do, then?" Gruoch asked, looking around the table.  Mac Bethad grunted in support of his wife's question. 

The men around the table all looked at each other, until Raghnell spoke up hesitantly.  "Might I suggest aiming for the middle?  We could build up, say, Inbhir Nis, Glas-gou, and Dùn Èideann, perhaps using the dragon labor to build a toll road between the three along the River Ness, Loch Ness, and down south, which would drive significant taxable traffic—and allow us to rapidly deploy troops between our three largest cities.  But our population is so small that I doubt that we would be the richest prize for conquest."

"But we are their neighbors…" Mac Bethad mused.  "I do like the idea, though.  Consider that approved.  A road between them, and as much industry as you can get going."  He smiled grimly and then a thought seemed to occur to him.  "Additionally, when we have a road through the highlands, we could cut a spur off of the road ourselves, and put an army training ground in a more sheltered place, where it would be unlikely for a dragon rider to stumble across it.  Yes.  I like it."

"Very good, sire," Raghnell said.  "I'll get on that.  As for that training camp, I take it that you still plan on increasing the size of your retinue?  The cost will be significant, even with taxes from a high road."

Mac Bethad nodded.  "Aye.  We don't have much choice.  We need to be able to defend ourselves in case of attack—especially against dragons."

"Speaking of which, how goes the training for fighting against dragon riders?" Gruoch asked.

"Well, from what we heard from the survivors of Harthacnut's fleet when they stopped here," the marshal began, "massed archer fire continues to be effective against dragon attacks, so I've been focusing on recruiting and training as many archers as I can, as well as mandating bow practice for the village levies.  But that assumes that they use the same tactics that were used in the first wave attack that was repulsed—flying in close so the dragon can breathe fire—and _not_ whatever hellfire weapon they unleashed in the second attack.  The only conclusion I have there is that we will have to rebuild the forts out of stone—"

People started protesting, and he raised his voice and continued, "Out of _stone,_ and with overhanging roofs to block them dropping rocks on our heads from a thousand feet above, like they did to Harthacnut's men!  Otherwise, we have nothing that can stop them from simply hovering overhead and dropping stones on us until we're crushed and buried!  We wouldn't even have the ability of a ship to _dodge!_ "

"But the cost—!" Raghnell said, his eyes wide.

"Cheaper than a new kingdom," the marshal growled. 

They all started shouting at one another, until Mac Bethad pounded on the table to restore order.

"That's enough!"  He turned to the marshal.  "We cannot afford such an expenditure."

"Then either surrender to him now and hope that he's feeling generous like Cnut was, or find the money by building up the kingdom by using the boy's offers and turning them against him, because, otherwise, _we cannot fight him._   Jarl Mildew is telling us that it will be _years_ before the dragons he stole are big enough and strong enough to ride, and, even then, it will be a dozen dragons against thousands.  The day he decides to conquer this kingdom is the day we either die or bend our knees.  It is as simple as that."

Mac Bethad scowled at his marshal.  "Truly?  Truly?  You are advocating for surrender and defeatism?"

"No, milord.  Just facts, and the fact is, we cannot fight him as things stand now.  He smashed a fleet with a larger army than we could possibly muster, and we have no weapons that will be able to strike a dragon from the sky while it hovers there and drops stones on us.  The only way to defeat him now is to either get enough dragons of our own, take away his, or find some other means of strengthening us or weakening him."

"Or strike at the man directly," Taskill said.

"The best way for us to do _that_ has decided to leave for _Greece,_ " said Mac Bethad, and Gruoch snorted in agreement.  "Fomenting a clan war would be the best way to weaken them, but, of course, our best potential figurehead decided to go off and join the _Romans!_ "

"What about removing him directly?" Taskill asked.

"That leaves us with the chief, and given that he conquered a city for attacking one of his tribemates, we would be _lucky_ if he only killed us for murdering his son," Raghnell said testily. 

"What about getting someone else to do the removal for us, or making it appear as such?" Taskill asked.  "He is known to be adventurous.  An ambush at a campsite, especially properly framed, could send Stoick after the wrong target of our choosing."

There were approving murmurs to that.  "Who would you suggest?" the queen asked, her tone contemplative. 

"Harthacnut is certainly a possibility, and it wouldn't be that difficult to believe—or even manipulate him into attempting to do so, and he _does_ have a reputation already as an oathbreaker and tyrant," Taskill said. 

"We would be caught in the middle of a war between them, though… or not.  Right.  Dragons.  Not foot soldiers," said the marshal, looking bemused at his assumption falling to pieces in the middle of his statement. 

"Harthacnut wouldn't be as easy to manipulate into a second conflict, though," the herald cautioned.

"That's why we don't manipulate him.  We _frame_ him," said Taskill reasonably. 

"Won't that be too obvious?" asked Mac Bethad.

"Depends on how we do it.  But I wouldn't try Magnus—they're too close with one another—and they don't have grievances with anyone else yet," Taskill said.

"What about the Empire?" Gruoch asked.

"Why would Emperor Henry have any reason?  Nay, Harthacnut is our best target to frame," Taskill said reasonably.  "He's been beaten, ransomed, and had his kingdom sucked dry.  It would make complete sense for him to attempt an ambush to take out his hated enemy." 

Mac Bethad nodded.  "Aye.  And he's vicious and stupid enough to do it on his own."  He drummed his fingers on the table.  "It is a good plan.  Foment a war between Berk and England, and let us clean up the pieces, especially if our first move is to take their genius off of the board."

There were nods and murmurs of approval at that suggestion.  

###

**_Mead Hall, Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

With a sinister, yet oddly friendly smile, Gobber set down the stack of parchments in front of Wulfhild.  "There yeh go, lass!  Ah, it feels good to not have that job any more!"

She examined the stack, and slumped a bit.  "I'm going to need your help first.  Please don't just dump it on me and leave!"

"Aye, aye, alright," Gobber said, still smiling.  "Lemme get somethin' teh drink and I'll start goin' over this with yeh."

"Thanks," she said. 

He sauntered off, singing about how he was a viking through and through, and she took the topmost sheet. 

Her literacy wasn't the best, but she had enough skill to recognize accounts and figures.  These were for past years for Berk, tracking food supplies and the number of available beds against the people.  Since these were also Gobber's own notes, there was information on taxes in there as well—who had paid what was needed, and who had contributed more—like food or labor—to the general pot and needed to be reimbursed.

His handwriting wasn't superb, but it wasn't the worst that she'd seen, and she was able to puzzle out most of the details by the time he got back—with a large book under his other arm. 

"Here yeh go, lass," he said as he sat, handing her the book.  "Our written laws."

She blinked.  "I… wow.  I knew that Berk had written them down, but…"

"Aye, it's still odd to see, isn't it?  But we lost a few too many Lawspeakers.  That," he thrust his chin towards the book, "won't get drunk and go charging at a Monstrous Nightmare armed with only a kitchen knife and dressed only in its undies."

She blinked and started to giggle at that image.  "That's… oddly specific."

"Ayep.  Me great-uncle Griplout, back before I was born.  Great Lawspeaker.  Stupid drunk," Gobber said with a note of fond familial pride.  "But, point is, yeh see, now yeh also don't need to go bother Bladewit, as our senior Lawspeaker, unless yeh have a specific question on somethin'."

Wulfhild swallowed.  Bladewit terrified her.  The woman was over seventy years old, and was still hale and hearty enough to have participated in the fighting against the dragons until the very end of that conflict.  Not bothering her was a _good_ thing. 

"So, lemme see here…" Gobber said, and flipped the book open, and then found the relevant pages.  "Aye.  So, now yeh're in charge of makin' sure that everyone in the tribe gets their Food Rights and Bed Rights.  And here's the stuff that we have to lay out what that means…"

He tapped the parchment, and Wulfhild took a closer look at the beautifully scribed text.  It was a detailed mass of specifications.  Each adult would have a minimum amount of food per day equal to a loaf of bread made of one and a half pounds of flour or the equivalent, with a list of possible substitutions.  The same went for the food for children and elders.  For sleeping, the specifics were that there had to be a dry and warm place to sleep; it had to be long enough for the sleeper to sleep stretched out head to toe, wide enough to allow for them to have their hands at their sides without hitting anything, warm enough that 'a pan of water the size of a man's outstretched hand and filled to the first knuckle left unattended by the wall from sunset to sunrise will not freeze' and weatherproofed enough that the rain dripping from the ceiling would not fill a bowl of a given size in the same period. 

She looked up at Gobber, turning her gaze from the page.  "Don't tell me that you or Stoick actually go around and measure everyone's food and beds like this."

He shook his head.  "Nah.  It's in there so that, if someone is shirking or hoarding supplies, the chief or clanheads can bring a suit on behalf of others to point out that this-and-this-and-this family needs these number of beds and this much food to fulfill the requirements, so hand 'em over.  We learned the hard way that leavin' it up to people's charity means that only their kin get help, and then we have a clan war when one family is starvin' and freezin' and the others are warm and fed.  Plus the freedmen get f… _hurt_ first."

She nodded.  "They'd be the poorest, after all." 

Gobber nodded.  "Ayep.  So now it's gonna yer job to make sure that this gets fulfilled, both here and in Vedrarfjord."

She exhaled through pursed lips.  "Wheeee… this'll be interesting.  So, how does—did—it work here before?  So I don't have to start from scratch?"

"Aye, aye, so…"

Gobber started to outline the basics of their procedures; there were little wooden plaques given out to everybody and redeemed either at the stores or by the kitchens for firewood or food.  When they had the spare food for it, people could buy more from the kitchens, but when rationing was in effect, it was the redeemed plaques and nothing more.

They discussed some ideas on how to handle Vedrarfjord for much of the afternoon.  As much as Gobber had joked about dumping the pile of parchments on her and running for it, he was more engaged and attentive as a mentor than most of her tutors had been when she'd been growing up.  By the middle of the short winter afternoon, they had a solid plan hashed out, and a message to dispatch in the next mail run to Vedrarfjord.

As they finished up, Gobber stood up and stretched, the bones of his back popping one after another.  "Aye, I think that'll be good, lass.  And… lass?"

"Yes?" she asked absently as she made a few last notes on the parchment. 

"I… I… argh.  Hm.  How are yeh holdin' up?"

"What do yeh— _you_ mean?" she asked.  Gobber's Alban accent was almost infectious. 

 He glanced around and then turned to her, his expression serious.  "Lass.  I'm just wantin' teh see how yeh're feelin' and if yer settlin' in alright.  I know that it ain't me concern, but yeh were pushed into this by yer brother's ass of a regent, and I've _seen_ how yeh and Astrid—and Hiccup—went from being the best of friends to tiptoeing on eggshells around each other."

She looked away.  "You're right.  It isn't your concern.  Why are you wanting to know in the first place?"

"I'm askin' because he's the son of my best friend, and practically my own son, and because yeh got shoved into his life and marriage.  And because _yeh_ have no family here aside from them, and as much as I love Stoick as a brother, he and Hiccup are both boar-headed stubborn Vikings, and yeh need _someone_ to talk to and watch out for yeh.  Yeh're no freedwoman, but yeh still have no kin here."  He held out his flesh-and-blood hand.  "So if yeh need to talk…"

She swallowed hard against a lump in her throat, and then nodded, but didn't reach out to take his hand.  "I'll… I'll keep that in mind.  So… umm… It's going as well as can be expected."

Gobber looked at her, his expression dubious, and lowered his hand and turned away.  "Alright.  But if there's a problem, yeh will talk teh me?  Promise?"

She shook her head.  "I trust them.  They're my friends."

"Friends can still hurt yeh.  Friends can hurt yeh more than strangers," Gobber said sagely.  "Friends donna need to be cruel to hurt yeh."

She swallowed again against the lump.  "I… I thank you, Gobber."  She gathered up the parchments in her hands.  "But I'm fine."  She stood and left, leaving him there watching her as she exited the hall.  

A quick stop at the chief's hut let her stow her notes in her room, and she got Mistletoe from the dragon-nest to go for a flight.  Once her friend was saddled, they hopped over to the smithy.

She dismounted and walked in, to see Hiccup using a pair of tongs to feed hot iron barstock into some new contraption.  Astrid and Murchadh were taking turns cranking the handle attached to the side, making a long sheet of iron emerge from between two heavy metal rollers.  Nearby she could see a neat stack of flat iron plates, presumably already produced by the device.  All three of them were practically glowing with sweat from the warmth of the forge and the effort of their work.

Cocking her head, she asked, "What's this?"

"Another idea I had," Hiccup said cheerfully.  "And this is creation number three that succeeded on the first try!"

"So far," Astrid said with a smirk. 

"Well, that's why we're testing it now," he said, as he inched the hot iron ingot as thick as her wrist further in between the two rollers with the tongs in his hands.  Wulfhild watched, fascinated, as a smooth sheet of iron emerged from the other side. 

"What can you do with that?" she asked, pointing to the sheet of metal.

Hiccup shrugged.  "I have some ideas.  One of them is to make a big hammer and a mold in the shape of a bowl, put a sheet like this over the bowl, and drop the hammer onto it.  Boom.  Instant bowl!"

"Or cracked hammer and mold," Astrid said, working the crank enthusiastically. 

Wulfhild grinned.  "I'll stand back, but I bet Magnhild would be pleased if you could make her big metal bowls."

"That's what made me think of it in the first place," Hiccup said, and stepped back as the last of the heated barstock was eaten by the rollers.  He then stepped neatly around the rollers' frame and grabbed the flattened sheet as it emerged.  "And that's six sheets!"

Murchadh nodded in approval.  "Very, very nice…"  He glanced up at Hiccup.  "But this can only make plates of a set thickness—the space between the rollers."  He motioned with his hands to indicate what he meant.

Hiccup shrugged and ran his hands through his hair, making Astrid yelp as she got spattered with some of his sweat.  Hiccup gave her an apologetic shrug, which made her roll her eyes.  "Well, we can build another set that allows for thinner plates, and just run the plates through one after another…" he said, sheepishly handing Astrid a towel from nearby.

Wulfhild smiled as the two smiths started to discuss on how to best make use of Hiccup's latest creation, and leaned in to Astrid as she toweled off.  "Want to go for a flight?"

Astrid flopped down the towel, considered the chilly outdoors with a look, and shivered.  "Maybe later?  I want to keep an eye on Hiccup and make sure that he doesn't feed his hand into there by accident or something.  Those rollers are _heavy,_ and if they can do that to iron, I don't want to see what they can do to flesh and blood."

Wulfhild blinked at that horrifying image, and nodded enthusiastically to her friend.  "Well, the sun will be going down in the next hour or so, so…?"

Astrid nodded.  "I'll let them finish their argument," she cocked her head over to Hiccup and Murchadh, who were busy arguing over something on the way that the rollers were mounted to the frame, "and then we'll join you?"

Wulfhild beamed at her.  "Sounds good to me.  I'll go grab Heather and Fishlegs."

Astrid smiled at her and turned back to the arguing smiths as Wulfhild went to the back of the smithy and cautiously entered the glass-hut after knocking.  Heather and Fishlegs were standing over a pile of notes, both of them looking tired and frustrated.  A series of small bowls containing various colored powders were occupying a nearby table, while the furnace was unlit, as they'd lost their iron cauldron the other day.

Wulfhild blinked at their obvious tension.  "You two all right?"

They glanced at each other, and Heather shrugged and sighed.  "No.  I'm… there some people who are…" she cast about helplessly, looking for the right word. 

Fishlegs gently patted her on the back of the hand.  "Remember how we said that some people wouldn't approve of Stoick's suggested cover before we went to Vedrarfjord?"

Wulfhild nodded ruefully. 

"Well, they're harassing me over it," Heather said. 

Fishlegs blinked.  "'Harassment'?  You call that _harassment?_ "

Wulfhild cocked her head.  "What happened?"

"Some stupid pranks!  Really stupid pranks," Heather said quickly, and shot her a pleading look and a shake of the head. 

Wulfhild got the message, and nodded.  "So… can I help with that?"

Heather started to shake her head, and then paused.  "Actually… since you've got your new position, I think that you could.  Let me think on it?"

Wulfhild nodded, and then said bracingly, "Well, I was thinking of going out for a flight on Mistletoe.  It's a beautiful day out.  Want to come?"

Fishlegs and Heather shared a look and nodded.  "Sure!" Heather said, and they both went for the door and followed her out.

A short while later, they were aloft.  It was the end to a bright day; the sun was near the western horizon, and the sky was speckled with lots of clouds, but still blue, and the waters were dappled with waves.  She led, with Heather and Fishlegs bringing up the rear—although she had to fight Mistletoe to keep her from leaving Fishlegs and Meatlug behind. 

They circled the peaks of the Rookery a few times, getting greeting calls from the dragons, and then flew in tight circles over the warm air rising from the vents of the Broodery, which carried them higher aloft with ease. 

As they drifted in the updraft, their dragons' wings barely flapping aside from Meatlug's fluttering, it was oddly quiet.  As the peaks of the island passed below them in height, Heather called out, "Hey, let's race!  Windshear is itching for a good flight!  To the mountain peak and back!"

"You're on!" Wulfhild said energetically, glad for the excuse and the distraction.  Fishlegs didn't look that interested, and neither did Meatlug, but she and Heather counted down from three and were off. 

The two Razorwhips both poured on the speed, quickly leaving Fishlegs and poor Meatlug behind.

Wulfhild heard Fishlegs bellow behind them, "I guess that makes me the finish line!  First one to get back wins!" 

She and Heather shared a laugh at that, and threw themselves into riding their Razorwhips.  The two silvery dragons, which Wulfhild suspected were sisters, chittered back and forth happily as they flew, fighting for advantage and lead as they dodged around other dragons in the crowded skies over Berk.

She and Heather were likewise calling back and forth.  As Heather cut in front, she shouted back, "Try to keep up, Princess!"

Wulfhild cut in front of her with a barrel roll and smiled sweetly back.  "I'd take your own advice!"

A riderless Nadder pulled up alongside and chirped happily at them, and Heather called over to it, "Hey, help me out here!  Fly ahead and knock her out of her saddle!"

"Hey, no cheating!" Wulfhild called back.

They rounded the peak, and Wulfhild braced against the saddle in the tight turn.  Then she heard a doubled snap, and Heather screaming behind her— _Heather falling, screaming, behind her._

She twisted in the saddle, to see Heather plummeting towards the side of the mountain, the broken ends of her belaying lines flapping, Windshear diving after her in an attempt to catch her, her wings beating mightily as she fought to catch up with her rider. 

Wulfhild hauled on Mistletoe's reins and they whirled as best they could, but had too much momentum to get there in time…

She watched, agonized, as Windshear inched closer as they fell towards the trees below and got close enough to Heather to let her haul herself into the saddle—and then Wulfhild _saw_ the girth of the saddle snap as soon as her friend pulled herself into it, again sending Heather plummeting towards the trees below—and Windshear was in the wrong position to catch Heather a second time.

And then the Nadder they'd passed before flew past and snatched up the screaming Heather in her talons.  Both the Nadder's and Windshear's wings opened with _snaps!_ that were audible from Wulfhild's distance, and they leveled out just above the treetops, just as the saddle impacted the forest floor behind them. 

Wulfhild and Mistletoe pulled up alongside Windshear just as the Nadder gently deposited Heather onto Windshear's back and flew off. 

"You all right?" Wulfhild asked, concerned.  Fishlegs and Meatlug were approaching fast. 

Heather nodded, although she was pale and gasping for air, the dangling belaying straps of her flight harness flapping in the breeze.  She was clutching Windshear's neck, her skin perilously close to the razor-sharp scales that Wulfhild knew all too well from personal experience. 

Fishlegs pulled up alongside a moment later.  "Love, are you okay!?  Let's get you back on the ground, quick!"

Heather nodded again, her eyes still wide and fearful, and they made to land quickly, finding an open meadow in the forest below that was wide enough to allow the Razorwhips' wings.

Wulfhild and Fishlegs both helped steady Heather as she dismounted without even taking her flight harness off, the broken belaying lines dangling from her waist.  She was shaking, and Fishlegs hugged her tightly.

Wulfhild reached over to Heather's harness.  Both belaying lines had snapped… and as she looked at them, she could see why.

Her sharp intake of breath made both Fishlegs and Heather look up at her.

"What is it?" Fishlegs asked. 

"We need to find Hiccup or Gobber and show them this," she said, holding up the end of the broken belaying line.  "Because I think this was cut."


	36. Your Side...

**Chapter 36: Your Side** **…**

_King Magnus's attempts to free himself from Einar Thambarskelfir's control were, at first, tentative and uncertain.  Einar controlled the structures and systems of government, and had made himself into a bottleneck through which all correspondence and control had to be directed.  Magnus also did not have access to the full text of many treaties and laws.  Einar additionally had waged a specific campaign of corruption throughout Magnus's teen years in attempting to weaken Magnus's work ethic in order to make him easier to control, a campaign that is believed to have resulted in the birth of Magnus's bastard daughter, Ragnhild, when Magnus was in his mid-teens._

_However, in the aftermath of Magnus's marriage to Ruffnut, Einar began to realize the depth of his miscalculations and reacted poorly.  On the one hand, he now had dragons to help enforce his policies.  On the other hand, he had to deal with Queen Ruffnut, which he was reported to have described later on as a challenge that would make the hardiest man quiver in his boots in trepidation, especially when combined with her brother.  Furthermore, it was becoming obvious to him just how poorly he had understood Hiccup Haddock's basic personality…_

_—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396_

**_Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Ruffnut looked up at the light snow falling on the fortress as she and Magnus walked outside after dinner.  "Magnus, are you feeling all right? You weren't even listening to Sigvatr's saga just now, and I think you hurt his feelings."

Magnus grimaced and groaned, and then rubbed at his face with both hands.  "Great."

"Magnus…?" she asked.  "You feeling all right?"

He shook his head.  "I'm feeling… feeling overwhelmed, Ruff."

"With…?"

"With everything.  What do I do about the jarls?  I gave in for now, gave them Wulfhild as a puppet, but I did that to buy time, and now I feel like I'm wasting it!"  He pointed back towards the hall.  "I had all of these ideas on how to change things, but now that I'm trying to start them, I have no idea where to begin!"

She scowled.  "Gotcha."

They walked in silence for several more steps, and then she said, "So, what are those ideas?"

"Reach out to the jarls' heirs; I'll have to work with them eventually in the future, so it wouldn't be suspicious, but they'll be a hard nut to crack, all wary of me doing… well, exactly what I plan on doing." 

She nodded and made an encouraging noise. 

"Or try to get myself more in control of the systems of government, but Einar's got me pretty well shut out of that."

She blinked.  "What do you mean?"

He glanced at her and sighed.  "I'm a figurehead, Ruff.  Technically, I could remove Einar from office any time I wish.  But that only works if I'll be listened to… and, well…" he shrugged helplessly.  "I spent the last three and a half months away, and the kingdom kept running without me.  That should give you a pretty solid idea of just how much control I have over the day-to-day business."

She winced. 

"Yeah.  I really _am_ Einar's puppet."  He slumped.  "I'm left out of half of the negotiations, and when I am there, I'm powerless to affect them.  Things are just handed to me to sign.  And all of the major positions are filled by men handpicked by Einar."

"Wait, he picked Yngvarr?  But he's loyal to you!"

"He's also a figurehead in some ways," Magnus growled out.  "When his wife died childless several years back, he didn't remarry, but made his brother the acting jarl, and his nephew his heir.  He has a great deal of respect, but not a lot of influence… and Einar made sure that he would have a hard time building up any alliances in the kingdom—by sending him away on a regular basis as a glorified mailman."

"But… doesn't that also give him influence with foreign courts?" Ruffnut asked.

"It does, but at the same time, it's not like he stays there and makes friends for long periods.  He goes, delivers messages, and comes back.  He spends most of his time traveling," Magnus said, kicking at a stone in the path.

Ruffnut watched as it spun away, carving out a darkened trail in the whiteness of the snow. 

"I even thought about making Tuffnut the Royal Mailman so that he can fly around Norway and get to know the people, but then I realized that if things start getting heated, I'll be handing the jarls the _perfect_ hostage to take if things turned to war."

Ruffnut scowled at that thought. 

"Yeah.  Exactly.  I don't want to put him into harm's way.  Or you, for that matter."  He threw up his hands.  "But I have no idea of where to even begin!"

Ruffnut yanked him into a tight hug, making him squeak in surprise and lack of air.  "Then we figure out where we want to end, and work from there."  It figured.  They hadn't even been back for a week, and he was acting like he'd failed.  Yeah, he was just as bad as Hiccup was. 

"Okay," he said, a little strangled.  "Air?"

She let him go with a grin.  "So… where I think we want to end…"  She exaggeratedly looked him up and down lasciviously, making him laugh.  "Well, aside from bed tonight, how's this?"  She cleared her throat, and said in her 'saga' voice, " _And Magnus the Good was seen as a kind and strong king, unquestioned in his authority over his kingdoms—"_

"Kingdoms!?" he interjected, surprised.

"— _Kingdoms,_ " she continued, and said tartly, "don't interrupt, it's rude, ' _kingdoms, and seen as wise and insightful, and beloved by all, having established early in his reign that dissent was acceptable… but rebellion was not.'"_   She cleared her throat.  "How's that?"

"Ambitious," he said, and took a deep breath.  "Very ambitious.  I mean, Ruff… I have almost no real power or influence—and the people I would need to get it from want to keep it that way."

"You have me, you have Tuffnut, you have Yngvarr, and, oh yeah, you have Berk.  You've got us, Magnus.  It'll be tricky, but we can do it."

"It'll be hard," he said, shaking his head, a small smile on his face.  "But your confidence is inspiring."

She smirked.  "Well, the ones who write the sagas are the winners, yeah?"  She snuggled up next to him.  "I wanna write that one."

###

**_The Smithy, Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Hiccup fiddled with the gearings for the sheet metal roller, checking it for wear, and frowning.  He'd done his best to strengthen them, but it was pretty apparent that hard oak wasn't going to be hard enough to resist the strain.  He'd have to cut iron gears in order for the machine to last longer than a day or two of use. 

Joy.

But Astrid had still agreed that the design was sound—meaning that he could chalk this one up as a success. 

And that made _three_ creations for her challenge.  Just two more and he had it!  And he had designs for both already hashed out and waiting construction, and they both looked pretty solid.

He was feeling pretty smug about it… deliberately ignoring the fact that it had taken him nine months, and this wasn't the first time it had looked like he was on the cusp of success. 

Then the door to the smithy opened, and he glanced up—and did a double take. 

Fishlegs, his face furrowed in an unaccustomed expression of anger, had his arm around Heather, who was wearing her flight harness and visibly shaking, and Wulfhild, bringing up the rear, was looking just as furious as Fishlegs, with a smashed, dirtied saddle held under her arm and two leather straps held in her fist.

"Hiccup, do you have a moment?" Wulfhild asked.

"Sure.  What happened?"

She glanced around; Murchadh was off getting them something to drink from the mead hall, and Astrid was up in her perch on the roof beam with her book—scratch that, as she had rolled free of the roof beam and landed in a crouch.

Heather startled and jumped free of Fishlegs' loose embrace at Astrid's dramatic appearance.  A knife appeared from somewhere in her hand, and she tensed to throw or stab before realizing that Astrid wasn't a threat. 

Hiccup felt his eyebrows climb up to his hairline at that, even as Heather came out of her fighting stance.

Astrid blinked at the ferocity of the response.  "You all right?"

Fishlegs reached out and put his arm back around Heather's shoulders, and she visibly relaxed; Hiccup noticed a moment later that the knife was gone again. 

"What just happened?" Hiccup asked. 

Wulfhild walked over to him.  "Hiccup, you work with leather, right?"  He nodded.  "Then could you look at the ends here?"  She handed him the pair of straps.

He took them, and started to examine them.  They were fairly standard dragon-leather belaying lines, with the metal loops on the end to clip onto the saddle, but they'd been…

…cut.

A horrible image came to mind, and he looked up at the others. 

"Hand me that saddle," he said flatly.  Wulfhild handed it over, and he grimaced.  It was dirty and smashed, but he still recognized it—it was Heather's saddle for Windshear.  He'd helped design and make it only last month. 

He quickly found the girth for the saddle; it too had broken.  But it had been helped—there was a smoothness to the break for half the depth of the leather… and it wasn't from Windshear's scales cutting into the leather, because the cut was on the _outside_ of the girth. 

"Someone cut these," Hiccup said tartly.  "The leather is new, and shouldn't have broken.  And I can see where the knife weakened all three straps."  He tossed down the cut girth onto the floor as Fishlegs and Wulfhild hissed, Astrid blinked in surprise and then looked at the broken bits of leather angrily, and Heather shrank in on herself.  "This wasn't an accident."  He looked up at Heather, who was holding onto Fishlegs tightly.  "Who did this?  Do you know?"

Heather swallowed hard, and seemed to press deeper into Fishlegs' side. 

Hiccup sighed, remembering how cruel some of his tribesmates could be… but ostracizing 'Hiccup the Useless,' however violently, paled in comparison to this act of attempted murder.  Worse, it wasn't in the heat of passion—it had been _calculated._   "Heather.  Someone just tried to kill you."  He then remembered that she had looked stressed when she'd shown up after lunch earlier, and that she and Fishlegs had been talking in raised voices.  He scowled.  "This isn't the first thing to happen, is it?"

She and Fishlegs both shook their heads, and he said, "No, it isn't.  There… there was a letter left in there," he nodded his head towards the glass-shed, "that… that, well, if I was stupid, it would have made me break up with her."

Heather gave Fishlegs a terrified look, and he clenched his arm around her more tightly.  "But I'm not that stupid.  It wasn't her handwriting."

"What did it say?" Astrid asked. 

Fishlegs blushed.  "Um… nothing I'm willing to repeat."

Hiccup blinked.  "That bad?"

Fishlegs nodded.  "It's in the shed.  The piece of low-quality parchment on the desk."

Astrid wordlessly turned and went into the glass shed.  Hiccup kept looking at Heather as Wulfhild paced.  Heather looked tired and extremely stressed, but before he could say or ask anything else, Astrid reemerged, and strode over to him, holding a parchment in her hands.

She came over to him, and the pair of them examined the note. 

Hiccup felt a blush rising to his face as he read it over, and Astrid whistled, and said, "Dogsbreath?  Really?  No accounting for taste…"

Hiccup nodded in agreement.  Dogsbreath chased just about every unattached girl in the village that he wasn't immediately related to, with little success.  However, he boasted about his supposed conquests at the drop of a hat.  Hiccup had little doubt that, if Fishlegs had gone to him to ask about the letter, Dogsbreath would have cheerfully lied and said that it was true, even though they were first cousins through Dog's mother Catthumbs. 

Once he was done reading it and looked at Heather.  "Okay.  Whoever wrote that farce owes you a geld for damages."

Heather blinked in surprise, as did Wulfhild.  "Huh?" Wulf asked.

Hiccup shrugged, and Astrid said, "Well… while a courting couple gets chaperoned all the time—"

"—or at least they're supposed to be—" Hiccup muttered, taking Astrid's hand.  They'd managed to ditch the chaperones several times before the battle, after all.  It had been weeks afterwards that Gobber had told him that most of the chaperones had been ready to look the other way where he and Astrid were concerned. 

"—they… _you_ get some protections, too.  And one of them is against stunts like this.  It's a little fine, but it's still there," Astrid finished.

Heather blinked.  "I… wow.  Karolina didn't mention that.  She just said that it was seen in bad taste to try to break up a courting couple."

"That too," Hiccup said, and then glanced around the smithy.  "Not that it stops some people, but…"  He held out the parchment and shook it in his hand.  "If you know who wrote this, they owe you a geld."  He then pointed it at the broken saddle on the floor.  "And whoever did that needs to be charged, taken before a jury, and either slapped with a massive fine or banished."  Hiccup remembered the last murder in the village; it had been two, almost three years ago, and Stoick had made him study up on the laws as part of his training as the future chief.  The murderer, an Ingerman, had needed to pay a geld of two hundred shillings—ten pounds silver—to the bereaved.  That had bankrupted him without being able to pay the full amount, and then Bladewit had banished him for a period of no less than five years.  And that had been over a drunken argument over a long-running disagreement that had turned deadly.  For this…

Heather paled, for reasons that Hiccup didn't understand; he looked her in the face, and she looked away.  "Do you know who did this?" he asked.

She shook in Fishlegs' grasp, buried her face in his shirt, and actually sniffed.  "Banished?"

Hiccup nodded.  "I doubt that Dad would go that far, but it's a valid punishment for attempted murder."  She didn't say anything else, but a tear started to leak from the one eye that Hiccup could see.  Hiccup narrowed his eyes and stared at her.  "You know, don't you."  It wasn't a question. 

She shook her head against Fishlegs' side as he patted her comfortingly on the shoulders.  "I don't have any proof."

Hiccup picked up the cut belaying line from the workbench and shook it at her.  "Heather.  This was attempted murder.  I want you to tell me who did this."

She shook her head again.  "I _can't._   I don't have any proof!  And I'm not going to ruin somebody's life because I'm going to _guess!"_

Astrid leaned over.  "Heather.  Someone just tried to _kill_ you."

"How do you know?  It could have just been another stupid prank that she pulled—" Heather said and then shut her jaw with a click.

"Who is 'she'?  What other pranks?" Astrid asked.  "Not just the letter?"

Fishlegs was looking down at Heather with alarm, and started to pat her on the back.  Heather, for her part, was staying mute.

"Heather!" Astrid protested.  "Let us help you!"

"Yes, please!" Wulfhild said intently.  "Heather, this wasn't a prank—or at least it wasn't the sort of amusing little jokes that Ruffnut or Tuffnut like to pull.  This could have turned you into paste on the side of the mountain!"

Heather started to sob in earnest, her tears coming faster.  "You don't know what you're all asking me to do…"

"We're trying to save your life!" Hiccup said. 

"By turning in someone else!?  On _suspicion!?_ " Heather shot back, her voice thick with tears.  "I can't… I can't _do_ that anymore…"

Hiccup shared a surprised glance with Astrid.  "Heather… what's wrong?  I mean, aside from the obvious," he asked, turning back to her. 

She sniffed.  "I… I… gods.  This is what Alvin did, to make sure that none of us in the household could _trust_ each other.  He would make sure that we would all betray each other…"  Fishlegs hugged her, and she slumped again him, shaking.  "I can't… not without proof.  I'm not going to say anything unless you promise you won't act until we know for sure who did it."

Hiccup shared another look with Astrid.  She shrugged, and then they both looked to Fishlegs.  He grimaced, and then nodded.  Wulfhild nodded as well when they turned to her.

"Fine," Hiccup said, turning back to Heather.  "You have our oaths.  We don't do anything _official_ until we know for sure."

"Let's just hope that you survive until then," Astrid muttered, picking up the second cut strap.  Then she turned her head up and looked at Heather.  "So, start talking.  What's going on?"

Heather swallowed audibly and said hesitantly, "I'm being harassed by some of the other kitchen staff…"

 

###

**_Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

****

Hákon, bracing himself against the impact, barreled into the fight with his shoulder leading the charge.  He sent the two men holding the third one sprawling, and still had enough momentum to slam into the fourth, who had been delivering the beating. 

Gunvor followed in his wake, brandishing her ax.  " _What's going on here!?"_ she demanded as Hákon checked his charge and pulled himself back up to his full height.  "Why are you beating this man?!"

Hákon found the victim on the ground and hauled him to his feet; the victim had obvious collar calluses around his neck, and was dressed in rough homespun.  Meanwhile, the three men who had been beating him were much more richly dressed, in fine linens and woolens dyed dark green and blue—and were now spattered with the mud of the streets and glaring at him.  The man in the center wore a gleaming silver cloak pin set with a green gem, while the man on his right had a small golden cross on a thong around his neck and the man on his left wore a silver ring set with a purple stone. 

The man who had been delivering the beating said indignantly as he tried to brush himself clean, "He cheeked me!  He might no longer be my thrall, but the law says that freedmen owe their former masters—"

Gunvor cut him off furiously.  "He owes you _nothing!_   Not under our laws!  He owes you neither deference nor inheritance nor subservience!  He is his own man now!" As she spoke, Hákon steadied the beaten man, and gave a small sigh of relief as he saw his brothers and other Hooligans arriving for backup.

The beater scowled at him as a crowd started to gather.  "He is still a freedman, and a freedman he shall always be!  Freedmen are only one step above thralls, and yeh and yer dragons canna change that!  He, and his children, and his children's children will never walk equal to _real_ men!"

Hákon leaned in, very close to the man's face.  "Oh, you think so, eh?" 

"It's what the law says!"

"Wrong.  It's what the _old_ law said," Hákon said harshly.  "Hooligan law reads differently.  You are charged with assaulting another man, whose stature before the law is the same as yours!"

"What nonsense is this!?  You're a lord!  Why do yeh care about a jumped up thrall—" Gunvor snorted aloud, and the man turned and glared at her.  "And yeh can't keep yer women under control either!" 

A few people in the growing crowd tittered at that, while Hákon snorted.  "I've been a 'lord' for all of three weeks.  But you are wrong in one way.  You want to know why I care?  Aside from it being the law?"

The man snorted.  "Aye, I suppose."  Half a dozen people in the crowd also made curious noises. 

Gunvor rolled her eyes as Hákon reached down his shirt and pulled out an iron amulet, emblazoned with runes of blessing and freedom, free to dangle from the leather thong it hung from, and then he picked it up off his shirt and thrust it forward.  "See this!?  This was once my mother's _collar._ Like the very one that _he,"_ Hákon pointed to the freedman, who was watching in awe, even as his eyes started to grow puffy from his beating, "once wore!  But she was rescued and _freed,_ and this was crafted as a symbol of her freedom!  And she married my father and carried an ax into battle, and bore him six children before he died fighting dragons!"  Cloudfox flew overhead at that moment and landed on the peak of the rooftop behind him, staring down at the crowd.  "I am the son and grandson of freed thralls, and don't you _dare_ tell me that my blood is worth less than yours!  My chief is the son of a freedwoman!  Do you want to tell him or my _son-in-law,_ the man who tames _dragons,_ that they do not walk _equal_ to 'real men'!?"

People in the audience were looking at him, shocked. 

And then one of the watching freedmen started to applaud—by himself at first.  But then his clanmates joined in, with his brothers cheering and commenting about how their mother would be proud.  Even the dragons behind them got in on the act, making cheerful chittering noises and noises of approval, led by Cloudfox from his rooftop perch.  He gave a quick burst of flame into the sky, which seemed to startle several of the other watchers.  At least one person in the circle seemed to be convinced on the grounds of the dragons alone.  But still others were standing there, silent and sullen, or shocked and dismayed.  A few were muttering in obvious discontent. 

Well, they would work on them.  For the moment…  "What are your names?" Hákon asked the man and his two compatriots. 

The well-dressed man glared at him, and Hákon shrugged.  "You can tell me now, or cooling your heels in gaol.  Your choice."

The man glanced around at the crowd and the other Hooligans standing around, and scowled.  "Éimhín mac Naomh.  And these are my brothers, Niall mac Naomh and Somehairle mac Naomh."

Hákon nodded, and turned to the freedman.  "And yours?"

The freedman swallowed painfully, but met his eyes with effort and said, "Ultán, milord.  Um…"  He averted his eyes and mumbled something that sounded like, "mac Vir."  _Son of man._   Which Hákon was willing to bet meant that he didn't know who his father was. 

"Well, Éimhín here owes you a geld for assault, based solely on what I witnessed.  Are there any other charges you would like pressed?"

Ultán glanced at Éimhín and seemed to consider for a moment.  "Aye.  He's been extorting me wages from me, sayin' that I still owe him dues as a freedman."

Hákon breathed out, "Oh, does he now?"  He turned to Éimhín.  "Did you?"

"Aye, in accordance with the law," Éimhín said belligerently.  "Freedmen owe their former masters a share of their wages.  That's the law."

"Not our law."  He turned to Ultán, scowling slightly in thought.  And then he winced. 

He didn't want to make this blow up… and he was realizing that his initial belligerence was hanging about like a Zippleback's breath cloud.  He was in uncharted waters, and had no idea of how to proceed from here without giving that spark, especially as his own temper was flaring as well, and it was a struggle to keep it contained.  But he would do it.  His own honor demanded that he do so.  And, on a more practical level, he wanted to lead a peaceful city—not one riven through with simmering tensions like this. 

Finally, he said, "Ultán, Éimhín, Somehairle, Niall, with me.  I want to discuss this in the mead hall rather than in the streets."  The men glanced at each other uneasily. 

Hákon sighed.  "Please.  Everything has changed recently for all of you.  While I won't break my laws, or bend them, I feel that a _talk_ would do much better than summary justice in the streets?"

Éimhín looked triumphant, while Ultán looked crestfallen.  Hákon sighed.  "Come.  Please?  Or I'll go with the summary justice option."

They nodded and a short while later, ended up in the mead hall—followed by a crowd of onlookers. 

Hákon swallowed; this would be his first public judgment since coming here… and he was nervous.  He muttered a quick prayer to Freyr, as lord of kings, and to Odin, holder of knowledge, for their guidance. 

He looked at the men as they stood nearby, waiting.  Ultán was clearly a laborer; his hands were beaten and rough, he was missing a finger from his left hand, and he was wearing worn homespun.  Meanwhile, Éimhín and his brothers were clearly from one of the more wealthy clans, just by the manner of their dress.

"All right.  The facts of what just happened aren't really in question, are they?  Ultán talked back to you, Éimhín, his former master, and you decided to give him a beating as a lesson in manners, yes?"

They all nodded. 

"So.  Éimhín, you will pay a geld for assault.  That's non-negotiable."

"But—!"

"You beat a freedman, Éimhín!  I'm doing my best to be lenient here, but I can _not_ let that slide!" Hákon said sharply.  "Work with me here!  I recognize that you didn't know any better!  How could you?  It's been two months, and you're near enough to my age.  And I'm hardly ready to make a change of this degree like that."

Éimhín scowled, but nodded in acknowledgment. 

"So here's what I propose," Hákon said, trying to assume the mantle of an experienced statesman while his inner miller ran around gibbering.  "Éimhín, you will pay a geld for the assault.  And for the charge of attempted wage theft—yes, theft, because that's what it is, Éimhín—in acknowledgment that you wouldn't have known of the law, if it is acceptable to Ultán, I will suspend that charge for now.  But if you do it again, you will be charged for both crimes."

Ultán considered it for a moment, and then nodded.  "Seems fair to me."

Éimhín scowled but nodded.  "Aye.  It seems that you are serious about this."

Hákon cocked his head and then nodded.  "Oh, yes.  It's not just the law.  To me—to all of Berk—it is a very personal thing."

Éimhín snorted and shook his head.  "And here I was wondering if your chief… _our_ chief had jotunn blood.  Instead, he's a freedwoman's?"

"Yes, he is.  But on the worthiness of his blood…  Stoick has been my chief for twenty-two years.  He is a great warrior, and a leader like no other.  I watched him charge the great dragon that was holding the Nest in bondage, despite the fact that it had teeth larger than him," Hákon reminisced.  "I had never seen a thing like it.  And his mother was once a thrall, and he learned stories at her breast about the treatment collared men and women experience—as did I.  As did my brothers."  Who made noises of agreement from where they were standing in the crowd.  "So… yes… we are _very_ serious about freeing thralls."  He crossed his arms.  "In fact, you can consider our adoption of the dragons to be an extension of that, as their queen was holding them as her thralls to steal food for her." 

The crowd in the room murmured at that.  Éimhín glanced at one of the dragons—Cinaed's Gronckle, a bright yellow and black specimen who had been inevitably named Bumblebee.  The dragon was lazing about in the rafters of the mead hall, looking down with curiosity at the ongoings.  Then Éimhín turned back to Hákon.  "So… without freeing thralls, you wouldn't have dragons?"

"I'd suspect not," Hákon said, "for any number of reasons."

Éimhín seemed to take that in, and gave a curt nod.  "Well, then.  I think… that I have some thinking to do."

Hákon shrugged.  "Do that, and tell me where your thoughts lead, please."  He looked out at the crowd.  "I call this judgment finished!  Go about your days!"

As they dispersed, Éimhín came up to him.  "Chief Hofferson…"

"Yes?"

"I… I have questions.  On how you do things on Berk."

###

**_The Smithy, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

Having finished telling over the litany of harassment, Heather looked around the other faces of her friends in the smithy… and they were all sympathetic, although Fishlegs looked like a stiff breeze would send him flying.  At the revelation that Twiglet was harassing her because of him, he'd promptly gone into denial, arguing that Twiglet must have known that she was there listening to her talk to Lopsides and was attempting to mislead her.  Some cross-examination had brought that to an end, but he still looked dubious as to his desirability, and seemed to be incredibly uncomfortable over the whole situation. 

But everyone else seemed to be having much less complicated emotions over the whole thing.  Hiccup especially looked as if he were actively restraining himself from marching over to the kitchens and asking some _very_ straightforward questions.  But if he did that, it would crush her hopes of ending this in a peaceful fashion.  All it would do was entrench the resentment against her.

So she looked down and said, "But I don't want you to do anything…"

Wulfhild spoke up.  "Heather.  Ignoring that you could have _died_ today, these  'pranks' have cost you money and threatened to injure you.  Why _shouldn't_ Hiccup just march in there and arrest Twiglet for assault?"

"Because she has friends!" Heather said, anguished.  "Do you really think that they'd treat me any better if I got _my_ friend, the _Chief's Heir,_ to come in and _stomp_ on them for me?"

Hiccup grimaced at that.  "Okay.  I see your point.  But Heather… I can't tell if they're trying to hurt you, or break you and Fishlegs up, or just try to embarrass you.  And that worries me.  Like the twins would go for embarrassing you.  That's one thing. But cutting your belaying lines?  That letter?"  He shook his head, setting his braids to swaying.  "I know that I gave you my oath… but I'd ask you to please reconsider."

Heather shook her head.  "No."

"Heather!  Please!  Let me help you!  Your right to live in peace—and in _one_ piece—is more important than their 'feelings' on this."  He got to his feet.  "Also, you're my friend, Heather.  You're _our_ friend."  He waved around, indicating everyone in the room.  "Why would you want us to let this go?"

"I'm not saying let it go.  I'm… I'm asking you to work with me on it.  Okay?  Um… okay, so, I know that Twiglet is responsible for _some_ of the stuff going on the in the kitchens.  But that's Magnhild's responsibility, right?  I don't actually know if they're the ones doing it to the stuff in my room—and I actually know that it _can't_ be them for some of it, because I was in the kitchens with them during the times some of the pranks were being set.  So either she has more help or there's other people."

"So?" Hiccup asked. 

"So help me catch them—help me figure exactly who is doing it—and you can stomp on them to your heart's content, with specific accusations and all of that.  But if you come in there like a rampaging bull and start making accusations without anything to back it up, you're just going to piss them off, and they're going to target me ten times as hard as they are now," she said earnestly.

Hiccup paused and seemed to be considering that.  Astrid bent down and the two of them whispered back and forth between them, as Heather dry-washed her hands out of anxiety. 

Then Hiccup nodded and sighed.  "Fine.  That makes sense."  His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed.  "But if there's another near-fatal 'accident', I'm gonna have Dad arrest the entire kitchen staff and start asking questions, and I'll apologize to Magnhild later—assuming that she isn't in on it.  Got it?"

She swallowed hard.  If he did that, she'd be a pariah.  But… at least he was willing to work with her on it? 

She nodded slightly.  "Okay."

Astrid asked, "So, Heather.  You're the one with the spy training.  Where do we start?"

Heather blinked.  And the first thought that occurred to her was that letter.  "Well… I have one idea.  Wulf… you're the high almoner now, right?"

Wulfhild nodded. 

"And, Astrid, you're still the Master of the Dragon, right?"

Astrid nodded. 

"Could you look through what records you both have and see if you have anything written by Twiglet?  So we can compare it to that letter?"

A sound of dawning understanding crossed through the room, and Astrid nodded.  "I think that I might.  And," she glanced at Wulfhild, "if I don't, she can get it for you."

###

**_Bucoleon Palace, Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

****

The priest-tutor, Father Metaxas, walked briskly into the Varangian barracks' office, dragging Sigurd behind him by the wrist. 

Sigurd had _no_ idea what was going on.  He had started doing his Greek lessons with the tutor in the man's office just after lunch, and he'd immediately gotten lost—so he'd snagged a piece of parchment off of the man's desk and a charcoal stick to start scribing himself some notes while the man's back was turned, grabbing some book off of a shelf. 

Metaxas had turned back around, and seen him writing, and had reacted in shock.  And then Sigurd had been forced to show that he knew how to read and write runes—the priest had gotten a slate and some chalk and ordered him to write what he had dictated, or read what he had written.  So he had.  And now apparently he was in trouble. 

Kristoffer saw them coming and gave a visible sigh.  As soon as they were in speaking range, he asked, "What happened?"

"He's _literate,_ " said Metaxas bluntly.  "Fluently literate Norse barbarians are rare, even among the noblemen's sons that join the Guard.  I want him for scribe duty.  We don't have enough of you people that know how to read and write as it is."

"Well, you can't have him.  You may not have enough scribes, but we've only got the one dragon rider."

"I'll go to the bishop over this," the priest-tutor said testily.

"Feel free.   And train him in Greek writing while you're at it!" Kristoffer said with a laugh.

"Oh, I plan to.  And Latin."

Sigurd's eyes widened.  What the Hel?  What was the big deal?  So he knew how to read and write! 

…didn't everybody?

Didn't they?

Kristoffer was looking at him and the priest with laughter in his eyes.  "Well, far be it for me to stop you.  Maybe you can have him when we've got a good corps of dragon riders trained up."

Sigurd looked at Kristoffer, betrayed.  The man had promised just two days ago to sit back and watch his saga unfold—not divert it into a scribing desk!

The tutor smiled grimly at this and started walking back off with Sigurd, having never released his wrist.  "Come with me, boy.  We have more work to do."

Not really having a choice, he followed Metaxas.  The man, part of the Greek contingent of the Varangians and a consecrated priest, spoke Norse fluently, and had a personality that reminded Sigurd of some of the more acidic members of the tribe back home. 

"Boy, Sigurd, how did you learn to read and write?  And why didn't you mention it before?" he abruptly demanded as they approached the tiny room where he had his lessons.

Sigurd, a bit taken aback by the vehemence in the question, stammered out, "I don't… I don't understand!"  And he didn't.  It was like being asked 'how did you learn to tie a knot?' or 'how did you learn to walk?'

Metaxas scowled at him.  "Boy.  You've been trained as a scribe.  Your handwriting is skilled, and you have a large vocabulary.  I would judge you as having been taught to the level of a _rhētor_ , but I've rarely encountered a Norse barbarian with that skill level before—and all of those boasted about it with poems and sagas, and claimed status as noblemen or skalds.  You did not.  You made no mention of it.  And I _want to know why."_

Sigurd blinked.  "Huh?"

"Do you think that I'm a fool, Sigurd?"

He shook his head.  "No, sir."

"Then who taught you?"

"The village teacher did!"

"Finally, we're getting somewhere."  Metaxas stopped and leaned down at him, getting uncomfortably close to Sigurd's personal space.  "Are you an exile then?  Some lord's son banished—"

"I wasn't banished!" Snotlout said angrily.  "I left of my own free will!  I even gave Hi—gave my cousin a letter to my father when he asked!"

Metaxas' lips curled into a smile.  "So your father is literate too, I presume?  You are quite the puzzle, Trondsson.  Who else did the village teacher instruct?"

He blinked, not comprehending the question.  So he answered it.  "Everybody, of course."

"So all of the noblemen's sons in your holding are taught?"

Sigurd cocked his head, confused, and then shook his head.  "No… _everybody."_

"What do you _mean,_ 'everybody'?"

Sigurd shrugged and said, "I was taught along with every other kid my age.  That's just how we do it!  How we've always done it!"

"Feh.  I don't believe you.  Your _entire_ tribe is taught to read?  And ruin perfectly good peasants?"

"No, it's true!" he protested as they reentered the room where they'd been sitting a short while before.  "We're a tiny tribe, like seven hundred people, but everyone knows how to read!  I didn't think it was special until… until now!"

"Well, you're here now.  Why?"

"Why…?"

"Why did your whole tribe get trained in literacy?  Maintain control over the thralls and slaves?"

"We don't practice thralldom on Berk," Snotlout said back angrily. 

"Then who does the planting and reaping?  Who does the cooking and labor?" the priest-tutor demanded, his tone one of strained patience.

"We all do!"

"I won't have you making up tales to try to distract me, boy!  Now tell me the truth!  Why were you taught to read and write?!"

"It _is_ the truth!" Snotlout shouted.  "And I'm not even the best one!  Hiccup and Fishlegs were better than I was!"

Metaxas glared at him.  "I said no lies.  Why were you taught to read and write!?  I want an answer!"

"Because we had to!  Because dragons always came and attacked our village and people might die and we needed to know how to do the things that they had known how to do if they died!  So we wrote it all down!" Snotlout bellowed, dragging back up memories that he had thought long-forgotten. 

The priest, a little taken aback, began to smile.  "Now _that_ I believe.  So… who are Hiccup and Fishlegs?"

"My cousin and one of my friends from growing up," Sn… Sigurd said irritatedly, annoyed at his slip. 

"And how literate are they?"

Sigurd shut his mouth, and then yelped as Metaxas rapped his knuckles with a stick.  "Answer me!"

Taking a deep sigh, Sigurd said, "Very.  Hi… my cousin writes books and is an artist with a whole shelf of sketchbooks.  My friend is a scribe and collects books from the traders.  I don't know how many languages he can read, but I recognize some of those," he waved at the letters on the spines of the books on the shelf, "from his collection."

The priest, eyes shining, had Sigurd identify the letters he recognized, and the priest was practically rubbing his hands together a few minutes later at the discovery that Fishlegs could read and maybe write Latin, Greek, Aramaic, and Norse. 

"And you swear before Christ that you are not lying to me?" he said sternly to Snotlout.

He nodded, feeling small and angry.  He had come all this way, risked so much… and his cousin and former friend were still showing him up and making him look worthless and weak. 

"And where is your village, boy?  And what is it called?"

"Northern Alba, among the islands.  It's called Berk," he said numbly, rubbing at his sore knuckles. 

"Excellent.  Well, let us continue.  You have much to learn."  He pulled from the shelf one of the imposing tomes with Greek lettering on the spine.  "Time for you to learn to scribe, as well as speak, a civilized tongue."

He opened the book, and laid it out in front of Sigurd.  A dense and foreign text presented itself, and he swallowed at the sight of it.  Metaxas handed him the slate and chalk.  "Scribe these as I point them out to you."  He started to pick out individual letters on the page.  "This is the letter _alpha…_ this is the letter _beta…_ this is the letter _gamma…_ "


	37. ...Their Side...

**Chapter 37:** **…Their Side…**

_Prior to the Norse Reformation of 1044 AD/AM 4804/435 AH/ArO 0, the Norse pagan religion was in the process of dying out under the onslaught of a semi-organized campaign of Christianization.  Iceland, Norway, the North Sea Islands, and Denmark had all been forcibly converted over the prior century, and were at least nominally Christian, although Norse beliefs were still held by much of the populace through folk transmission.  King Olaf I, Magnus the Good's father, was personally responsible for much of the Christianization of Norway, having engaged in the torture and execution of Norse priests and the destruction of Norse temples.  Sweden remained a bastion of resistance, with the Norse cult at Uppsala having a mutual nonaggression agreement with the Swedish kings dating back to 990 AD, but the status of the traditional faith was eroding steadily there._

_Around the Eirish Sea and Alban Hebrides, there were various overtly Norse cults and tribes; many of these were close allies in an increasingly Christianized region, bound by treaties and marriage ties.  These tribes included the Bog Burglars of Wales, the Meatheads of the Outer Hebrides, and of course the Hooligans of Berk, to name the three largest examples. But their numbers were dropping from their heydays of a century prior._

_The general consensus of historians of the period is that, without the Norse Reformation, it is unlikely that the Norse religion would have survived another century in the face of the aggressive Christian efforts to render it extinct._

_Instead, the Crusades against the North Sea Empire over the following century only helped revive and entrench the reformed faith, especially due to the martyring of ethnically Norse Christians by the Crusaders…_

_—The Second Flowering Of Yggdrasil: An Analysis Of The Norse Resurgence, 1710_

**_Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Heather opened the door to her house and slumped inside, Fishlegs following her.  After her near-death experience earlier today, he wasn't letting her out of his sight.  And she didn't mind that.  Not one bit.  In fact, she was resisting the urge to take him upstairs to her room and to bed. 

Then she paused in realization.  Her reputation was such that everyone assumed that she'd already _done_ that, so why not have the fun anyway?  If anyone made the accusation to Stoick, who knew the truth, he'd just laugh it off. 

So she turned around and pulled Fishlegs into a tight kiss.  He made a noise of surprise, but relaxed after a moment and put his arms around her.

They continued to kiss as Heather tried to put aside the thoughts buzzing around in her head and focus on the moment.  But it was hard.  Astrid had managed to pull up a request from Twiglet for a saddle for her Gronckle Oakleaf, and the handwriting listing the design specifications didn't match at all—Twiglet had such excellent and precise handwriting that Heather had actually found herself both jealous and wondering why the woman wasn't working with the scribes. 

But she pushed that to the back of her mind and focused on kissing her boyfriend. 

Finally, she broke the kiss and, breathing heavily, said, "Want to come upstairs?"

He blinked, and then flushed as he realized what she meant, and let go of her in a hurry.  "What!?  No!" 

Her mouth fell open a bit and her eyes widened.  She felt like she'd been punched—a feeling that deepened as he stepped back from her urgently.  "Fishlegs… what's wrong?  Did… did I say something wrong?" 

"We're only courting, Heather, not… we're not… it's not right!  I don't want you to get in _more_ trouble!" 

She blinked, taken aback.  "Um… Fishlegs…  I don't know if you've noticed, but someone tried to _kill_ me today.  I can't _get_ in more trouble."

"Yes you can!  And it's not right!  It's against the law for a reason, Heather."  He looked down at the floor.  "What if you got… got… got pregnant?"

She moved into his line of sight, her heart tying itself in a knot, before she could push out, "Would you still love me?"

"Of course I would, but—"

"Then there's no prob—what the?"  Heather said, and held up a hand.  "Did you hear that?"

Fishlegs froze and cocked his head.  And then nodded. 

And they both dove for the stairs.  Heather took them two at a time, hearing rapid footsteps sounding on the floorboards and then a clattering slam. 

An instant later, she shoved the door open, and felt bile rise in her throat at the smell.  Her room was a shambles; there was a small half-covered bucket, filled with some green-yellow fluid, which was dribbling out its contents across the floor; her clothing was piled on her bed, and the window shutters were flapping open—and there was no culprit in sight. 

She ran to the window and looked out. 

Unfortunately, there was no convenient screaming body lying on the grass below, lamed by a mishandled jump.  She could see the footprints where they had landed, though. 

Scowling, she put a bit of her training to use, vaulted out of the window—ignoring the bizarre sound Fishlegs made as his yelp of surprise combined with gagging at the smell—twisted her grip on the windowsill, lowered herself down, and dropped to the grass below, tucking and rolling to lessen the impact on her ankles. 

Springing to her feet, she looked around intently.  A few people looked at her oddly, and she ran up to one—Noxoaf clan Jorgenson. 

"Did someone just jump out of my window!?" she demanded.

"Aye," he replied laconically.

"Who was it!?" she asked.

"You," he said, and smirked. 

"Argh!  Did anybody _else_ jump out of my window before I did!?"

"Mebbe.  I didn't see nuthin," he said, and walked off. 

Heather looked around, saw the amused or hostile looks on the few passersby who even were bothering to look at her, sagged and sighed.  "All right."  She turned and walked back to the house.  She had some cleaning—and airing out—to do, apparently. 

She listlessly reentered her room, to find that Fishlegs had already found a mop somewhere and gotten to work at cleaning up.  He gave her a questioning look, and she shook her head.  "They got away."

"Well… at least we kept them from…" he turned a little green, and pointed to her bed and the pile of clothing heaped on it; the bucket—probably stolen from the tannery—was lying nearby, half of its contents gone on the floor. 

She gagged at the thought, and went to give him a peck on the cheek, but he flinched away.  She backed off, and looked at him, hurt.  "What's wrong?"

"I… let's get it cleaned up in here?" he deflected, and she nodded, still hurt.

As she and Fishlegs mopped up the dragon urine from the floor, the subject of her offer from earlier lay between them like a bare knife with no handle—whichever of them would pick it up first would cut themselves on it. 

But as she mopped up the putrid liquid from the floor under her bed where the bucket had spilled, Heather decided that she really, really wanted that lock now…

###

Astrid sat in the forge as Hiccup worked on his latest project—some new kind of wheel that would harness the power of the wind like his waterwheels harnessed the power of the rivers.  She handed him tools as he asked for them, and occasionally glanced over his shoulder at the latest device that was taking shape.  The x-frame that she'd seen before was mounted to an axle that would let it spin; it used the caged-balls-in-a-frame that he had made to let the axle spin more freely.  Attached to that were more wooden gears that were mounted in a frame; she recognized those as a small version of what was in her parents'—well, her uncle's, now—mill. 

But while she could recognize what Hiccup was building, she couldn't offer any coherent input on her own for potential refinements.  So she sat, occasionally massaged Hiccup's shoulders, gave him kisses at opportune moments, and tested the balance and weight of the various weapons hanging in the racks around them. 

That unfortunately left her a great deal of time to reflect and think. 

Her immediate thoughts were filled with sympathy for Heather; even when Hiccup had been 'the Useless', he'd never experienced a campaign of harassment like what Heather was undergoing.  She was honestly disappointed in her tribesmates, and only the promise that she'd given Heather was keeping her from marching into Twiglet clan Thorston's face and challenging her to the _holmgang,_ or reporting her to Stoick.  But the _holmgang_ would be much more _satisfying,_ especially if Astrid made the challenge over Fishlegs on Heather's behalf. 

And that brought her to Fishlegs.  His reaction to the revelation that he was being fought over had actually been pretty funny—at first.  And then Astrid had realized that shy, retiring Fishlegs had never really shown interest in girls before he had met Heather, and remembered how uncomfortable he'd been when Astrid had initiated things around Hiccup.  He honestly did not know how to handle the idea that a girl was interested in him, especially to the point of engaging in such harassment.  Astrid would be willing to bet pounds to pennies that Twiglet had flirted with him at some point and Fishlegs hadn't even realized it. 

Any humor in the situation, however, was eaten up by the attempt on Heather's life—and, even worse in some ways, that evil letter.  Even if Twiglet hadn't written it, _someone_ had, and with the intention of causing her friends to fight or break up.  And if there was one thing that Astrid could sympathize with right now, it was a letter with that sort of intent showing up in one's love life. 

And _that_ thought made her cringe. 

Because working with Wulfhild before, combing through the piles of parchments and notes looking for something with Twiglet's handwriting on it, had been like old times—of a month ago.  Gods, the princess was _still_ her friend; she was giving up everything to keep that friendship, and Astrid was acting greedy and self-centered.  She had it all—the husband, the wealth, the status, the sex, the _love—_ and Wulfhild had nothing…

Aside from her friendships.

And Astrid hadn't even gone to talk to Rikard, Ingrid or her sister-wives yet.  Somehow, she kept finding more important things to do.  Things like… oh, playing with a mace while Hiccup fiddled with small wooden gears, his attention completely absorbed in the act of creation and invention. 

Astrid groaned quietly.  Life would be so much easier if she were as self-centered, dishonest, and callous as some other people she could name. 

Hiccup glanced up at her at her noise, apparently not as absorbed as he appeared to be.  "What's wrong?  Heather?"

Grateful for the diversion—and hating herself for it—she nodded.  "I'm worried about her.  Despite what she said, it's pretty obvious that Twiglet is aiming for her, and wanted to get her out of the way."

Hiccup nodded in agreement.  "Yeah.  But she doesn't want to rock the boat."

Astrid scowled.  "I suppose after spending a few years getting your mind tortured and forced to betray everyone around you, the idea of standing up for yourself… might be uncomfortable."

They sat in silence, and then Hiccup sighed.  "Yeah."

"I just wish we could do more to help her…" Astrid said, and then an idea struck. 

That must have shown on her face, because Hiccup quirked an eyebrow.  "Bolt of inspiration, love?"

She grinned and grabbed her coat from the hook on the wall.  "Yep.  You keep working.  I have someone to go talk to."

"I don't want to know anymore, just in case Dad has to ask me about the blood and body parts tomorrow," he sassed. 

She stuck out her tongue at him as she closed the coat.  "Oh, please.  I'm not going anywhere near Twiglet."

"Well, have fun then, and try not to maim anybody!" he said cheerfully.

She rolled her eyes and left, walking up the familiar path to her old house and pounding on the door. 

A few moments later, it opened, and Astrid saw the person she had come for.  "Karolina?  I need to talk to you…"

###

Wulfhild lay in her lonely bed in her new room in the new wing of the chief's hut.  In the rooms below her, the dragons were sleeping, and she wished that she could sleep as well, and ignore the throbbing in her veins. 

Getting to sleep, though, was _difficult._   Hiccup and Astrid were making love, _again._ And for the third or fourth time that night, Wulfhild had to ignore the sounds from just a few feet away, as she had _every_ night since she had moved into this house the week before.

They were _trying_ to be quiet, which she appreciated.  But _trying_ was not the same as _succeeding._ The sounds and noises that they were making were _not_ helping matters—either in letting her get to sleep, or in slowing her own pounding pulse of arousal.

Part of her was resisting the very rude and shameful urge to ask them pointedly to be quiet.  It was a strong urge, exacerbated by her tiredness, but she knew that she'd be able to drift off to sleep sooner or later.  It wasn't as if such noises were foreign to her—not when Ruffnut and Magnus had been sharing similar intimacies for months, with Wulfhild as an unwilling listener under similar circumstances.  She'd been able to eventually sleep, then.

But it was harder now, and that was because of the _other_ urge currently thrumming through her—the urge to get up and join them. 

And she was resisting that one strenuously, for a variety of reasons.

It was both better and worse than it had been when her brother had gotten married to Ruffnut.  Better, because at the very least she was no longer overhearing her own brother make love to Ruffnut, who had the habit of moaning dirty things—things that she could only imagine as being _suggestions_ —to Magnus.

But it was also worse.  And that was because, judging by the sounds Astrid in particular was making, even muffled by the walls, they were enjoying themselves deeply, and sharing great pleasures with one another.  And while her brother and Ruffnut had made similar noises, that was her brother.  _Not_ her potential husband.  And that made it worse—because, even knowing the impulse was born of both the sin of lust and sin of envy, Wulfhild found herself profoundly jealous and yet… anticipatory. 

And that anticipation and commingled jealousy was born of the fact that, quite simply, despite how Astrid had been treating her these past three weeks, Wulfhild was not here as formal guest.  No… she was here as Hiccup's acknowledged concubine, and legally as part of his clan.  Which meant she was, eventually one day, going to go to the bed of the man who was making Astrid—strong, straightforward, sarcastic and blunt Astrid— _whimper_ with lust about fifteen feet away. 

But she was putting that day off for as long as she could manage to resist it.  That was why she had suggested to Astrid the deception of having Hiccup pretend to be with her in the first place.  Because if Father Henriksson had actually married her to Hiccup, she knew enough of the rules and laws of marriage to know that the marriage was not legally complete until they actually consummated it. 

How long it would be before Hiccup and Astrid's marriage would be valid in the eyes of God—assuming that claim of the Father's hadn't also been a lie—she didn't know.  But Wulfhild was determined to hold out against her own desires for at least that long.  Then her friends' marriage would indisputably valid, and hers would be invalid due to that validity, and their original agreement would be able to hold—her as concubine, Astrid as wife, and they would never need to know. 

It was the only thing she could do in the aftermath of her disastrous and selfish sin.  So, for now, she and Hiccup gracelessly made noises to pretend that they were being intimate—they'd done that once already, and it had been one of the most awkward moments of her life—but, one day, when the danger of invalidating their marriage had come to an end, it would be her turn to experience what Astrid was enjoying so greatly. 

During the first night she'd been here, she'd thought that the sounds were of pain and been alarmed and frightened at what she'd gotten herself into.  But she had eventually realized, midway through that first night, that Astrid could have been having her legs chewed off and not made such noises.  Although, apparently, from what she was moaning, Hiccup _was_ good with his mouth.

And, presumably, one day in the future, once the danger had passed—and if he ever could bring himself to touch her, if he could do that without her losing both of their friendships—it would be her turn to experience the same things.  And that was a thought that made her mouth dry and her veins _ache._ And part of her was howling to make that day today.  To just stand up, open the door, and join her lord and his wife in their bed. 

But a more lustful, greedy, and gluttonous act she couldn't imagine.  It would compound her earlier sin, at the very least, and endanger the validity of her friends' marriage.  She would be putting her own desires over their spiritual health, and doing it for her own base needs.  It would be the very essence of sin itself, and so she shied away from it, for their sake and her own.  It was especially ironic as she had no confessor here, and she was uncertain if it would even possible to have a proper penance for such an act that would have such far-reaching and damaging consequences. 

On top of that, she had realized that she could not dare give confession on that act to any priest under Father Henriksson's authority, as he would almost certainly hear… and be able to act.  For that matter, she couldn't dare give confession to _any_ priest who reported to Rome until this matter was resolved.  She would _not_ become a blade to be buried in Astrid's back. 

Not when Astrid had agreed to save her and shelter her specifically in order to avoid more literal backstabbing from other foreign concubines sent to Hiccup's bed. 

So she would not succumb to the sin of envy.  Astrid was her friend, as was Hiccup.  If that was all that they would be, then so be it.  She had identified virtue and would hold fast to it. 

Even if the temptation to find out _how_ they were making _that_ noise grew almost unbearable.  But while it was still her friends' honey-month, it was beginning to come to a close.  Although, if they were like her brother and Ruffnut, that might not make a difference.  But, maybe, as their wedding passed into memory, things might begin to balance, and she would not find herself an uneasy witness to such temptations. 

She moaned and pulled her pillow up over her ears as her pulse pounded in them, trying to ignore the way that her two friends sounded as they called each others' names in the night.

###

 

**_Mead Hall Kitchens, Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Hiccup yelped as he whacked his head against the side of the ovens' exhaust shaft. 

"You okay?" Astrid called in after him.

"I'm fine!" he called back.  "Okay, I'm in the right spot.  Ready?"

"Ready!" Astrid and Wulfhild both called back. 

Hiccup placed the Nightmare spittle lamp on the hook that normally held suspended fish or meat to be smoked, and pulled out his measuring string.  As he measured the shaft and called out the measurements for Astrid and Wulfhild to write down, he noted how the iron rods that the hooks dangled from were embedded into the sides of the shaft.  Then, of course, he dangled from one experimentally—and tried to ignore how warm it was, despite how the oven's fire had been quenched for over half a day now. 

The rod held his weight with ease, and he bounced up and down on it a few times for good measure.  It still didn't budge, thankfully, which meant that he could use it as a mounting point for his intended project.  He continued to measure all of the relevant bits—and, just to be on the safe side, some of the irrelevant ones, in case they became relevant. 

This shaft was nearly two hundred years old—it had been originally dug by a foolhardy Whispering Death that had been trying to get at the supplies that the old Hooligans had hidden in the mead hall.  His ancestors had killed it, but they had then faced the problem of having a hole in the side of their warm refuge against the winter's worst storms.  According to tribal lore, the first Hiccup had been the one who had come up with the idea of using it as the smoke hole for the mead hall kitchen fires.  Subsequent refinements over the last few generations had resulted in the enclosed ovens with the hearth-fires underneath them, with the smoke being funneled out—it had been what had given Hiccup the idea for the _skorsteinn_ in the first place, actually. 

And now, he had some ideas for other improvements.  Including one that had Magnhild intrigued. 

Measuring done, he lowered himself out of the oven, and looked around the kitchen. 

Astrid glanced at him, and immediately clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes crinkling in a smile.  Wulfhild was obviously fighting against giggles of her own. 

"What?"

"You look like you got dipped in ink," Horsefly Axwitsson said, chortling. 

"It's sooty in there!" he protested. 

"Oh, aye, it is, but usually when we go up in there to hang stuff to be cured, we don't come out that blackened!" Ack Gallbrutesson said with a chortle.  "Did you roll around in it?"

"No," Hiccup said testily.  "I was measuring, that's all."

"Well, at least it's Thor's Day.  Maybe you can get in an early Washday?" Twiglet said, rolling her eyes.  "Regardless, are you done in there?  We need to hang the meats and such and relight the fires."

Hiccup nodded, and gave Wulfhild a smile of thanks as she handed him a damp linen towel—which was turned almost instantly black from the soot.  Meanwhile, Astrid had sketched out a rough approximation of the shaft's interior on the outline he'd drawn, and was giving it a contemplative look. 

"What is it?" he asked as he ran the towel through his hair as Ack, Ick and Oof climbed up into the oven.

"I think it'll work," she said, tapping the stylus to her chin in thought—a mannerism, he recognized, that she'd had gotten from him, "but it'll be a giant pain in the ass to install with these iron bars in the way, and the width of the stove opening.  It'll have to be done in pieces."

He sighed.  "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing," he said, as the triplets started to pass hams, sausages, beef, and whole fish up into the shaft to be smoked and dried. 

They left the kitchens, and Magnhild immediately cornered them.  "So?"

"I think that we can make it work," he told her.  "I just have to design it right so it'll fit, and then I'll have to make it—and I'll have to make it out of metal."  He shrugged, and handed the blackened towel off to Wulfhild, who looked at it with an odd mix of dismay and amusement.  "At least a few weeks," he said.  "Maybe longer."

"Well, we've lived without it this long.  And given how well the dishwashing dragons worked out, as well as the _new_ bowls and pots," the elder quirked a sardonic eyebrow at him, "I'm willing to give this a try when you're ready."

Hiccup nodded—and then he heard the horn start to blow. 

All of the conversation in the room paused, listening. 

_One…_

_Two…_

_Three…_

Incoming ships.

People were exchanging baffled looks.  They were on the cusp of full winter.  Who in Njord's name was out sailing?

Then the feel of the room shifted like a plunge into ice water.

_One-two-three-four!_

Hiccup and Astrid's heads both snapped around and they ran for their dragons by the doors to the mead hall—and they weren't the only ones, as activity erupted and people started to run to and fro.

"What does that one mean?" Wulfhild asked, trying to keep up behind them.

Astrid called back over her shoulder as they ran, "Ship in distress!"

The flock quickly gathered over the village.  Hammeredge flew over to Hiccup and Toothless and called out, "I saw a foundering longboat several leagues out.  They've clearly been in a scrape!"

"Are they in danger of sinking?" Hiccup asked. 

Hammeredge quirked an eyebrow.  "Ordinarily, I'd say 'No,' but…"  He pointed a thumb mutely over his shoulder to the winter storm in the distance.  It was a monster of an early winter storm—the clouds formed a distinctive anvil shape, like that of a summer thunderstorm, and Hiccup could see the rain and snow being lashed in the winds below the cloud deck.  Beneath it, the sea was nearly black, lit occasionally by the whip of lightning flashes.  "There's no way they'll survive that!"

Hiccup nodded.  "We'll go get them!  Lead the way, Hammeredge!"

"Will do!"

The flock took flight straight south, over the sound.  The storm was approaching from the west, and moving fast. 

Toothless kept eyeing it and making uncomfortable rumbles, and Hiccup patted him on the head.  "Just a little bit further, bud.  Actually…"  He turned and called to Hammeredge.  "We're going to fly on ahead to see if we can spot it!"

Hammeredge gave him a thumbs up.  "I left Hoark keeping station above it!"

"Good!"  He bent down.  "C'mon, bud!" 

Toothless poured on the speed, apparently grateful for the chance, and the leagues vanished behind them.  Hoark and his dragon quickly grew in the skies ahead, and he spotted the longboat below with difficulty in the turbulent waves.  They were making for the nearest shore, but there was no way that they'd make it in time; the waves were growing so high that the ship was spending more time going up and down than forward. 

He bellowed to Hoark, "I'll challenge them!"

Hoark nodded and he and Toothless dove—which alerted the sailors aboard the ship to their presence.  They'd apparently been so focused on surviving the rough seas that they hadn't noticed the dragons aloft. 

Not that those dragons would be flying much longer.  Hiccup was noticing that the wind was picking up strongly, and it wouldn't be safe for the dragons to fly if it got much worse. 

He and Toothless reached the sea and flew over to the boat.  "Hello the bo—Cami!?  What are you doing here!?"

The Bog Burglar heir was standing at the tiller, desperately trying to push the longboat through the roiling waves. 

"Tryin' to get to Berk, you jackass!" his friend bellowed back in her Deheubarth accent.  "We met some of your friends back south and you're the friendliest port we've got up here!"

Now that he was closer, Hiccup could see that the longboat showed signs of battle; the sail was damaged, as was the hull, and several of the women aboard were frantically bailing water. 

"Help is on the way!" he shouted.

"Good!  This ain't no pleasure cruise!"

"What were you doing out here anyway?"

"What d'you _think_ , jackass?"

"Well, since it's you, I'm going to go with a short list that starts with piracy, has smuggling in the middle, and burglary at the bottom!"

Cami grinned.  "You know me so well, but you're wrong this time!"  She sobered and then swore as a wave whacked into the rudder and sent the tiller post smacking into her chest, almost knocking her to the deck. 

Hiccup shook his head.  "I'll be right back!"

"We're not goin' anywhere!  That's the problem!"

Some snow blew across Hiccup's field of view, and he blinked.  Uh oh.  If the visibility dropped, they were all in deep trouble.

He and Toothless flew upwards, and Hiccup looked to the north to see where the reinforcements were.  He could see them, as dark spots against the off-white and gray of the stormclouds.  The storm hadn't reached Berk.

Yet.

But the wind and snow were starting to whip up around them, and visibility was dropping—and they were off course, being pushed away by the wind. 

"Toothless!  Do a flare so they can find us!" he suggested urgently,

His friend nodded, and started to fire off small blasts of his breath, which detonated a few yards away, giving flashes of blessed warmth.  The bright purple flashes caught the attention of the rescue party quickly, and they redirected towards where he and Toothless were flying. 

They came swooping in, fighting against the gusting winds and the sheets of sleet and snow that were starting to blow across the sky, carrying the ship-net between them.  There wasn't time for anything fancy—they dove and, just like they had practiced, dropped one end of the weighted net just forward of the prow, dragged it under the ship's length, and pulled the whole thing up tight against the hull.  As they did that, Hiccup and Toothless landed by the stern, and Hiccup extended his hand to Cami.  "Come on!"

While eight Gronckles stayed hovering overhead, holding the net taut, other dragons and riders were also landing on the deck of the longboat; some were securing the net around the ship so that it wouldn't roll, and others were gathering up the soaked Bog Burglars to ride double on their dragons.  Fortunately, they had enough dragons to do that, and carry the ship without overloading everyone. 

The storm was getting closer.  It was a dark presence in the sky, roaring and screaming its callous craving for any life it would catch in its icy claws.  The cold wind howled its lust for warm blood, and the ice and snow whispered sharp promises of a cold and dark grave below the waters.

It was a jotunn, made manifest, and it hungered for them.

Hiccup looked up at the scudding clouds coming to blot him and his friends from Midgard and hissed out a breath of defiance.  "Not today."  He twisted in the saddle.  "You secure back there, Cami!?"

"I think so!" she said; she was shivering against him, her untamed cloud of golden-blond hair reduced to a slick set of rat-tails by the seawater. 

"Good enough!"  He looked out over the rescue crew.  "Back to Berk!"

They lifted just as a wave came and smashed on the deck of the longship, sending supplies and equipment crashing across the deck and into the net—but the net held, and the ship lifted free of the water. 

Hiccup fancied that he could hear the protests and fury of the frustrated jotunn as they turned and flew straight home—but the spires of Berk's mountains were growing faint in the gusting snow, and the dragons were having to fight for every yard that they could, and the main stormfront wasn't even to them yet.  If they were still out here when it caught them…

A sudden gust knocked one dragon spiraling, and the Bog Burglar ridding second-saddle screamed and fell—only to get stopped short by the belaying lines.

Then one of those snapped.

She was hauled back into the saddle by the rider—Hoark, now that Hiccup could identify him in the steadily worsening visibility—and they both hunkered down against the mounting storm. 

They were being slowed by the ship.  It was heavy, and the wind was grasping at it like a cat playing with a feather on a string, sending it swaying and bobbing.  The ship lurched, and the dragons and riders carrying it suddenly plummeted a hundred feet as a gust of wind battered it downwards, making the carry-crew scream in panic as they fought to right it and regain altitude.

He turned to Cami.  "We have to lose the ship!"

"What!?"

"The ship is slowing us down!  If we don't…!"

She grimaced, and then nodded curtly.  "Do it!"

Hiccup turned to the carry crew.  "Drop it!"

"What!?" Fishlegs bellowed back from his spot on Meatlug.

"DROP IT AND RUN TO BERK!  OR WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE OUT HERE!" Hiccup bellowed as loudly as he could manage. 

"But the net…!" Fishlegs called back.

" _I don't care!  Drop it!"_

Fishlegs grimaced and nodded, and then called out to the carry-crew, and started to count down from three.

Hiccup watched, tense.  This was one of the most dangerous maneuvers that they'd ever practiced.  Tyr, when they'd tried to do it in the past, there had always been _someone_ who let go too late and got dragged down by the weight of the net and what it was carrying.  And that had been in perfect conditions.

He looked out at the snowing thunderstorm; it was like a sideways valley or wave of foaming water, carved from shades of white and gray, roaring towards them, intent on taking their lives for the audacity of being there when it arrived. 

Fishlegs' mouth formed the word _one,_ not that Hiccup could hear him in the worsening gale, and the ship lurched and then… dropped.

But not alone. 

Hiccup watched in horror as one of the Nadders—ridden by someone he couldn't make out in the gusting snow—dropped with it. 

They rapidly plummeted out of sight, and, without even thinking, Hiccup and Toothless dove after them. 

The screaming pair almost immediately came into sight—Tryggvi clan Hofferson and Windshot, who had a coil of rope from the net wrapped around his paw, dragging them down towards the hungry churning waters below.  He and Toothless maneuvered in adroitly as close as they dared for fear of getting fouled on the pieces flapping and flying off of the plunging longship, and then…

A shock of purple light blasted the rope holding the pair, and they were free.

But now the waters below were far too close, and the storm was almost upon them. 

Toothless spread his wings with a snap, and they tried to slow down, even as more gusts tried to push them down towards the water.

He saw the longboat impact the waves and shatter—and the waves were surging with such fury that the ripples from it hitting the water were swallowed up nearly instantly. 

As the waters approached, Tryggvi screaming nearby, Toothless desperately trying to pull out of the dive, he thought to himself, _Astrid, I'm sorry…_

But he wasn't giving up.  He hunched down behind Toothless' crest and remembered when they'd first gone out on their test flight.

These mountains of water could be dodged like the sea stacks. 

They were just… moving.

He heard Tryggvi's scream end behind him, although he didn't hear the splash in the roar of the waves—but he couldn't take the moment to grieve for Astrid's kinsman.  He was trying to keep two friends alive, and his mind was fully focused on that task, as waves the size of sea stacks sought to swat them from the air like the flailing hands of Aegir. 

But Toothless fought for altitude, and they cleared the grasping waters, and made back for the group of dragons fighting through the oncoming storm. 

And he saw Tryggvi and Windshot fighting to keep up. 

He gasped in relief. 

As they rejoined the flock, he heard Astrid screaming his name, first in fear, and then in relief. 

Without the ship to slow them, they hightailed it back towards Berk.  With luck—and maybe Thor's aid, as he was obviously battling the jotunn of the storm, judging by the crackle of thunder echoing across the waters—they'd be able to get back to Berk's shelter and safety before the main front of the storm hit. 

###

**_The Great Walls, Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

Snotlout stood at Harald's side as the hunting fleet sailed away from Constantinople's harbor.  They would be heading to the Greek islands in the nearby sea—the Aegean—where dragons were still known to lurk.  In their holds were fifty cages capable of holding dragons, and they had explicit orders to capture as many of them as they could and bring them back. 

As Jorn had explained to him, hopes were high for the success of this expedition; the Emperor had funded it generously, and, unlike normal Dragon Hunter teams, cost and return on investment were not going to be issues.

The Roman Empire would have its dragon riders, and Sigurd Trondsson would be the one to train them.

He was remaining behind, because he was still attached to Harald's group, who were not being allowed to go on the expedition.  And Snotlout was fine with that. 

Instead, he was going to be responsible for helping design and build the training facilities, especially since he'd let slip to Harald that his home had a special arena for the purpose to keep the dragons from flying away.  So now he had to build a training pit here in Constantinople… and he was finding himself sorely missing Hi… his cousin's drafting and drawing skills.  But they'd already started figuring where on the palace complex grounds they would be placing it.

As the fleet vanished into the sea mists to the southwest, Sigurd felt himself wishing them the best of luck—and not just for their own sakes, but in the hope that they'd get back before the Emperor lost his patience and demanded Hookfang for himself. 

Harald estimated that he had a month, maybe two, before then—an estimate that terrified Sigurd. 

So as the fleet disappeared into the distance, he wished them happy hunting… and prayed that they weren't chasing rumors. 

###

**_Fort of Einar Thambarskelfir, Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Ruffnut yawned in boredom as the legal suit continued.  A pair of village jarls from the south had been flown in yesterday by dragon for this case; they'd petitioned Magnus—meaning Einar—to resolve the dispute back over the summer, but the case had languished. 

Einar, when Magnus had demanded that he be allowed to engage in some of the running of his own kingdom, had pulled it out from wherever it had been dozing.  With a smile that had made her want to punch him on principle, he'd handed it over to Magnus.  Her husband had promptly dispatched Tuffnut and Yngvarr to collect the feuding jarls. 

But for all of the drama over getting them here, the case itself was deadly boring.  It turned out running a kingdom involved an incredible amount of arguing over who owed who what. Thank Frigga and Freyja that she hadn't married him for his crown; this stuff was so boring to follow.  Sagas, she could understand.  Eddas, she could understand.  Laws and arguments over who had a better claim to a stand of forest?  Not so much.  She got the basics of it, though.  One jarl was claiming that he had rights to the game in the forest.  The other jarl was claiming that he had the right to the forest's lumber.  So the first jarl had sued the second one to stop cutting down trees for longboats, on the grounds that it was diminishing the size of the forest. 

The pregnancy wasn't helping either.  She was apparently one of the lucky few who didn't experience morning sickness.  _However,_ the fatigue, soreness, and dry skin were ganging up on her to make up for the lack.  Yesterday had been really, really bad.  She had only left the bed to use the latrine and eat; other than that, she had either slept, or made love to her husband after sleeping for half the day—and that surge of energy hadn't lasted longer than the time it had taken for the act itself and eating the food he'd brought her. 

He, for his part, was proving to be a dutiful and devoted lover.  Yesterday, he had gotten some salve from somewhere and rubbed it all over her cracking and itchy dry skin while she had laid there like a moaning, scratchy lump.

According to the midwives, she would start to show in the next few weeks—which was making Magnus hover around like an anxious Gronckle.  He also kept breaking out into a giant grin that made all of the older married people laugh. 

But it was important that they be here.  She was certain that Einar had deliberately pushed Magnus towards the most boring meetings and discussions to try to discourage him.  But he wasn't going to be dissuaded, and she was going to be right there with him.

Finally, the discussion was over and everyone was dismissed.  Magnus told both jarls that he would consider their arguments and they would discuss a settlement in the morning.  Then, as everyone left, he turned to her and smiled.  "You all right, Ruff?"

"Bored.  Tired.  I grew up expecting to fight dragons, not listen to people arguing and expecting me to make decisions on which one of them is right.  Especially over something as boring as hunting rights in a forest, what, ten or twenty times the size of my entire home island?"

"Well, you don't _have_ to come to these, you know.  I appreciate it that you're willing to, but…"  He bit his lip and their eyes met and they both nodded; she was here to support him, but she wasn't actually that helpful, not being trained to this level of governance.  They'd realized that after they'd had to spend a great deal of time explaining the rules and laws to her—time that he had needed for the case yesterday.  "I mean,  really, if you wanted to, I could get Sigvatr to spend some time with you and teach you all of the sagas you could ever want."

"Mmmh.  Tempting."  And it was.  "But while that would be nice, I want to _do_ something!"  She stood too fast and staggered, the blood rushing from her head.  In an instant, Magnus was standing next to her and helping her back into her chair.

"You _are_ doing something, Ruff.  You're making our child," he said gently. 

She gave him an exasperated look.  "Not what I meant.  Back home, everyone helped!  And, yeah, my brother and I pulled pranks when we were bored."  And while she had some good ones planned for Father Henriksson, they were currently in the early stages, not helped by her fatigue.  "But, please, give me something to _do,_ even if it's just sewing or cooking or embroidery, or just riding the dragons around to help with construction on the fort or the city!  My _hands_ itch!"

"That might be the dryness," Magnus said, deadpan.

"Not what I mean!  I want something to do!  I know you just want to stick me in a bunch of linen wrappings until it's time, but I'll go out of my mind!"

He hugged her and she pushed him off.  "No, I'm serious!  Look, Magnus, I love you, and part of me just wants to rip off your clothes right now and take you right there on the table, but I'm starting to go stir crazy, and it's been barely a week and a half since we got here!  I need something to do, _aside_ from you!"

He blinked at that, paused and seemed to actually consider it for a moment, rather than just react.  Then he said slowly, "I need to find you some ladies-in-waiting, and I think we might want to go out flying the next time the weather is clear.  As for things you can do…"  He waved his hands a bit helplessly.  "What would you like?  Help me here, Ruff.  I want to give you everything you want."

She paused, looked at him for a long moment, considering, and then went, "Hiccup had an idea to help the neighboring tribes and stuff when Snotlout started acting up.  We would go around and introduce ourselves to people."

"And…?"

"I want to do that for _our_ people.  I can build a kitchen, or maybe a hospital or something!"  She shrugged expressively.  "The midwives said that the fatigue should pass soon, right?  So that gives me some time to come up with something, start planning how to do it, and decide what to do.  Some place in the city where I… I can meet people and they can get to know me, and get to know the dragons, and help them with their problems!  I might not be as good at getting chiefs to agree as you are, but my mother taught me the basics of medicine-making, and it would give me something to do and people to meet!"  She cocked her head in thought, and said, "And… it would also undermine Einar's control over the local people, if they know _us._ "

Magnus looked at her, blinked, and a smile bloomed over his face.  "I love you," he said, giving her a kiss.  "You seem like a fool at first, just joking around and playing pranks… but you've got a wonderful soul, and I adore you."

She basked in his regard.  "So…?"

"Yes.  We'll find a place, or build one, and I'll get you a staff, and you can be an almoner, helping our people as we should be."  He kissed her and she kissed back, hard.  "You amaze me," he said, breaking the kiss.

She grinned, and pulled at his clothes.  "Shut the door.  I changed my mind about the table."

###

**_Mead Hall, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

As the doors slammed shut behind them, Astrid shivered and dismounted from Stormfly's back.  Her hair was caked with ice and snow, and her skin was numb from the cold.  The Bog Burglar who had ridden with her was even worse off; her lips were turning blue, and she was almost spasming from the deep chill.  Stormfly wasn't doing much better, and she immediately went over by the fire and joined the growing pile of purring dragons there. 

Much of the tribe was already assembled in the hall to wait out the storm, and people immediately leapt into action to help warm and dry out the carry crew and rescued Burglars.  Tryggvi had fallen off of his Nadder and was kissing the stone of the floor in relief—and then made a squelched yelp as his Nadder proceeded to squat on top of him like a brooding hen. 

Stoick had run over to Hiccup and Toothless, and was currently crushing Astrid's husband in a hug that was making him make similar noises to Tryggvi.  Not that she could blame him.  For Frigga's sake, she didn't know whether to thump him for diving out of sight like that—and coming back soaked with seawater and washed clean of soot—or hug him for saving Tryggvi.

"When I realized that you were out in that—" her father-in-law thumbed towards the doors, "—I was terrified."

"Thanks dad," Hiccup wheezed. 

There was a light poke on Astrid's side, and she whirled to see Cami standing there, shivering and hunched in on herself.  "Hey cuz…" she said, her teeth chattering. 

"You okay?" Astrid asked. 

"Early winter storm…  longboat gone… freezin' me tits off… yeah, I'm _fine,"_ Cami said, her sarcasm dripping like hot tar. 

Stoick noticed them at that moment.  "Oh, Odin…"  He turned to face them. "Cami, what are yeh doing here?"

"I'd say a long story, just to piss you off, but it ain't."  She gave a teeth-chattering smile to Stoick, which made Astrid roll her eyes.  Hiccup came up next to her; he was shaking with either shivers or suppressed laughter. 

"Aye?  And…?" Stoick asked with exaggerated patience. 

"We was doin' a bit of light piracy off of Eire last month and ran into a bunch of Danes and Anglos trying to run away from Berk as fast as they could.  After bumpin' into 'em a few times in _supposedly_ safe ports or out on the seas, we turned around, stead of leadin' 'em to the rest of the tribe."  She rolled her shoulders in an expansive shrug.  "So we came here and figured we'd overwinter with friends in a port that we _know_ is safe."  Her eyes darted to the door.  "Winter kinda beat us to it."

Stoick rubbed at his face and chuckled helplessly.  "Aye, of course yeh did."  He sighed and continued to chuckle, glancing at Cami every so often, which renewed his chuckling.  Astrid could sympathize with that, and a quick shared glance with Hiccup showed that he did as well.  While the drawl and the lack of common-sense restraint was mostly a put-upon act to hide Cami's intelligence… it _was_ only a 'mostly'.  The idea of having Cami overwinter in Berk was… well, at least the twins weren't here. 

Finally, as Cami's shivers started to diminish, Stoick sobered and said formally, "Camilla Berthasdoittor, I offer yeh hospitality for yeh and yer tribesmates for the winter.  Do yeh accept and agree to abide by all of the rules and restrictions?"

Cami pouted at Stoick, making Astrid laugh.  Her cousin was light-fingered at the best of times. 

Stoick continued to stare at her, unperturbed, until Cami cracked.  "Fine.  I agree to the restrictions and accept your hospitality on my behalf and on behalf of me tribesmates."

Stoick grinned.  "Excellent.  Come, sit by the fire.  I hardly recognized yeh with yer hair wetted down like that."

Cami sagged.  "Aye, and it's goin' to be a right pain to deal with…"

Toothless burbled, and pushed his nose into the small group. 

Cami's face lit up.  "Aye, I remember you from last Thawfest!" she said enthusiastically, and then looked over at Hiccup.  "Hey there, Hiccup!  Thanks for the rescue!"  Her eyes then fell on the ring on his finger, and then darted over to the one on Astrid's finger, and her face lit up.  "You, you, you…!"  She cheered and pulled both of them into a hug.  "Yay!  Now I can treat Hiccup like a relative!"

Hiccup stiffened in alarm—part real, part comical, Astrid could tell—and started to exaggeratedly pat himself down. 

Cami released them and snickered, although she was still a little wild-eyed and twitchy, even by Cami's standards.  Stoick was looking at them all, his eyes crinkling with suppressed laughter. 

A quiet voice came from behind Astrid.  "Um… hello.  Could I ask for an introduction?" Wulfhild asked. 

Astrid nodded.  "Wulfhild, this is Camilla Berthasdoittor of the Bog Burglar tribe, down by the south Eirish Sea, but everyone calls her 'Cami'.  She's one of my cousins."

"Aye, Papa took one look at Mom and said that he'd be willin' to leave Berk and become a Chieftess's consort," Cami said with relish. 

Stoick made another snort that was clearly suppressing laughter.  "As I recall, Bertha didn't give him too much of a choice!" 

Astrid snorted.  She'd heard that story.  Naoise clan Hofferson's courtship of—and _by—_ then-heir "Big-Boobied" Bertha was the stuff of family legend.  What had started with him tripping and landing in her lap during a Thing had become a back-and-forth series of burglaries and thefts where the pair of them had stolen their bride-price and dowry back and forth in an ever-escalating series of antics—most of which Astrid doubted the full truth of in the story as she had been told it.  She did know that it had ended with Bertha mock-kidnapping her intended and leaving the dowry behind in his bed for Astrid's grand-uncle Eysteinn to find. 

"He had a choice—big spoon or little spoon!" Cami shot back with a grin.  "So, who's this?"

Astrid shared a glance with Wulfhild, who shrugged, so she said, "Cami… this is Wulfhild Olafsdoittor, Princess of Norway."

Cami did a glorious double-take at Wulfhild, who bowed politely.

Stoick gave Astrid a side-eyed glance.  "Yeh forgot one bit, lass." He leaned in.  "Wulfhild Olafsdoittor _clan Haddock,_ Princess of Norway."  He leaned back out and said, "After all of that, it's worth not forgetting about."

Astrid winced as Cami's eyes turned perfectly round.  "What?!"  She looked at Stoick, stunned.  "You… you… you _remarried?_ "

Stoick shook his head. 

"But… then…"  And the light dawned.  Cami turned onto Hiccup angrily.  "I thought you were devoted to Astrid!  What in Freyja's name, Hiccup!?"

"What?" Hiccup asked, confused.

"You took Astrid as your concubine?!" Cami yelled angrily.  "I thought she was your one and only!"

Hiccup looked shocked, and Astrid sighed.  Okay, maybe more of a false-dawn, then. 

Cami was taking small angry steps towards Hiccup, muttering something under her breath about trust and Berk.  Before she could wallop him, Astrid stepped forward and restrained Cami.  Family or not, it wouldn't be good for her cousin to technically violate hospitality (by attacking the heir and her rescuer, no less) within the same conversation. 

Then, loud enough so that the onlookers (who were watching in amused curiosity) could hear, she said, "Calm down, Cami."

"Why?  He—"

" _Married me._   And I'd really you rather not break my _husband!_   I kinda need him."

One of the watching Bog Burglars coughed and laughed, and Cami stopped resisting and blinked at her.  "What?"

Heather stepped in at that moment, smiling, and proffered mugs of some steaming-hot drinks on a tray.  "I think you could use something warm, yeah?"

Cami glanced at Hiccup, but grabbed a mug from the tray and took a long pull.  Astrid did the same, quickly followed by everyone else in the immediate group.  Once there was one mug left, Astrid watched Heather scud over to Fishlegs and handed him the last one; she gave him a peck on the cheek before vanishing back into the kitchens. 

As she drank, there was a tug on Astrid's arm, and she turned to see her cousin—second cousin, technically speaking, as they were both great-granddaughters of Rikard—giving her a narrow-eyed look.  Cami pulled her away from the rest of the group and over to the fire.   She still looked agitated, her hands shaking on her mug.

"Tell me everything.  Like how is she in the clan and a princess if you're the one that married him…" Cami asked after taking another two pulls.

Astrid settled down on the bench.  "She's his concubine… here for a treaty with Norway.  So she's part of the clan, but not married to him.  It's for politics."

Cami blinked, looking stunned, and then shook her head before giving Hiccup another long look.  "So… it did go to his head."  She scowled.  "And I was hopin' he was better than that."  She drummed her fingers on the side of her mug.  "Well, I guess I have to find Ruff and Tuff to help me prank Hiccup until he's afraid to open a door.  You know.  For old times' sake—"

"Cami, give it a _rest._   What's wrong?"

Cami looked down at her mug.  "First, I hear story after story for the last month and a half all across the Eirish Sea about Berk—specifically Hiccup—kickin' the ass of the Anglos.  Then we get chased out of harbor after safe harbor by the Anglo fleet, or just by the locals who view our tribe as unnatural.  So we come here.  Hiccup smashes my ship—I _saw_ it shatter on the water—and now he's got a princess as his _bed warmer_?  What in Freyja's name am I supposed to think, other than him actin' like a _man_ and lettin' all of that power go to _both_ heads?"  She scowled, shot Hiccup a dark look, and took a drink.

Astrid rolled her eyes.  "It's not like that.  _He's_ not like that."

"Then start talkin', or I find Ruff and Tuff and a bucket of tar."

Astrid smirked.  "You might find that part difficult," she said and took a drink of her mulled ale.  Oh, this was going to be good. 

"Why's that?"

"Ruff's married."

Cami choked on her ale.  "What!?"

"Married to Wulfhild's brother—the king of Norway."  Astrid chortled at the expression on Cami's face.  "They're expecting their first baby next summer."

Cami's mouth gaped like a landed fish, and Astrid, relishing the moment, reached out and shut her cousin's jaw with an extended finger.  It clicked, and Cami shook her head to clear it. 

"So that's it?  You traded hostages?  She's your peaceweaver, and Ruff is theirs?" Cami asked after a moment.  Her tone was much calmer.

Astrid nodded.  "More or less.  To stop a civil war in Norway.  And it's not like they're our enemies.  Ruffnut loves Magnus and Wulfhild is one of our best friends and, and… well…"  Astrid sighed slightly, "I'd rather have her with us and the potential for what Grandpapa Rikard has with Ingrid and Dagn, than have to watch my back for a knife in it."  She just, well, had to _talk_ to them to get some advice.  Eventually. 

Cami frowned at the mention of their respective great-grandmothers, and then nodded.  "You don't sound convinced."

"It's complicated.  Tell you later?" 

Cami nodded again, and bit her lip.  Then she forced a grin.  "So, cuz, you got married!  How is Hiccup in the sack?"

Astrid, ignoring the blush that threatened to rise in her cheeks, leaned over and whispered in Cami's ear.

A few moments later, the whole hall turned and looked at them as Cami burst out laughing and started to clap in glee. 

Until a scream broke everyone's attention. 

###

Heather wove through the crowded mead hall, carrying warm food and hot drinks to the shivering Bog Burglars.  Ironically, she actually knew more about them from her childhood than from her time as Adalwin's thrall—they were a Freyja and Sif cult, living in one of the bogs near the coast of the Eirish Sea in Deheubarth.  As they were ruled by and mostly populated by women sworn to the goddesses, Murray had been negotiating with them as a place that she could seek sanctuary when she was twelve, and Dagur had been making threats about declaring war in order to take her back.  But they were a small tribe, less than half the size of the Hooligans, and the negotiations hadn't gone anywhere before Hallr had arrived and taken them.

The Burglars looked half-frozen, and soaked to the bone, and were gratefully accepting the tankards that she was distributing through the crowd. 

Astrid was talking with her cousin, and Heather gave her friend a grateful nod; she'd gone and pumped Karolina for information the day before, and it had given her some more insight into Twiglet's campaign of harassment.

She wandered over to where Hiccup and Stoick were discussing things with some of the other Burglars, and then a quick, smaller form darted in front of her, and Heather dodged—just as the shorter person slammed the heel of their hand up into the tray and sent the hot drinks streaming at Heather's face.

 She flinched and closed her eyes just in time, and screamed as the steaming liquid cascaded over her head and face.  There was a sudden hush, and then the sound of a tussle nearby. 

Then Fishlegs was holding her, and he gently wiped away the hot liquid from her face as she whimpered with pain.  She cracked open one eye, cringing against the pain, and, her vision blurry, she saw Burl Woodnutsdoittor struggling in Gobber's grip. 

"I saw yeh, lass!  You shoved that tray right into her face!" he was saying angrily. 

Burl was fighting to get free.  "G'off me, old man!  I didn't do nothing!"

Even as her face, neck, and shoulders felt like they were on fire, Heather suddenly remembered that Burl had upset the tray of bread rolls and stepped on her toes by 'accident,' back when the harassment had really hit a higher tempo.  It looked like she'd had her lucky break in catching one of Twiglet's minions in the act…

Stoick—because that tall, blurry red-topped shape could be nobody else—and Hiccup—there weren't many lanky Vikings around here—came into her blurry field of view. 

"Let's get yeh treated, lass.  Those burns look nasty…" Stoick was saying, and was calling for someone to open the door and get her some snow to put on the burns. 

Gobber, still nonchalantly holding a thrashing Burl, wandered over and took a close look at her face, gently using his tong-hand to move her head side-to-side; the cool metal felt good on her skin.  "Light burns.  Should be healed in a week or so."

She sagged in relief, and rubbed at her eyes, which was a mistake.  It hurt.  A lot.  But her vision cleared for a brief moment, allowing her to catch Twiglet's eye as the older woman was staring at her from the doorway to the kitchens.

And then paused.  Because Twiglet was looking confused—not triumphant. 

She turned away, and a moment later, someone came up with a pack of snow wrapped in linen to put on her face.  She did so, and felt instant relief.  Oh, thank the gods…

Stoick turned and looked around the hall.  "Everyone, back to yer drinks!"  He turned to Heather, Fishlegs, Gobber and Burl—the last of whom had stopped trying to get free, and was panting in exhaustion.  "You lot, with me.  Heather, are yeh all right?"

"It hurts," she said, "But I think that I missed the worst of it.  At least it wasn't boiling…"

Stoick gave Burl a narrow-eyed look, and Woodnut came running up.  "What's this?"

"Yer daughter just assaulted a tribesmate," Stoick said flatly.  Heather's eyes had teared back up, but she could tell that Burl was staring at her father—but the precise expression was lost to the blurring from her pained tears.  "And as she's still a child, she's yer responsibility."  Astrid and Cami came up as he was saying that, followed by Wulfhild and Hiccup.  "Come.  Let's take this over to the chief's hut.  No reason to air dirty laundry in public."

They walked outside, and Heather shivered from the wind, although it felt good on her burned face.  The snow was coming down so thick that she could barely see the chief's hut from the mead hall doors. 

Walking in a line, they reached the doors and stepped inside.  As Hiccup and Toothless lit the hearth-fire, Heather hoped that she wasn't about to find herself a social pariah at the end of this.  It would be the height of irony for her to get justice and be ostracized at the same time. 


	38. …And The Truth

**Chapter 38:** **…And The Truth**

_Immediately prior to the conclusion of the Dragon War in AD 1040, Berk's society was structured around four major clans of 110-150 persons—Ingerman, Hofferson, Thorston, and Jorgenson—plus the Chief's clan, Haddock, plus approximately two hundred more clanless members of the Hooligan tribe, grouped in small families or as solitary individuals.  During this time, most of the resources of the village and island were under the control of these five clans, granting them significant social and economic influence.  This state of affairs is generally agreed to be a result of the depredations of the dragon raids, which made it such that only larger clans were truly viable, as they collectively had the resources to withstand the constant losses that would debilitate any smaller clan._

_This can be seen in the case of Clan Haddock, which had been reduced from the 108 persons listed as their maximum in AD 875 down to four (Stoick, Valka, Hiccup, and Gothi) in AD 1025.  Stoick was able to maintain control over the rest of the village due to tradition, but also due his charisma, leadership skills, physical prowess and strength—and due to being the sole inheritor of his clan's comparatively vast wealth, which he used judiciously in order to stay in power, creating debts of honor and capital that would need to be repaid by the recipient out of social expectations.  He also made use of Clan Haddock's web of kin ties to the rest of the village; for examples, Stoick's sister, Serena, had married into the Jorgensons at about the same time Stoick had married Valka clan Jorgenson, and Stoick's paternal aunt Rhonda was the wife of Rikard clanhead Hofferson and thus the matriarch of a third of the Hofferson clan._

_Despite all of Stoick's efforts and skilled politicking, however, his clan was simply not as vibrant and able to absorb damage as the other clans.  Stoick's assets were mostly static compared with the others, despite the loans that he constantly engaged in for investment, and only his skills—in politics, and in dragonslaying—allowed him to defer the inevitable collapse of his clan, according to the Gobber Ledgers.  This persisted until his son came up with a completely different solution to their problem, revived their clan, and changed the course of history._

_Without Hiccup's efforts, however, Clan Haddock would almost certainly have joined the other nine extinct clans listed in the Hooligan records at the end of Stoick's life.  Instead, by AD 1050, the social structure had shifted—occasionally catastrophically—to medium-sized clans, ranging in size between 30 and 70 people.  Clan Jorgenson was the first to split, in response to the death of…_

_—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396_

**_December, AD 1041_ **

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

Hiccup looked around the people in the chief's hut and hid a frown.  Heather's face was splotchy and red where she wasn't covering it with the soaked linen, Fishlegs looked like he was considering how best to precisely dismantle Burl into her constituent pieces, Astrid was glaring at her, Wulfhild was impassive but Hiccup thought that he detected an air of anger from her as well, and Burl and Woodnut were looking angry and defensive; Burl was holding her arms folded in front of her, and Woodnut was grinding his teeth and clenching his fists. 

But Stoick and Gobber were looking at them with anger, Gobber still holding Burl by the upper arm—and Hiccup knew quite well how vise-like that grip could be. 

Stoick hammered the table with an open palm.  "Gobber.  Yeh saw it all.  Lay it out."

Gobber let Burl go, and she twisted away from him and rubbed at her bicep.  "I saw Burl here run past Heather, right in front of her, in a way that would have made Heather drop the tray.  But Heather managed to keep that from happening—so Burl punched the tray up into her face and tried to run off."  Gobber reached down and grabbed Burl's left fist—the knuckles of which were skinned. 

Stoick grimaced and motioned for him to release the girl.  He did, and Burl hunched down, glaring at all of them.  Stoick looked up at Woodnut, and said flatly, "Does your daughter have anything to say in her defense?"

"I'm sure that it was just a childish prank that got out of hand!" Woodnut insisted.  "She's just a child, and I heard Gobber—the burns will heal in a week!"

"Aye, but they might not have," Stoick said, his tone unchanged.  "And it was still an attack that caused harm."  His eyes swiveled to Burl.  "And I want to know _why._ "

Burl looked at Stoick defiantly, and said nothing.

Hiccup caught Heather's eye and mouthed, _Should we say something?_

Heather blinked and then stared at him, and started to shake her head—which Gobber caught.

"Lass, what's wrong?" the smith asked gruffly, if not unkindly.  "At the least, Burl and Woodnut here owe yeh a geld for assault—"

"Assault!?  For a prank?" Woodnut roared. 

"It's the fact of the matter that's important," Stoick said, "not the intentions, although those count in the setting of the sentence.  Like when Hiccup used to…  Hiccup?  What's wrong?"

Hiccup realized that he hadn't managed to get his face back under control and hurriedly grinned.  "Nothing, nothing's wrong?"

Gobber gave him a narrowed eyed look.  "Laddie.  Heather.  What's the matter?"

Then Astrid huffed, gave an apologetic look to Heather, and said, "This wasn't an isolated incident, Chief."

Hiccup caught Burl's expression when Astrid said that—and it was practically a poem to a moment of dawning comprehension of just how much trouble she was potentially in. 

Stoick, however, missed it.  Instead he asked Astrid, "What do yeh mean?"

Hiccup gave Heather an apologetic look and then said, "Someone cut the belaying lines on Heather's saddle the other day—and I checked the girth as well, and the leather was weakened with a knife."

Stoick gave him an incredulous look.  "What?"

Hiccup took a deep breath, and, not looking at Burl or Woodnut, said, "Someone in the village is trying to kill Heather."

Burl burst out, "But I didn—oh shit." Her face turned red as everyone turned to look at her.

Gobber quirked an eyebrow.  "Do yeh have something to say, lass?"

Burl looked down at the floor, and cast a single look to her father, the tips of her ears bright red.  "No."

Fishlegs snorted and spoke up.  "Really?  Then do you deny that you've been helping Twiglet harass and prank Heather for over two weeks now?"

Burl's head shot up and she glared at Fishlegs.  "Don't you try to drag my cousin in on this!  She hasn't done anything!"

Astrid snorted.  "Is that what she told you when she orchestrated all of this?"  She turned to Stoick.  "I talked with my cousin Karolina yesterday, and she told me that Twiglet has been pushing everyone in the kitchen to harass Heather for weeks now."

"Hearsay!" Woodnut said angrily.  "And I don't see what this has to do with my daughter's lack of judgment!"  He turned to Heather, and said, "I'll pay a geld for the damages on behalf of my daughter, and we'll call this closed, eh?"

Hiccup looked at Woodnut suspiciously.  Only a minute or two earlier, he'd been trying to get the idea of a geld dismissed, and now he was agreeing to pay it?  Yeah, that wasn't a coincidence.  "What are you trying to hide, Woodnut?" he asked pointedly.  "Your daughter harassing a freedwoman?  I mean, it's not like your dad didn't get kidnapped and sold when he was my age, and your wife and Burl's brother-in-law are both freedmen…"

Woodnut snapped, "That's different!" and then a moment of dawning realization grew on his face, practically identical to Burl's visual poem from a few moments earlier.

Stoick leaned in, a predatory look on his face.  "Different, eh?  Different _how?"_

Woodnut glared nastily at Heather.  "My wife wasn't a _spy,_ Stoick.  Neither was my father, or my son-in-law.  And somehow I managed to court Eithne _without_ getting _my_ face bashed in!" 

Heather made a pained noise and Fishlegs hugged her. 

"Why are you comforting her?" Woodnut demanded.  "She joined the tribe under false pretenses!"

Hiccup said angrily, "She sided with us when it counted!"

"But there shouldn't have been _sides_ in the first place, Hiccup!" Woodnut barked.  "My family joined the tribe because they _wanted_ to, not so that they could sneak around and find out our secrets and sell them to some outsider king!"

Stoick slammed the table.  "ENOUGH!" 

"Aye, enough," Woodnut blurted.  "This is a farce and a disgrace!  I'll pay the geld for the damages, but I want the base libel being made against us to be dismissed and fined as well!"

Stoick gave the Thorston man a flinty look.  "Woodnut.  I helped rescue yer wife when we were out hunting for the Nest all those years ago.  Eithne _stabbed_ me with me own knife."  Stoick rolled up his sleeve and showed a silvery scar on his arm.  "And yeh know what?  _I forgave her._   Because she had no reason to trust me."  He turned to point at Heather, who looked distraught.  "She had no reason to trust us either.  And like yer wife, she's learned better."

Hiccup blinked.  He'd never heard that story before, and shared a surprised look with Astrid—she hadn't either, and he knew that she also had relatives who had been rescued on that same hunting trip. 

Stoick turned and looked at Heather.  "Are yeh feeling all right, lass?"

She sniffed and nodded.  "I'm just getting sick of this.  And this," she pointed to her face, "hurts."

Hiccup turned and looked at Burl, scowling.  "Happy, Burl?  Happy doing Twiglet's bidding and hurting someone that's already been hurt!"

Woodnut growled.  "You leave my niece out of this.  She hasn't _done_ anything."

"So you say—"

"Dad, _stop it!"_ Burl's voice was loud, frightened, and shrill enough to cut through everything else, as she pulled away from her father's side and turned to face him.  "This was all your idea in the first place—"

"Shut up!" Woodnut growled at his daughter angrily. 

" _No!_ " Burl shouted back.  "We have to tell them, you heard what they think I did, this isn't _fun_ anymore, let's just—"

"Fun!?  _Fun!?_ " Fishlegs roared and stepped forward, protectively in front of Heather.  " _Heather could have died, you idiot!  Why?!  Why did you do it!?"_

Everyone in the room blinked at Fishlegs.  Hiccup looked at his friend, shocked.  He'd _never_ heard Fishlegs even raise his voice in the past. 

"I didn't cut the saddle!" Burl insisted.  "I was doing stupid things, stupid pranks!  I loosened the spigot on that big beer barrel, put eggs in her shoes and burrs in her shirt, and sand in her drink—"

Fishlegs sputtered.  "That was you!?"

Heather turned and looked at him.  "You didn't say anything…"

Burl continued speaking, talking over them, "But I didn't do anything that would hurt her!"

Fishlegs growled, and Burl took an intimidated step backwards.  "You burned her!"

"I didn't mean to!  It was just, just a moment where I saw a chance!" Burl said desperately.  "Dad was pushing me—"

Woodnut roared, "Shut up!"

Stoick rose from his seat, and leaned over at Woodnut intimidatingly.  "Burl, speak," he said, not breaking eye contact away from Woodnut.

"I, um, I… Dad said that he'd been hoping to pair me off with Fishlegs when I got old enough, and then this… then _Heather_ came swooping in and snatched him up, bedding him out of wedlock—and then she beat him and turned out to be a traitor.  So Dad pushed me to let her know that she's not welcome here, and I… I pranked her.  A lot."

"What did you do, aside from what you've confessed to already?"

"Um… I was going to dump dragon piss all over her clothes and bed, but they almost caught me first," Burl said sheepishly.  "Nothing else."

Fishlegs scowled at her, and then caught Hiccup's eye with a cock of his head. 

Hiccup looked back at him inquisitively, and Fishlegs mimed writing something on parchment. 

Understanding dawned, and Hiccup darted upstairs and grabbed a quill, some ink, and a piece of spare parchment from his desk, and came back down.

"What's that for?" Woodnut asked aggressively.

"A little test to see how well you know your runes.  Don't worry, we'll use the simple ones," Hiccup snarked. 

"I don't see why I should help you with your _test_ then!" Woodnut said angrily.

Hiccup caught Heather's eye and quirked his head inquisitively.  She sighed and nodded.  Hiccup then turned to Stoick.  "Dad… if they cooperate, can I suggest a reduced fine?"  _And then a bigger one if their handwriting matches…_ he thought.

Stoick nodded, obviously curious. 

Hiccup set the sheet down and had both Burl and Woodnut write out Heather's name and a few other words.  As soon as they were done, Fishlegs practically snatched the parchment out of their hands and examined it furiously. 

Then he slumped and shook his head.  "Nope.  Not them."

Heather slumped as well, and Stoick narrowed his eyes.  "What's this?"

"Tell you when they're not here?  It wasn't them," Hiccup said, and Fishlegs nodded in agreement.

"All right," Stoick said, and then turned to Woodnut.  "Do yeh deny that yeh set Burl to harass and attack Heather?" 

Woodnut glared at his daughter, and then shook his head.  "No," he said, his tone poisonous.  "He seems to be devoted to his abusive traitor anyway.  I'm glad I found that out before I tried to get my daughter to marry him."

Heather made an angry noise at that, and Woodnut turned and glared at her.  "You have no right to make threatening noises at me!  You nearly killed a member of this tribe!  So you got pranked and burned a little!  You got off lightly compared to what you deserve!"

"Woodnut, that's enough!" Stoick boomed.

"Is it, Chief?  She hurt and betr—"

Hiccup snorted angrily, which cut Woodnut off mid-word.  "Woodnut, you're just looking for any excuse to hate Heather."  He scowled and crossed his arms.  "You admitted it!  You set Burl on her because of Fishlegs, not for any other reason."

"Aye," Stoick said.  "And they're a courting couple."

Woodnut snorted.  "A _fornicating_ couple."

Stoick scowled as Hiccup caught Astrid's eyes and they both gave each other guilty looks; it wasn't fair that they got away with it and their friends… well, they hadn't even _done_ anything. 

"That falsehood was my own suggestion to cover them from suspicion that she had turned, Woodnut, and yeh know it," Stoick said.  "They swore that they didn't do anything, and I believe them.  And they're still _courting._   So that's another geld yeh owe."  He interlaced his fingers and looked at Woodnut with an expression of supreme disappointment that Hiccup was intimately familiar with.  "Yeh shall pay Heather a geld of sixty silver pennies for the attack and harassment of a courting couple, which is reduced from what I originally intended to fine yeh in light of the agreed-upon cooperation."

Woodnut snorted, reached for his moneypurse at his belt, counted out the coins, and almost threw them at Heather, but a noise from Stoick made him shove the generous fistful of silver into her hands instead.  "Worth it."

Stoick growled.  "And if Burl gets caught again pulling such pranks, I won't be so generous next time."

Woodnut glared at him—and then at Burl, who seemed to be trying to fade into the shadows from how Astrid and Wulfhild were glaring at both her and her father.  Stoick caught it and his eyes narrowed.  "And if yeh take it out on Burl…"  His lip curled and his eye twitched.  "Well, I'd _highly_ recommend that yeh don't."  The chief looked at Burl.  "If yer dad does anything to yeh because of this, come talk to me."

"But—"

"Come.  Talk.  To.  Me," Stoick said flatly, and Burl nodded like a puppet on a string.

Woodnut scowled.  "We done here, Chief?"

"Aye.  Get out."

Woodnut marched off, his shoulders set, and flung open the door, letting in a blast of winter air that billowed across the floor.  Obviously caught between the rock of her furious parent and the hard place of Heather's upset friends, Burl backed away towards the door… and then blurted, "I'm sorry!" and lunged through the door.

As the door slammed shut behind her, Stoick turned to Hiccup and his friends.  "Now.  What was the issue with the parchment?"

Heather gave a pained sigh, obviously uncomfortable with the conversation that was about to occur.  Wulfhild, who had been watching the whole time, stepped forward and put a gentle hand on Heather's arm.  "Let me."  Heather nodded in approval, and Wulfhild said, "Someone left a poisonous letter where Fishlegs would be certain to find it… that… well, it would be the sort of thing to break up any couple, sir, from the slander that Heather was cheating on Fishlegs."

"With Dogsbreath, no less," Hiccup said acidly. 

Stoick quirked an eyebrow at that, for reasons that Hiccup understood quite well—Dogsbreath had a history of history of unwanted and clumsy seduction attempts that Stoick had routinely censured him for, up to and including the point of permitting a _holmgang_ between him and Hazelnut for slander. 

"And it gave pretty explicit details on what they were supposedly doing with each other," Astrid added in.

Gobber hissed.  "Aye, that's a low blow indeed."

"So I was checking the handwriting, because that's how I figured out that it wasn't her in the first place," Fishlegs said, putting his arm around Heather comfortingly. 

Gobber and Stoick made sounds of comprehension, and Stoick sighed.  "Sounds like there's another one after yeh then, lass.  You mentioned Twiglet?"

Heather flinched and then nodded.  "Yeah… but I haven't _caught_ her doing anything yet, and we already figured out that the letter wasn't from her."

Stoick nodded.  "All right then."  He looked at Heather.  "Lass, I want your oath that if yeh figure out who else is attacking yeh, yeh will _tell me_ as soon as yeh can.  All right?"

"I… Chief… no…"

"That didn't sound like an oath, Heather," Stoick said pointedly.

"I can't… I can't go informing on them…" she said weakly. 

"It's not informing, lass," Stoick said intently.  "They're tryin' to hurt you."

"But I can't!" she said, and her eyes started to tear up.  "Chief, I informed on people back in Vedrarfjord, and I got rewarded for it!  I got people beaten, whipped like _animals,_ caged, starved, and _I_ got a good dinner out of it."  She threw the silver pennies on the floor with a clatter—nearly two months' pay for her, and she looked revolted at the rolling coins.  "I can't do that again!"  She turned to Fishlegs and buried her burned face into his shirt and started to sob in earnest.

Everyone else in the room looked around at each other uneasily as Fishlegs patted her on the back. 

Hiccup stepped over to Astrid carefully, and took her by the arm, and then did the same with Wulfhild.  And then the three of them cautiously approached Fishlegs and Heather, and hugged them both. 

Heather didn't resist.  She just slumped into their combined embrace. 

Gobber's distinctive footsteps came from behind them, and then the door opened and shut, followed by more footsteps.  "I got the lass more snow for her face," Gobber's voice came gently from behind Hiccup.  "It's important to keep the burn cool to let it heal…"

They opened up and Gobber handed the linen-wrapped wad of snow to Heather.  She put it on her face, and Fishlegs guided her over to a chair, where they both sat—the same chair that Hiccup and Astrid usually used for extended kissing sessions, so there was room enough for both of them, although it was tighter, due to Fishlegs being much bigger than Hiccup.  The room was silent, the only sound being the wind howling outside and the crackle of the hearthfire in its new stone-lined home.

Finally, Heather picked the pad up off of her face and sniffed again.  Her skin was red and flushed from the burn, but Hiccup didn't think that it would be that bad.  It would itch like Hel's own curse, though, in a few days when the burned skin started to peel, and he made a note to get some of Gothi's or Nanna's burn ointment that worked so well when he or Gobber managed to scorch themselves in the smithy. 

Stoick, sounding as gentle as he could manage, said, "Heather.  Yeh can't go on like this.  Someone tried to kill yeh.  They're trying to break up yer courtship.  Yeh say that yeh can't tell me, but someone is attackin' yeh, and a Chief protects his own.  And that includes you."

She didn't say anything. 

Stoick sighed and rubbed at his face with one broad hand.  "All right.  Lass.  What is it that yeh want?"

"I want… I want to live.  I want to move on.  I want to be a good Hooligan," Heather sniffed out.  "I want to be accepted and stop having to watch for knives in the back."

Hiccup knelt down to be at Heather's eye level, and tentatively spoke up.  "Heather… you can't have all of that if you don't stand up for yourself.  You can't be accepted if they're attacking you."

She looked him in the eye and then looked away.

A gentle hand touched Hiccup's shoulder.  He turned and, to his surprise, it was Wulfhild.  "Can I…?"

Hiccup nodded and pulled himself to his feet. 

Wulfhild stepped to where he'd been kneeling and extended a hand apiece to  both Fishlegs and Heather.  "Can I talk with you two?"

Hiccup looked at them as Heather nodded and Wulfhild helped both of them out of the chair.  They went to the stairs, as Wulf got a lit taper from the hearthfire and followed them.  As the door upstairs closed, Hiccup shared a glance with his dad.  Stoick asked softly, "Do yeh think she can help her?"

Hiccup took a deep breath and sat down in the vacated chair, and Astrid slumped into it next to him a moment later.  "I hope so."

###

Wulfhild looked at Heather and Fishlegs as she entered her bedroom.  Heather was leaning on Fishlegs; she looked exhausted and in pain, and Fishlegs was doing his best to support her.  She lit the small oil lamp—filled with Monstrous Nightmare spittle—with the taper, and then shook it out, and took the chair next to the desk.  Both of which had been made by Woodnut, now that she thought of it.  Meanwhile, Fishlegs and Heather sat stiffly on the edge of her bed, as the only other available seating in the room. 

"So… um… look.  You're both my friends.  And I was thinking about our talk in the tunnels… when we went after Mistletoe and Windshear.  And…" she gently extended a hand and put it on the back of Heather's, "Just now, when you said that you wanted to be a good Hooligan… I remembered that moment when I said that I wanted to stay here."

"Yeah…?  So?" Heather said.

"Well…"  Wulfhild forced a smile.  "I… I know how hard it is to stand up for yourself when you've been beaten down for so long.  And while yours was so much worse than mine… I think that I understand it more than they," she cocked her head towards the downstairs, "can."  She got up out of the chair and knelt in front of Heather.  "So… it hurt so much when I said that I wanted to stay.  I had been dreaming of it, of having a place safe to stay, and then it was dangled in front of me… and I leapt for it.  I said 'I want to stay.'  And that nearly cost me my friendships with Hiccup and Astrid.  But if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't be here now for you."  She gripped Heather's hands more firmly.  "You need to take that same step for you.  I know it's hard to stand up and do it… but you need to.  For your sake.  For Fishlegs' sake." 

Fishlegs reached out and, cautiously, put his arm around Heather's shoulders.  She leaned into his embrace and shifted into his lap. 

Smiling at their closeness, Wulfhild stroked the back of Heather's hands with her thumbs.  "You're safe here… but you can't let them get away with hurting you like Alvin did.  It won't make you into him, and it won't make you worse than him.  You're a freedwoman, a member of this tribe, and you need to stand up and remember that you have the right to _live._   They don't have the right to hurt you."

Fishlegs was giving Wulfhild an indescribably thankful look, and Heather started to shake.  "It's so _hard,"_ she said. 

"I know.  But you don't have to carry it alone," Wulfhild said.  "Even though it hurt our friendship so much, I still have Hiccup and Astrid… and you.  You have all of us.  Please… let us help you."

"But if I report on them, they'll all hate me in the kitchens!" Heather moaned.

"Like they don't already hate you now?" Wulfhild asked cannily.  "Heather, they've been attacking you for weeks, you said.  And either they're attacking you, or letting you be attacked.  That doesn't sound like they're going to turn around and love you.  Not for being a good archery butt.  Not for you.  Maybe it's time you stopped working there."

Heather sniffed.  "And then what?"

Wulfhild looked over at Fishlegs and met his eyes, and then nodded.  He nodded back.  "I make enough, helping Hiccup with the Broodery and all of that, to support us both… and your parents and Mhairi, too, for that matter.  If you wanted, you could quit the kitchens and work in the glasshouse all day, experimenting to your heart's content," he said softly. 

Heather considered that as the three of them sat there.  Wulfhild continued to massage the backs of Heather's hands, rubbing her archery calluses over the small burns, knife scars, and scrubbing calluses on Heather's. 

Then Heather slumped and nodded.  "Okay.  But I won't make accusations without proof.  I draw the line there."  She inhaled sharply, the snot in her nose making an audible gurgling noise.  "I have to."

Wulfhild nodded.  "I understand.  C'mon.  Let's go talk to Stoick… and tell him everything."

###

Astrid looked up from her seat next to Hiccup as footsteps sounded on the stairs.  Gobber had gone to get some salve from the smithy so that Heather could treat her burns, and it was just her, Hiccup, and Stoick at this point.  The conversation had been slight and tight, and mostly focused on the rescue mission of the Burglars.  Stoick had agreed with Hiccup's decision to drop the longboat and lose the net, even though he regretted its loss, and had tasked Hiccup with finding a way to make rope in greater quantities.  And, of course, Hiccup had ideas. 

Meanwhile, even though he'd downplayed the risk that he'd taken, she wasn't sure if she was furious with him for risking his life, or thankful for saving her cousin's life. 

Fishlegs appeared first, followed by Heather and then Wulfhild, bringing up the rear.  They returned to the circle of chairs near the hearthfire, and sat. 

Stoick took a deep breath and asked, "So, lass… ready to give that oath?"

She nodded jerkily, and said, "Chief, I swear that, as soon as I find _proof_ of who is attacking me, I'll let you know straightaway.  And I'll refrain from responding in kind as well, as I have been doing."

Stoick turned and smiled at Wulfhild.  "Lass.  Thank yeh for getting through to her."

Astrid felt a lump in her chest at the smile Stoick was giving Wulfhild, along with a stab of jealousy.  Wulfhild had gotten Heather to open up, when Hiccup and the rest of them couldn't. 

How long would it be before Wulfhild got tired of the scraps that Astrid was leaving her and set her eyes on the full meal?  She had the skills to be pretty convincing…

She leaned against Hiccup's side as Heather started to tell Stoick what had been happening.  Stoick was scowling all through it.  When Heather finished, he said, "I expected better of Magnhild."

"It's not her fault, sir…" Heather said quietly.  "She's one person, and half of the kitchens are out after me."

"Have yeh talked with her about this?" Stoick asked.

Heather shook her head and didn't say anything.  Fishlegs just rubbed at her shoulders, concerned.  Astrid gave Heather the best supportive smile she could manage. 

Stoick sighed.  "All right.  I'll talk with Magnhild.  See if she can't get this to stop."

Heather jerked her head up.  "No!"

Stoick gave her a flat look that reminded Astrid of those moments when Hiccup had messed up prior to meeting Toothless.  "I'm not used to being told what I can and can't do, lass.  In my judgment, the best thing I can do is to talk with Magnhild and let her know what is going on.  She's in charge of the kitchens, meaning that everyone in there is her responsibility.  It's my _duty,_ as chief, to inform her of what is going on."

"But if you talk to her and she talks to them, then they'll know that I reported them!" Heather said, sounding desperate. 

Stoick snorted.  "And they'll also know that I know about their efforts to hurt a tribesmate.  If they have any sense, they'll shove off and quit it."

Heather looked like she was about to cry again, and Hiccup leaned over and gently patted her hand.  Fishlegs had turned the shoulder massage into a hug, and Wulfhild was patting Heather's other hand. 

Astrid felt at a loss for what to do, so she got up and gently picked up the drying linen towel from the arm of Heather's chair, the snow that it had contained long since gone. 

Stoick sighed.  "Lass.  The harshest thing I'm going to do to them is a stern talking to—until and unless yeh find specific proof on something that I can fine or punish.  I promise yeh.  But I hope that you won't have to, because I'm hoping that they have the mother wit to recognize that they should stop and leave yeh alone!"

The door opened at that moment, and Gobber came back in.  Astrid did a double-take at his appearance, as the snow in his hair was such that he looked like he'd aged another twenty years.  The smithy wasn't _that_ far. 

"It's a real howler out there," Gobber said, and looked around the room.  "Ah, good."  He produced a small stoneware jar the size of his hand.  "Here we go.  Burn ointment." 

Astrid took it and mutely handed him the towel.  

Gobber rolled his eyes and turned to go back out, muttering about how he was already half-frozen anyway. 

Astrid turned and went back to the circle around the fire, and opened the jar.  "Hiccup, how much?"

"Just enough to coat the skin," he said, still patting Heather's hand supportively. 

As Astrid scooped out some of the ointment onto her fingers and started to spread it on Heather's face, making her sigh in relief, Stoick took in a deep sigh. "Lass," he said, addressing Heather.  "I don't want to make yeh into a stalking goat.  I'm going to have a talk with Magnhild, and tell her to tell them to knock it off.  If they don't do that, then how in the world would you ever be able to get through to them to get them to stop?"  He leaned forward as the door opened and Gobber came back in.  "Yeh _do_ want them to stop, right?"

Heather twitched, and then Astrid quirked an eyebrow.  She leaned in as she carefully painted some of the ointment onto Heather's forehead, above her eyebrows.  "Heather… you aren't sitting there and taking this abuse out of some twisted sense of guilt over what happened in Vedrarfjord, are you?" 

Heather froze. 

Fishlegs blinked, and an expression of dawning understanding grew on his face.  He leaned forward and peered over Heather's shoulder.  "She's right, isn't she?" he asked in a soft whisper, and wrapped his arms around Heather's chest in a comforting hug. 

Heather started to then cry once again in earnest, the tears coming in a flood, even as she burrowed deeper into Fishlegs' embrace, her whole body shaking like a leaf in a high wind. 

"That's why you're not fighting back," Fishlegs continued, and he started to rock her back and forth.  "You did all of those horrible things because you had to, to survive… and now you feel horrible."

Heather nodded jerkily, making tears spatter on Fishlegs' trousers. 

Wulfhild asked quietly, "Heather… do you want us to leave you alone, maybe with Fishlegs, or to stay?  We're supporting you either way… but you might be feeling a little crowded right now."

Hiccup pulled back his hand guiltily, and Astrid turned and gave Wulfhild a wry look.  Wulfhild met it without a quaver, and Astrid nodded in agreement.  "What she said."

There were tears streaming down Heather's face, beading up on the oily ointment as they dripped.  "I can't…"  She sniffed and said, "Please.  Stay." 

Astrid heard Stoick murmur something to Gobber, and then he heaved himself out of the chair.  She felt him standing behind her, and he said, "Lass.  I'll talk to Magnhild.  But I won't levy any punishment, if that makes yeh feel better.  Just ask her to talk to them and convince them to stop.  But listen to yer friends here, all right?"

Heather nodded, and Stoick and Gobber left, letting in another wave of cold air as the door opened and closed. 

As she helped Heather hold the chilled cloth to her face, Astrid thought on what her various relatives who had been thralls had told her, trying to get a feel for what Heather was going through.  Of course, the issue there was that Heather's situation was, as far as she knew, unique.  But there were still some things that people had told her that gave some insight.  Like all other thralls, Heather hadn't really been allowed to have a will of her own, and faced harsh punishments if she tried. 

The closest she could think of was her cousin Vigdis; she'd married Steinn after she'd been rescued from a brothel, where she'd been sold after her first owner had tired of his pleasure thrall—a mass breakout that had been orchestrated by Thicknut and Chestnut when Astrid had been a child.  Astrid had vivid memories of Vigdis having to be coaxed into doing things of her own volition by the rest of her family; she had regularly broken out in tears at the stress of having to choose for herself, and she'd acted like she expected to be punished for daring to show distress or her own will, and that had lasted for years. 

It looked like Heather was going through the same thing now.  With that great weight removed, she could stand up straight again… but did not remember how to do it on her own.

Astrid looked around the little group huddled around the chair.  Heather was seated on Fishlegs' lap; he was holding her protectively.  Hiccup was gently stroking her right arm, and Wulfhild was doing the same with her left, while Astrid was kneeling in front, the jar of ointment still held in her left hand, using her right to help Heather hold the pad of soaked linen to her face.

Well… Heather had lots of support to learn from… and lean on. 

###

**_Norway_ **

 

Tuffnut and Ruffnut whooped as they flew through the chilly air on Barf and Belch, with Magnus and Vladimir bringing up the rear on Brand behind them.  The Rus' prince looked like he was having either the time of his life or a religious experience as he looked around in awe at the snow-covered lands laid out below them. 

On the other hand, Tuffnut didn't see why it couldn't be both.

He turned to his sister.  "Hey sis!  Guess who is getting training in Rus'!?"

"I am!  I asked Magnus to start teaching me, since he knows it.  I'm also getting some training in Greek!  He got taught both by Yaroslav," she said with glee.

Tuffnut felt his jaw drop.  "No fair!  Vladimir's teaching me Rus'!  How come you can't let me have that!?"

She grinned at him.  "What's wrong, Tuff?  Can't handle a little competition?"

He stuck his tongue out at her and said, "I'll show you competition!  I'll speak more tongues than you'll ever even hear of!"

Ruffnut's grin grew wider.  "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"First to nine languages wins?"

" _Twelve,_ " Tuff said pointedly.  "And Norse doesn't count!"

"Fine!" she said, spat into her hand, and held it out.  "A bet's a bet!"

He was about to shake her hand when he realized… "Hey, what are we betting _with?"_

Ruffnut paused and considered as Barf and Belch looked at them curiously.  "Huh.  Good question."  She twisted in her seat and called back to her husband, "Hey, Magnus, what should I win from Tuffnut when I know more languages than him!?"

Tuffnut twisted back as well, ignoring the spit freezing in his palm, and bellowed, "She means what I should win from _her!_ "

Magnus looked at the two of them, appalled, and then said something in Rus' to Vladimir, who started to shake with laughter.  And that made Magnus start to laugh as well.

They flew on for several hundred more yards as Magus and Vladimir tried to compose themselves, and Brand was giving Barf and Belch puzzled looks, which the Zippleback returned twice over. 

Finally, Magnus, tears streaming from his eyes, tried to say something, but he was too far away for them to hear.

"Get closer, we can't hear you!" Tuffnut called.

Magnus, still laughing, directed Brand right next to Barf and Belch and then choked out, "I'd say a forfeit!  Something that doesn't break the law and is in the other person's power to give."

"Cool.  Thanks Magnus!" Tuffnut said, and immediately turned back to Ruffnut.  "For one forfeit!  Whoever learns a dozen new languages first!"  He spat into his hand again—where he realized that the earlier spit had frozen—and held it out.  They shook, while Vladimir and Magnus almost fell out of the saddles behind them, they were laughing so hard. 

They turned back, having gone a fair ways away from the city during their discussion over the bet.  Magnus and Vladimir held a pointed and exaggeratedly loud conversation entirely in Rus', which made Ruffnut and Tuffnut make silly faces at them, trying to break their composure. 

As they flew over Nidaros, Vladimir pointed to a group of dragons working on building something, flying in various shaped timbers.  "What's that?"

"That's going to be Ruffnut's new hospital!" Magnus said proudly in Norse.  "It should be built in the next month at the rate they're going!"

Vladimir cocked his head.  "Hospital?  For soldiers and warriors?"

Ruffnut shook her head.  "No.  For the people, the sick and injured."

Tuffnut watched as Vladimir cocked his head, confused.  "But why?"

Magnus said something in Rus', and Vladimir listened, and then his expression brightened.  "Ah, I see.  Makes sense."

Tuffnut leaned towards Ruffnut, who was suddenly looking irritated, and asked, "What do you think he said?"

"That we're doing it to undermine Einar's support from the local populace," she muttered back.  "And that's part of it… but not all of it."

Tuffnut nodded.  "Um… sis?  Do you want some help with it?"

She gave him a sidelong look.  "Bro, you haven't learned medicine-making or any of that stuff."

"I could learn!  And it'll give me something else to do between language lessons with Vladimir," he said.

She nodded at him.  "All right.  I'm sure I can find _something_ for you to do."

Tuffnut grinned, and they banked towards the fortress to land, as he stuck his hand under his armpit.  As much fun as it was to fly, it was also really, really _really_ cold out.  His hand was freezing!

###

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

Astrid watched as Hiccup left Wulfhild's room, the two of them having just pretended to make love again.  He couldn't meet her eyes as he walked back to their room, and she didn't say anything.  From out here, it had sounded pretty convincing, with the bed squeaking and all of that, so she could just hope it sounded just as convincing to anyone else outside who might be listening. 

Taking a deep breath of her own, she cautiously stepped towards Wulfhild's room and gently knocked.  "Can I come in?"

There was an extended pause from Wulfhild, and then she heard the princess say, "Yes.  Please."

Astrid opened the door and slipped inside, her stockinged feet making little noise on the floorboards, and shut the door behind her. 

"Yes, Astrid?" Wulfhild asked quietly; her face was half in shadow from the light of the lamp, giving it a sinister cast.

"I… uh, I wanted to thank you for getting through to Heather today," Astrid stammered out, trying not to let the trick of the light get to her.  Wulf was her friend… and was more of a friend than Astrid was managing to be.  "Whatever it was that you said, it worked.  I… I know you're closer to her than I am, but Fishlegs is my friend and… and I wanted to thank you."

Wulfhild's shadowed face smiled and she leaned forward more into the light, literally brightening her expression.  "You're welcome.  And Heather's my friend.  She stitched this up for me…" she said, motioning to her scarred cheek, "and we have a lot in common, it seems.  I'm glad that I stayed here just as much for her as I am for you and Hiccup.  You're all my friends."

That was like a punch to Astrid's gut, and she smiled painfully and nodded.  "I'm glad.  You deserve friends, Wulf.  I'm, I'm glad you have them.  So… um… I'm gonna go to bed.  Good night!" she said a little too quickly, and turned to go. 

Wulfhild sighed behind her and said, "Good night, Astrid.  Kiss Hiccup good night for me."

Astrid grimaced and fled back to Hiccup.  Tackling him to the bed, she kissed him, hard and long, and with fervor. 

As she was falling asleep later in Hiccup's arms, her mind was rehashing her talk with Wulfhild… and the thoughts were that she was a coward and should be ashamed of herself. An emotional punch to the gut?  Please.  She deserved a real one. 

"Some friend I am," she murmured angrily to herself.

 Wulfhild was still her friend… and she was treating her terribly…  She needed to talk to her great-grandmother… and the longer she put it off, the worse it would be…

She needed to.  She had to.

But as she closed her eyes and drifted off, she knew that tomorrow, again, she wouldn't. 

Because she was afraid of what they would say. 

###

Hiccup looked up at the fresh snow on the peaks of Berk and whooped, "Yeah!" which the others—Astrid, Wulfhild, Heather, Fishlegs, and Cami—echoed enthusiastically.  The dragons _horf_ ed and whistled cheerfully behind them.

Footpaths were already trodden through the snow on the village, and the Gronckle crews were hard at work filling carry-boxes with shoveled snow to be carted off and dumped elsewhere.  Hiccup actually had some ideas on what to do with the snow, but it would have to wait for later. 

For the moment, he had a fun day with his friends ahead, to take maximum enjoyment from the fresh snow outside of the village, which, despite his worries, hadn't gotten blown away by the storm's winds in the night.  For starters, he'd built some new sleds over the summer in preparation for today, and now it was time to put them to the test. 

He turned to Toothless and said, "Ready, bud?"

Toothless turned away from the human-sized snowball he was helping Orvi clan Hofferson roll up to his uncle's door, and gave Hiccup an innocent look. 

Cami snorted behind him—and then there was a sudden shock of cold as she pasted him with a fluffy snowball right to the back of the head. 

He yelped, ducked, grabbed a handful of snow of his own, threw it back at her.

She ducked, and he hit Heather instead. 

Heather grinned nastily, and returned fire, and the snowball fight was on. 

Fishlegs yelped and ran for cover around a nearby house as Astrid pasted Heather with a snowball, and then ran out of cover as Wulfhild chased after him, grinning madly, a snowball the size of her doubled fists clutched in both hands.

Toothless amused himself by shooting down snowballs that threatened Hiccup with small and precise fireblasts—until everyone ganged up on the two of them and they were pelted by a combined wave from their friends and family.  Astrid and Fishlegs each got a bunch of their younger cousins to join in on the united attack.

That drove Hiccup and Toothless from the village square, Hiccup shouting an extravagant vow of ludicrous vengeance that left everyone laughing—just as Fishlegs stomped on the rooftop where he and Meatlug had stealthily landed, sending the snow on the sides cascading down on Hiccup and Toothless, burying them in a two-foot-deep pile. 

Hiccup got the last laugh, though, as Cami promptly walloped Fishlegs with a well-aimed snowball, and he tottered and fell into the snowpile on the other side of the house to general cheers.  Hiccup and Toothless took the moment to duck away and prepare for their counterattack on the Hofferson snow fort taking shape under Astrid's direction.

"Ready, bud?"

Toothless snorted a yes, and yelling with berserker cries, Hiccup and Toothless sprang out of their cover to charge at the fort, both of them laden with the largest snowballs they could manage to carry.

Astrid glanced up and saw them coming.  Grinning, she bent and grabbed a rope that made Hiccup blink in half-realized recognition.

"Oh no," he said just as his wife gave them a sunny smile and then yanked on the rope—and a hail of snowballs erupted from the snowfort to the great glee of her cousins.  Hiccup and Toothless shared a mutually doomed look as the snowballs pelted them.

Covered in snow, he and Toothless gave her sour looks as they walked up to the fort.  Hiccup glanced inside, and saw one of his model catapults nestled inside, clearly borrowed from the smithy.  "Snowball fights should not involve siege weapons!" he said, indignant—mostly at not having thought of it first. 

She grinned and gave him a kiss—and he reached forward with the snowball he had palmed in his right hand and dumped it down the back of her coat.

She yelped and tackled him—and in the resulting tussle, they dumped lots of snow down each other's tunics and demolished one of the fort walls, as her cousins placed bets.  And, if Hiccup didn't know any better, he would have said that Toothless and Stormfly were trying to get in on the betting pool. 

They ended up ducking back inside for a quick warming up after that, and then headed out for the slopes to test the sleds, Cami riding double with Astrid on Stormfly.  Finding the perfect hillside for sledding was easy from the air, and they settled down at the top and laid out Hiccup's new sleds; he'd crafted them from pine and iron, and spent an afternoon polishing the runners and bottoms with sharkskin and pine resin to make them slide as smoothly as possible.  They were big enough for two people apiece, and they paired off—Hiccup with Astrid, Fishlegs with Heather… and then Cami gave Wulfhild a dubious look that Wulfhild returned with a weak smile.  They stood there for a moment until Hiccup, sensing the tension, swapped with Cami. 

Then Cami was giving _him_ the dubious look, until Astrid pulled her away and into the sled.

Their cheering echoed as they slid away, and Hiccup sighed and looked to Toothless.  "I can't win right now, can I?"

Toothless cocked his head, looking confused. 

With a sigh, Hiccup turned to Wulfhild and they pushed the sled up to speed and hopped in.

Then Hiccup realized that Wulfhild was lying on him as the sled picked up speed—and this was the physically closest they'd been since he'd agreed to take her as a concubine. 

He shifted uncomfortably as they slid down the hillside, and tried to focus on the fun of the moment.  Wulfhild was managing that better than he was—she was whooping with glee, which drew an answering bark off to the side.  Hiccup blinked and looked, to see Toothless and Mistletoe sliding along on their bellies like common seals, both of them looking extremely pleased with themselves as they kept pace with the sled.  Further up the hill, behind them, was the third sled with Fishlegs and Heather; Meatlug was hovering overhead, while Windshear was following in the sled's wake. 

They reached the bottom, where Cami and Astrid were already waiting, the two cousins cheering, high-fiving, and hip-bumping each other in enthusiasm.  Stormfly arrived in a gust of wind, and helped carry the sled back up. That set the pattern for the next hour or so, with the humans sliding down on either the dragons' backs, or in the sleds, to the great delight of all.  Then Toothless tried to cram himself into one of the sleds, only for the runners to sink into the snow, and the Night Fury turned to Hiccup with a pleading look.

Hiccup laughed and rubbed his friend's head.  "I'll make you a dragon-sized sled, bud, don't worry."

Toothless gave a happy _horf_ and yanked the sled out of the snow with his jaws and set it down in front of him—only for Cami to run past the pair of them, crowing and whooping, and grab the sled.  She was gone a moment later.  Hiccup and Toothless watched her slide away down the hillside, and they sighed together.  Behind them, Fishlegs and Heather laughed. 

Astrid came up and clapped him on the shoulder, laughing.  "Let's race!" she said, and hopped onto Stormfly's back.

Shaking his head ruefully, Hiccup hopped onto Toothless's saddle and off he and Astrid went, the two dragons spreading their wings and sledding down on the slope on their bellies.  Astrid and Stormfly took the lead, and blocked every maneuver that he and Toothless tried to get around them.  Finally, Toothless blasted a hole in a snow drift with a precise fire shot and plowed through the steaming remains. 

"Foul!  I call foul!" Astrid shouted cheerfully, and called to Stormfly, "Block 'em, girl!"

Hiccup and Toothless suddenly had to dodge a line of tail spikes protruding from the snow, sending them off course and letting Astrid and Stormfly regain their lead.  Then Stormfly inhaled and breathed out fire, melting the snow in front of her and reducing it to slicked ice, and they shot ahead. 

"Hey!" Hiccup called. 

"You cheated first!" she called back, grinning. 

There was suddenly a _crack!_ from upslope, and Hiccup watched as Astrid's face focused on something behind him and went from ecstatic to terrified in a heartbeat.  He twisted in the saddle, and saw the top of the slope, where they'd been stomping about and walking for the last hour, give way and start to slide down after them.

 _Avalanche_. 

The rushing snow almost instantly overtook Heather, Fishlegs, and Windshear, burying them before they had a chance to get free.

"No!" Hiccup cried out in denial, and Toothless started flapping to take flight—and he was briefly airborne, but immediately corkscrewed off to his left, and they landed roughly on the snow. 

As if his tail wasn't…

Hiccup looked back, and felt the blood drain from his face.  Toothless's false tail was frozen in position five.  Hiccup jammed his foot at the pedal, trying to break the ice, and all the false fin did was twitch a little. 

Astrid and Stormfly had gone airborne while he was looking at the tailfin, and she screamed at him, "HICCUP!  Get out of there!"

"I can't!  Toothless's fin is frozen!"

Her eyes darted upslope—and if she was looking at the onrushing snow, then it was _way_ too close.

She and Stormfly dove towards them, Stormfly's claws extended, clearly with the intention of dragging them free—and then the snow hit, and they tumbled with the impact.

###

Wulfhild gasped as she saw the avalanche let loose.  She and Mistletoe had been at the bottom of the hill, and had just taken flight to head back up when the hillside gave way.   And then she looked down and saw that Cami had reached the bottom of the hill and was running away from the onrushing avalanche as quickly and desperately as she could manage. 

Without even thinking, she steered Mistletoe back down; they snatched Cami up off of the ground only a few moments before the snow hit her—the same snow that had swallowed her other friends. 

Cami was screaming and swearing as the snow rumbled past them, the misty powder reaching up in a cloud nearly to Cami's boots. 

"You all right down there?" Wulfhild called. 

"They're all buried!" Cami screamed.  "What the flippin', friggin', flamin'—"

"We should return to the village and get a search party!" Wulfhild said, as Meatlug flew up, looking panicked.

"Aye, that's an idea!" Cami called back.  Below them, the last dregs of the avalanche petered out; the hillside looked churned and disturbed, a far cry from the placid surface it had been just this morning.  "By Freyr and Freyja… I hope that they're all right…"

Wulfhild added her own silent prayer to that.  Her friends were buried under there, and they needed help to find them.

She turned to Meatlug.  "You stay here!  Try to find Fishlegs!"

Meatlug nodded and dove towards the snow, and started digging frantically. 


	39. Unwelcome Messages

**Chapter 39: Unwelcome Messages**

**_Trigger Notes:_ ** __Threats/Discussion of Torture and Mention of Non-Con_ _

* * *

 

_…when discussing the size of a state, it is important to remember that the effective limits of the size of any nation is based on four primary factors: the communications response loop, the information/decision-making effectiveness, law enforcement effectiveness, and social viewpoints on society size._

_All of the large empires prior to the domestication of dragons were limited primarily by the communications loop factor; an empire's size is restricted by the distance a messenger can travel from the decision center to the periphery with orders and get back in a reasonable period of time. Various pre-dragon empires tried various means of extending this range; for example, Rome made use of its famous roads and Persia had the first post office, while China worked by decentralizing the provinces, but this did cause several civil wars over the course of their history as rebellious provinces attempted to break away._

_The coming of the dragon courier, though, changed all of that, by significantly increasing the speed at which messages could travel; a horse courier on well-paved roads can travel at an average of 15-25 kilometers per hour,_ if _they have ready remounts at waystations along the route.  However, average speeds of 10-16 km/hour for horse couriers were more typical, especially away from main routes and their waystations.  A dragon courier, in contrast, when flying one of the breeds used for courier duty, can reliably expect average speeds of 100-160 km/hour, potentially faster for shorter sprints, and needs no roads or waystations, with the primary limiting factor being the provisions needed to feed the dragon._

_As a direct result of that event, the effective range at which a nation could be managed and organized, in the absence of the other factors, had effectively increased by an order of magnitude, and this had tremendous influence into shaping the world of today._

_Changes in decision making, however…_

_—Nationbuilding: How People Move, Talk, Think, Organize, & Structure Themselves, 1888, Amsterdam University Press_

**_Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

**_December, AD 1041_ **

 

Heather blinked and moaned.  "What hit me?"  The world was white and blurry.

"Half the hillside's worth of snow," Fishlegs' voice came from nearby, sounding oddly muffled.

She blinked again; the blurriness wasn't because of a head injury—or at least she didn't think it was.  It was because they were buried in snow, and only a dim white light let her see anything at all. 

Then she did a doubletake.  Either she was hanging from the ceiling, or Fishlegs was.  But the little pocket they were in—formed by a pair of silvery wings belonging to a rather irked Razorwhip—featured the two of them stuck in the snow to their waists.  Maybe ten feet across, Windshear's wings had held back the snow from completely burying them, forming a bubble of air that she was cupping partway around, like how a person would cup their hands to hold a drink of water.  And, just like the cupped hands, there was plenty of spilling around the edges—and judging by the strain she was obviously experiencing, the snow was threatening to collapse on all of them.  Heather was stuck in the open snow near her wings, while Fishlegs was embedded near her talons.

At least her face was too numb with the cold to let her feel her healing burns…

"You were knocked out for a few minutes," Fishlegs said softly.  "And I don't think hanging from the ceiling did you any good either."

"How… how do you know _I'm_ on the ceiling?" she asked woozily. 

"Your hair is hanging down."

She reached up and touched it.  The long braid was indeed dangling towards him.  "Oh."

"Look, I think I'm uninjured," he said, "So I'm going to try to dig myself free and then get you loose.  If you pass out again, that's okay.  I'll help you."  He sounded very calm and analytical, and she realized that he was hiding behind his logic to keep the reality of their situation from overwhelming him—especially since she didn't see Meatlug in their little pocket. 

She nodded, sending her head to pounding.  "Okay."  Then she passed out again.

###

Astrid shivered.  She'd had to split some of her wardrobe with Cami, whose possessions had all been lost with the longboat, and while her outfit had been warm enough when they'd been running around, now that they were trapped down in this snowy bubble, it was grossly inadequate for keeping her warm as the sweat on her body chilled.

Hiccup paced around the small bubble as Stormfly and Toothless did their best to keep it from collapsing on them.  They'd already tried to peel back their wings, which had resulted in the snow that they were holding up cracking and creaking alarmingly.  The air inside was frigid, and while it might warm eventually, for the moment, Astrid was huddling in a ball and rubbing her biceps; she'd even taken off the gold spiral from her morning gift to minimize the risk of frostbite.

"Okay.  Up is that way," Hiccup said, pointing.  "But I don't know how deep we are.  We're getting some light, which means we can't be too deep, but it's still probably deep enough to crush us if we're not careful."

Toothless made a pained noise and Hiccup nodded.  "Yeah, bud.  Like if we stopped holding it up."

Stormfly made a disgruntled noise, which Astrid easily interpreted as sarcastic agreement.

Astrid nodded.  "So what's your plan?"  Hiccup hesitated.  "Babe, you _do_ have a plan, right?"

"Yeah, I do."  He turned to Toothless and Stormfly.  "Guys, this might hurt a little, all right?"

Toothless nodded and made a strained _horf_. 

Hiccup went over to Toothless' wing and started to pack down the snow behind it, first with his hands, and then, when Toothless whined, he moved over to the edge of the wing and carefully moved it over.  As the snow started to crack, he frantically packed it down, even taking off his over-tunic and using it as padding for his shoulder so that he could throw himself at the wall. 

Astrid hopped to her feet and joined in, frantically packing the snow back in as it crumbled away from the wall.  A short while later, if a bit hesitantly, the two dragons could peel themselves away from the walls; the portion along Stormfly's back crunched a little and a small stream of snow cascaded down worrisomely, but the packed snow held. 

"Okay.  Now we're not _as_ worried about getting crushed.  And thanks for saving us, guys," Hiccup said to the dragons, who nodded.  Stormfly whimpered a little, and Astrid gently stroked her wing.  "It'll be okay.  So… now what?"

"Now, we see about digging our way out," Hiccup said.

"Why not melt our way out?" Astrid asked.  "We _do_ have dragons."

Hiccup shook his head.  "Dragonfire in a confined space does something to the air and we wouldn't be able to breathe, just like how regular fire does in a cave.  We found that out when we were digging out the Rookery.  Fishlegs and I nearly suffocated—and we would have, if Toothless and Meatlug hadn't dragged us free."

Astrid blinked, and then punched him in the arm.  "You never told me!"

"It wasn't important until now!" he said defensively.

She nodded.  "Okay.  Good to know for the future.  So, digging our way out?"

"Yeah, but we'll have to be careful," Hiccup said.  "We could cause a collapse very easily."

Astrid nodded.  "Well, let's get to work.  It's not like it's getting any warmer in here."

Hiccup nodded and started, very carefully, to dig at the ceiling overhead.  "Push the snow out of the way to shore up the walls as I go, okay?"

She nodded, and they set to work.  The snow was dense and hardpacked, making it slow going.

But she had faith in Hiccup's ability to get them out of here. 

###

Wulfhild looked around the chaotic terrain of the avalanche with worry.  While a tithe of the tribe had turned out to help look for her trapped friends, headed by Stoick, it seemed to be an insurmountable task—while the hill wasn't _that_ large, it was still several acres of disturbed snow… and her friends could be under any of it.  Potentially very deep under it. 

The one positive side was that they had dragons already set up for carrying away large amounts of snow.  Stoick had commandeered the lot of them, and they were starting at the top and digging their way down the hillside, literally stripping the hill of snow.  It didn't seem very fast, but it would make sure that nobody else would get buried. 

There was another rush of wings, and then a larger number of riderless dragons arrived, with Meatlug at the lead.  It looked like the Gronckle had headed to the Rookery and sounded the alert for help. 

Not wasting a moment, Stoick immediately began directing the Rookery dragons to help—but the Terrible Terrors seemed to have other ideas.

Wulfhild watched in awe as the little dragons started digging burrows collaboratively, the one at the head digging out the snow with its paws, and passing the snow down the line to the dragons behind it, who kicked it out of the way.  They also were quite willing to melt their way through the packed snow with precise blasts of fire.  As she watched dragon after dragon disappear down the little burrows, she realized that they had to already be yards deep into the snowbank. 

She hoped that they'd find her friends… her family… 

Not wanting to feel useless, she went and found a shovel, and started to help by shoveling the snow into the carry-boxes to be taken away.  It was something, at least. 

###

His fingers numb and bloody, Fishlegs hauled himself free from the snow that had trapped him and onto the floor of the little bubble.  Windshear snorted at him, and she didn't sound happy.  "You okay?" he asked the dragon, and got back another snort that was pretty obviously a sarcastic _Never better._

He staggered over to Heather; she was unconscious, and it had taken every bit of self-control he had to keep himself from panicking when she had passed out again.  She was embedded in the ceiling to a point past her waist, and her face was flushed red, and not just from the burns. 

Heedless of the cold, he started to dig her out using his hands, but they were too numb and bloody; he'd already lost a few fingernails to the hardpacked snow that had been around him.  He turned to Windshear.  "I need a scale!  To dig with!"

She _hoark_ ed and gently tossed one on the floor of the bubble—and then she and Fishlegs shared alarmed looks as the snow creaked and a stream of powder drifted down in the handful of heartbeats that her tail was away from the wall. 

Fishlegs picked up the scale, managing not to cut himself on the sharp edge; he used it to gingerly cut a slice from the furs that he was wearing and wrapped them around the dullest end to make a handle.  Heather was having difficulty breathing, and her face and head were too flushed for him to be happy.  He dug frantically—but not right up against her body.  The scale would slice her to ribbons.  So he dug around her, scraping the snow clear and forming a heap around his feet. 

He was so intent on digging that he almost missed the moment when she started to shift, and his joints were so stiff and cold that he barely caught her in time before she fell.  But he did catch her, and broke the remaining packed snow off of her, and then laid her flat.  Her face immediately had a better color and she was breathing easier.

"Oh, thank you, Odin…" he said, and sat down next to her, and took a deep breath.  Then he noticed that the air seemed to be getting thicker…

###

Astrid was shivering, and she felt exhausted; she and Hiccup had taken turns to work at digging themselves out, but they weren't progressing very far or fast, out of fear of causing the snow to collapse on them.  Aside from their breathing, it was deathly quiet—she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. 

It sounded very fast.

Hiccup slumped down next to her.  "Your turn," he croaked out.

She shook her head.  "I can't… too tired…"

Toothless and Stormfly seemed to be okay, but they weren't moving much either—and, she noticed, they were also breathing very shallowly. 

Then Stormfly did something… odd. 

"Hiccup… what's she doing?"  She nudged her husband, and they both looked at the dragon.  Stormfly was breathing very fast and shallowly, and then inhaled deeply, like she was about to breath fire—but instead, very cold _stinky_ air billowed from her mouth as she exhaled.  Astrid's ears popped, and she took an instinctive deep breath of her own… and felt her energy return, even as she gagged at the smell. 

Then Stormfly moaned and slumped to the side, clearly exhausted by the effort of whatever it was that she'd just done, head hanging limply at an angle and her tongue lolling out as she sagged onto the floor of the chamber.  She was still conscious—Astrid could see her looking at her and Hiccup in the dim light—but she looked wrung out, and Astrid could see that her tongue was actually lightly coated in frost. 

"Stormfly?!  Are you alright!?" Astrid asked in alarm, even as she inhaled deeply, gagging slightly on the smell, and felt the pounding in her head diminish. 

Hiccup was breathing deeply as well, and his color was getting better, although he was clearly battling some nausea from the smell.  He hauled himself up to a sitting position and peered inside Stormfly's mouth.  "There's ice everywhere!  What the…?"  He leaned in closer, his head passing within her jaws, his throat only inches from her fangs.  "There's ice all around the back of your throat!" 

Then Toothless stepped forward, and grabbed the hem of Hiccup's shirt and hauled backwards, making Astrid yelp in alarm. 

"Hey!  Bud, I'm just checking to see if she'll be okay!"

Toothless pointed his head towards the ceiling and grunted urgently. 

"She will be okay?"

Toothless made an affirmative noise that lessened the clench around Astrid's heart. 

"You know what she did?"

Toothless nodded, and then pushed Hiccup towards the center of the chamber, and then curled up next to Stormfly. 

Hiccup looked down at the limp dragon as Astrid came to her feet. "Thanks, Stormfly," he said gratefully.  "I don't know what you did, but thanks."

Stormfly lifted her head fractionally and nodded before setting it back to rest.  Toothless nuzzled against her supportively and she moaned—and then Toothless urgently pointed towards the ceiling. 

"Got it, Toothless.  We'll get us all out of here.  And thanks, Stormfly."  She turned to Hiccup.  "Now what?" 

He looked up at their hole.  "Well, we're pretty deep under—more than six or seven feet at least.  I don't know if we can get out.  But…"

"You have an idea?"

He nodded.  "I don't want to risk us running out of air again, but we spent all of that effort digging that…" he nodded his head towards the ceiling, "so why let it go to waste?"

He heaved himself forward and carefully disconnected the connecting rod from Toothless's harness, and proceeded to lock the various segments together.  "Boost me up, will you?" he asked when he had the long straight iron rod in his hands. 

Seeing what he had planned, she went into a crouch and cupped her hands.  He put his right foot into them, and she lifted.  A moment later, she heard—and felt, through him—the iron rod puncture into the snow and slide up. 

He started to wiggle it back and forth, and a thin cascade of snow came down on both of their heads, making Astrid's heart lurch for a moment in fear of bringing the chamber down on them.  But that didn't happen.  Instead, as spots started to grow in her vision, he kept wiggling it, back and forth, back and forth, like worrying a tooth, as more snow fell on them… and then, just as the air started to grow foul again…

The snow stopped falling from the hole, and she could hear shouts—and a stream of cold _fresh_ air started to come down instead. 

"Yes!" Hiccup exulted, and he said, "Let me down!"

She did, and they slumped to the floor of the chamber together, breathing heavily, and huddling together.  "Think they'll notice us?"

"If they don't," he said, and then heaved in a deep breath, "in a little bit, we'll do that again, and start digging out way out ourselves."

 

###

The air in the chamber was getting very, very thick… Fishlegs saw spots in front of his eyes as he tried to keep himself awake and focused for Heather's sake.  She had regained consciousness—a little bit—a short while ago, but was so muggy and fuzzy that he suspected she didn't even realize what was going on.  She sounded like she was half-drunk, almost enchanted, and kept trying to kiss him as her words slurred out and she kept breaking out in giggles—and then in tears.  And then back again.  That was a bad sign, he knew, though it was getting hard to remember why.

He was very worried for her.  He'd checked her head as best he could while fending off euphoric kisses, and found a tender lump on the side, just above her right ear, that made her hiss and cry when he'd touched it. His own head was swimming, and regardless of how much he panted for breath, he couldn't seem to catch it, and his body was dripping in sweat, despite the chill.  And his fingers were turning blue at the tips.  Blue fingers; that was definitely a bad sign.  And also somehow hilarious.  Would Bluefingers be a better name than Fishlegs?

"Fishlegs…?" she slurred, and he decided no, his own name was much better.  Especially when she said it.

"Yeah, love?"

"Why are there two of you?" she asked, and then giggled.  "Can I date both of you?"

Oh, that… that probably wasn't good.  He gingerly picked up a wad of snow; the cold burned his palms, and he couldn't feel it at all in his numb fingers.  But she needed help.  He took the snow and held it gently to her bump, making her hiss.  "It hurts," she whimpered. 

"I know… but you have to.  It'll make you feel better…"

There was suddenly a sound.  "Did you hear that?" he asked, fighting another swell of laughter at the absurdity of their situation.

"Hear what?"

Fishlegs took as deep a breath as he could, and then doubled over, coughing.  Doing his best, he took another deep—if shallower—breath and bellowed, "We're in here!"

Windshear gave him a tired look, and slumped, looking exhausted.  Then she turned and looked at the wall, head drawn back and eyes wide with surprise. 

And Fishlegs heard it again. 

A scratching, scraping noise. 

"In here!"

Some snow started to crumble from the wall—and then a little Terrible Terror poked its head into the room and sneezed.  It then came in, chirped, coughed, and turned back to the hole, digging furiously. 

Within a few minutes and the efforts of over a dozen Terrors digging another hole straight up, Fishlegs could feel fresh air streaming in and gasped in a deep breath of it.  He hadn't realized how bad his head had been pounding until it started to diminish, but he still had nearly passed out when the diggers finally breached the roof of the chamber. 

"We've got yeh, son," he heard Stoick say, as if from a great distance.  "It's okay."

"Heather…"

"She's all right, lad," was the last thing he heard before, now safe, he passed out. 

###

**_The_ ** **_Vatican_ ** **_, Rome, Papal States, Italia_ **

 

The courier, splattered with late autumn and early winter mud, rode into the stables of the Vatican, his escorting knights at his sides.  It had taken him thirty days, each one begrudged, to travel the one and quarter thousand miles between Winchester and Rome, braving bandits, storms, sea travel, and being diverted from the shortest path by winter snows in the high mountain passes. 

But now he was here, finally, bearing his precious words of warning of the growing threat to the north to the very center of Christendom.

He identified himself to the stablemaster, and was irritated when the man moved with the sloth of the unconcerned to take possession of his saddlebags, clearly more interested in getting his backside in front of the brazier in his office than in the contents of his messages. 

The courier snapped at him, stating that he needed to see that they were properly signed for and wouldn't end up languishing unpacked in a corner somewhere. 

The stablemaster muttered something under his breath, to the tune of how all of the couriers always acted like the news they brought was regarding the Second Coming. 

The courier insisted, and the two knights at his side reached for the hilts of their swords.

The stablemaster rolled his eyes at their bravado, and sent for the senior man in charge of dispatches.  That finely dressed man came and collected the bags personally, looking irritated all the while.  The bags were carried inside and deposited on one of the stable's rough wooden tables.  With a muttered comment that they had best be important, the dispatch-man broke the seals as the courier looked on, anxious.

As the bags' contents were revealed, the courier gave desperate, sincere thanks to God, as his saddlebags, being just as soiled as he was, had been sealed well enough to preserve their contents from spoilage.  As the senior dispatcher unwound the yards and yards of oilcloth, his expression was one of idle curiosity.  The courier did not have to work hard to imagine what his thoughts would be—that, hopefully, in these messages, there would be something that would lend something novel to an otherwise boring day.

The courier's thoughts on the matter were ones of anticipation—the bored man would learn soon enough. 

His mission done, he and his escort were dismissed, and they retired to a nearby inn to get themselves cleaned up and rested for the inevitable summons and questions. 

Meanwhile, the dispatch clerk took the pile of English messages to his office and carelessly dumped them on his desk.  He sat down, took the top one, and, with a put-upon sigh, started to read, a cup of cheap red wine in hand.

Then he choked, spraying the wine on the parchment.  Quickly cleaning it with the blotter at his desk, he reread the first document more slowly, and then went and found his underlings.  Swiftly, they divided the stack and started to work their way through it. 

Others, noticing the unusual activity, began to ask questions, just to share in the novelty—and the dispatch office, being staffed with human beings, had a few members who ignored their oaths of secrecy and shared the restricted news with those making the inquiries.  One of the younger priests, eager to impress some of his fellows with the importance of his position, removed a handful of pages filled with eyewitness accounts of the battle and allowed the other young men to read them, and let them gawk at the seal of King Harthacnut of England and the Danes upon the lower corner.  From them, the circle of gossip began to widen.

By the time the sun finally set, hours later, all of the halls of the Diocese of Rome were abuzz with the whispers of news from distant England, of heathens defeating Christians on the field of battle… mounted on the backs of demons. 

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

 

Wulfhild sat in the small tent, watching over her two unconscious friends.  She'd worked herself to exhaustion shoveling snow into the boxes, and had been staggering on her feet when they'd hauled Fishlegs and Heather free of the snow; Stoick had sent her to watch over the pair of them while Nanna was off preparing in her hut back in the village.  They'd been put in the small travel-tent that had been set up; little more than furs stretched over some springy poles, it was enough to keep the heat in from a small brazier and set up a handful of cots for the invalids for them to rest until they could be flown back to the village. 

So now Wulfhild sat and watched, as Fishlegs breathed deeply, and Heather moaned from pain; she had a bloody knot on her head the size of a small hen's egg, and she was so insensate that Stoick had bodily carried her in here without her stirring. 

Then there was a ragged cheer, and she poked her head outside the tent.  Catching one of the Hooligans, she asked, "What!?"

"They found them!  Sven the Tall saw something moving, and, sure enough, Hiccup was signaling for rescue!" the big beefy man—she thought he was one of the Ingermans—said with glee. 

Wulfhild sagged out of relief, tension flowing out of her body.  They were safe.  Thank God, they were safe.  She emerged from the tent, and ran to a point where she could see down the hillside to the commotion.  A hole had been dug straight down into the snow nearly at the base of the hill, and Stoick was reaching down and hauling Astrid free.  More dragons and men were working at expanding out the hole; a few minutes later, Hiccup and both Stormfly and Toothless were hauled free as well, all of them uninjured.  Stormfly, however, looked like someone had reduced her to a puddle, or a limp village cat, lying practically bonelessly between the stout men carrying her.  But none of them were bloodied, and there were no visibly broken bones. 

Taking a deep breath of relief, she watched them for another moment; Astrid was staggering and leaning on Gobber, but was still walking, while Hiccup was being half-carried by a visibly-relieved Stoick, despite Hiccup's attempts to fight his father off and walk normally.  They, and the assembled crowd of Hooligans, now over a hundred strong, and flock of dragons, numbering in the hundreds, were all headed in her direction; she turned around and reentered the tent—

—to see someone wrapped in a winter cloak and a scarf, with only their eyes exposed, crouching over Heather with a knife, holding Heather's head back by her hair. 

She and the intruder gaped at each other in a moment of mutual surprise, and then the intruder dropped Heather's hair and ran out the back of the tent. 

Wulfhild screamed and ran after them, but lost them in the crowd in a matter of moments.  She was just too short to keep up.

Unfortunately, nobody seemed to have noticed her scream either; the cheering, whooping, and general jubilation at the rescue from the avalanche had swallowed it whole, especially in combination with the flapping of hundreds of dragon wings.  Her eyes widened in fear as she realized that she'd just left Heather unprotected again.  Spinning on her heel, she whirled and ran back to the tent, getting there just heartbeats ahead of Stoick, Gobber, Hiccup and Astrid, cursing herself for not having moved faster.

She was checking Heather over as they entered, and was relieved to find her all right—well, not all right, but no worse off than before.  No knife wounds, thank God.

Stoick pushed open the tent flap and pushed his son and daughter-in-law in.  "Lay down; it's warm in… Wulfhild.  What's wrong?"

Wulfhild looked up and said seriously, "Someone just tried to murder Heather."

"What!?"

She nodded, and explained as the others sat down, and finished off with, "…but I don't remember what they looked like!  All I really saw was the knife!"

"Tall, short, thin, fat…?" Astrid asked hopefully.

Wulfhild shook her head.  "I don't even know 'man or woman'.  I wish I did."

Stoick sighed.  It sounded like a rumbling growl.  Then he turned to Gobber, who had followed them in.  "Gobber.  Go get Spitelout.  Now.  I want guards around this tent until we get them back to the village."  Stoick looked at Wulfhild.  "Where is Windshear, anyway?"

"Unconscious," she said as Gobber toddled off.  "Lack of air, I think, same as these two."

Stoick nodded, frowning, and walked over to Heather, who was sleeping peacefully on the wood-and-hide cot.  He reached down and gently stroked her cheeks.  "Why do they keep wanting to hurt yeh…?"

Hiccup sighed from his own seat.  "I don't know, Dad.  But this goes way beyond pranks.  I was already skeptical about the cut saddle being a prank that went wrong.  Now… I'm sure it's the same person." 

Stoick sighed again.  "Agreed.  All right.  New rule.  Heather doesn't go anywhere alone until we resolve this."

Wulfhild shared a look with Hiccup and Astrid, and all three of them nodded.

"Well, is there anyone we can rule out?" Wulfhild asked.

The others turned to her.  "What do you mean?" Astrid asked.

"Well, those who stayed in the village couldn't have done it, right?  See who came out, and see if we know anybody has a grudge," Wulfhild said as reasonably as she could, even as she resisted suggesting to Stoick to have everyone outside stand in line and see if she could recognize them.  That would make the entire village resentful.  And speaking of resentful… Grimacing, she asked, "And what about her work in the kitchens?"

Stoick grimaced.  "Right.  Because I'm going to let her go into a space filled with fires and knives, and people that we already know are going for her."  He twisted his lips in thought and then nodded.  "I'll ask Magnhild to assign her to be the one responsible for keeping the chief's house stocked."

Hiccup blinked.  "Dad, that's a prestigious position… people will resent her for 'taking' it out of turn."

"Like they don't already resent her?" Stoick asked acidly. 

"Uh… point," Hiccup said sheepishly after a moment.  He then turned and looked to Fishlegs and Heather, both of them sleeping peacefully on the cots.  "Gods… how did this get so messed up?"

"I don't know, son," Stoick said, and then sighed deeply, his tone disappointed and angered.  "I really do not know."

###

Heather woke up, her head pounding and her body feeling beaten.  Instantly, she huddled, holding her arms up in case there was another blow coming, and rolled onto her front to protect her guts—and fell out of the bed she was in, landing with a jarring impact on the floor. 

Surprised and gasping for air, she babbled, "No, sir, I'm sorry—"

Strong hands gripped her, and she flinched, certain that she was about to be cuffed on the head at best, kicked at worst…

Only for a woman's voice to gently call out, "She's awake!"

She blinked, her eyes gummy, and saw a beautiful blond-rimmed face only a foot or so away from her own, an angry scar on the cheek the only flaw.

Memory came flooding back.

"Wulfhild?" she asked, unsure of her surroundings.

Her friend nodded.  "It's okay.  You're—"

Heather suddenly gagged as a wave of nausea made itself known, and Wulfhild was barely able to leap back before Heather vomited all over the floor in front of her. 

Someone had a bucket in front of her by her second heave, and another set of anonymous hands were mopping up the rest as she gasped over the wooden pail.

Finally, she was empty, and slumped.  Strong hands caught her before she landed face-first in the bucket, and hauled her up.  Wulfhild and her father were looking at her with concern. 

She blinked.  "What happened?" she slurred out.

"You were caught in the avalanche yesterday, do you remember?"

Focusing as best she could, she found that, yes, she could remember a little bit.  Snatches, here and there.  The most detailed bit she could remember was trying to seduce Fishlegs…

She moaned.  She didn't remember anything more than her trying to kiss him and get his clothes off, and wondered what else she'd done.  She couldn't remember if he'd managed to fend her off or how he'd reacted… or if she'd disgraced herself. 

She felt her stomach lurch again, as she anxiously wondered how much of his respect she'd just lost, given the way he'd reacted back on Sunni's Day. 

Murray came over, holding a wooden cup with water in it.  "Drink.  You need it."

Heather took the cup and it sloshed in her shaking hand.  Wulfhild reached out and helped her hold it, and raised it up to her lips.  "It's okay… it's okay…" she said as Heather drank the cool, pure water greedily, feeling it revive her parched throat. 

Then she blinked again, and focused blearily on Wulfhild.  "What are you doing here?"

"Watching over you while Fishlegs has Broodery work to do," the princess said fondly.  "He practically got dragged away by the Broodery workers because of something weird.  So I volunteered."

"Why?" Heather asked, taking another swallow of water as Murray reached up and gave an affectionate squeeze to her shoulder.

Wulfhild snorted.  "I don't exactly have enough friends to be able to afford to lose one, and after I caught someone trying to stab you, Stoick insisted that one of us be with you at all times."

Heather nodded absently, and then her awareness of what Wulfhild had just said caught up with the rest of her.  "Wait, _what!?"_

Wulfhild took a deep breath and said, "I walked in on someone holding a knife in their hand and holding your hair back like they were going to slit your throat."

Heather felt herself grow cold, and not just from the water in her stomach.  Meanwhile, Murray's hand on her shoulder was like a vise, and he was making a growling noise that both comforted and worried her.  "Did… did you catch them?"

Wulfhild shook her head.  "And that's why Stoick wants you protected at all times."

"So what are you doing here, if Mom and Dad are here?" Heather asked, glancing over her shoulder at Murray, who was looking fondly at Wulfhild.

"First… an additional body is always a good idea for standing guard," Wulfhild said.  "Second, I'm part of the chief's clan now; I imagine that would give an attacker pause.  It's one thing to attack an outsider—another to attack _me._ "  She folded her arms.  "And third…"  She smiled at Heather.  "You're my friend.  It's not a burden for me to keep watch on you."

The door opened before Heather could respond to that, and Cami walked in, practically bouncing on her heels.  "Hey, she's awake!  Great!"

"Hello, Cami," Wulfhild said, half-exasperated, half-fondly.  Murray rolled his eyes but made a silent welcoming motion.

"How's the patient?" Cami asked cheerfully.

"Just woke up.  Still not all there," Wulfhild said, taking the empty mug from Heather's hands. 

Cami nodded and knelt down next to the bed—which Heather now realized was standing in her house's main room.  "So, I heard you were a spy.  I was wonderin' if you'd be willin' to teach me, while I'm overwinterin' here?"

Heather blinked, startled at the bluntness of the question.  "Wuh… why would you want that?"

"Because I'm already a burglar, a thief, and a pirate," Cami said, grinning.  "Adding 'spy' to the list is just part of the natural progression!"

Heather gaped at her, simultaneous urges to laugh or scream at Cami rising within her.

Before she could say anything, though, Mhairi burst into the room, followed by Griselda, a little wooden dragon clenched in one pudgy fist.  "Hever, look!  Dwagon!"

Heather focused on it as best she could, and saw that Stoick had carved her sister another wooden dragon toy.  This one was a pretty nicely done Monstrous Nightmare, its wings spread in flight. 

She looked up at Cami, who was looking hopeful and curious, and at Wulfhild, who was staring at Cami, appalled.  Heather hauled herself to a seated position and the room spun.

"Whoa!" Wulfhild said, and reached out to steady her.  "Heather, it's okay.  Lay back down."

"Hever?  Are you okay?" Mhairi asked, looking at her with her big green eyes, concerned. 

"Hever— _Heather_ got hit on the head yesterday, Mhairi, and got buried by the snow," Wulfhild said fondly to her younger sister.  "She's not feeling too well."

"Oh.  Hever has boo-boo?"

Heather smiled warmly at her sister.  "Yes, I have a boo-boo."  She could feel the lump on her head throbbing, and pointed to it.  "Over here."

"Oh, okay."  Mhairi hauled herself up onto the bed, stood next to Heather as they all watched, and carefully leaned over and kissed Heather right where she had pointed, above her ear.  "I kisseded it, and it's be better now!"

Heather felt her heart melt, and could see similar expressions of happiness on the faces of Wulfhild and her parents; Cami was obviously holding in giggles. 

"Yes, Mhairi, it's better now," Heather said with a smile. 

Mhairi gave her a cheerful hug and then climbed back down to the floor, and held her carved dragon toy up over her head and made roaring noises as she 'flew' it off, her little red braids flapping behind her.  Everyone watched with smiles as she left the room, and then Wulfhild said softly, "Excuse me while I try not to laugh at just how absurdly adorable that was just now."

Cami's giggles started to escape and she managed to get out, "Nope!  I have no excuse!" in between her dampened laughter. 

They all had a nice chuckle for a moment, and then Griselda turned to Heather.  "Do you think you're up for some food?  You haven't eaten since yesterday, and I could get you something from the kitchens." 

Heather nodded, and then Murray said, "I'll go find Fishlegs and let him know you're awake.  He was extremely upset at having to leave you, but there was something wrong with the eggs apparently, and they needed him for it."

Heather shot her father a grateful look, and he returned it with a grin.  "Oh, Heather, you should have seen him yesterday.  The Broodery workers needed to come to try to get him to leave _four_ times."  His grin grew wider.  "I like him."

Heather blushed, and Cami cackled.

Wulfhild made a shooing motion with a smile.  "Go get him!  I'll stay with her." 

Murray threw Wulfhild a nod and a fond salute, still grinning, and he and Griselda left with Mhairi, the two of them looking pleased and relaxed in a way that Heather hadn't seen for a long time.  Certainly, there was some tension, but nothing like the constant fear of having her brother declare war on them specifically to kill her.

She pulled herself up straight and then started to focus on getting herself in order; she was wearing one of her shirts and a skirt, and her hair had been combed and cleaned.  Using some of the brutally straightforward methods she'd learned for maintaining composure, she sat crosslegged on the bed, her feet tucked under the furs, and began to try to center herself.

Someone was trying to kill her.  Well, that was hardly anything new.  For the moment, getting her composure back in place might be the difference between dodging the next attack and being too slow. 

Then Cami's voice intruded.  "So, what do you say?  Can you teach me to be a spy?"

Heather opened her eyes, and saw Cami half-sitting on her haunches, crouching right in front of her, her expression eager.  Rather than laugh or scream at her, as her initial impulse pushed her to do, Heather instead smiled thinly and said, "You have no idea what you're asking me to do…"

"How so?" Cami asked eagerly.  "Is there a lot to learn?  I mean, I already know how to pick pockets and locks and how to read, so that should save some time."  

Heather slumped.  "Cami.  What exactly are you hoping to get out of this?"

Cami made a fist and pumped it with a grin as she rose fully to her feet.  "I want to be awesome, and be able to steal secrets as well as coins!"

Heather narrowed her eyes.  "Go away, Cami," she said, disgusted.  "No, I won't teach you."

"Why not?" Cami pushed. 

Behind her, Wulfhild said, "She said no, Cami.  Let her be.  She just woke up."

"I didn't say she had to start teachin' me now!" Cami protested.  "I just want to know if I can learn at all!"

Heather glared at her with all of the strength she could muster.  "Cami.  Trust me, you _don't_ want this."

"Oh, please," Cami said arrogantly.  "I'm the most skilled thief and pirate in my entire tribe!  I've learned everythin' my mother and Bog-sisters have to teach me!  And _their_ idea of trainin' was no pleasure walk, let me tell you!"

Heather snorted.

"What, you think I'm kiddin'?" Cami said, sounding irritated.  "Look, I get wantin' to keep trade secrets, but I'm a sister, you can share it with me!"

"Cami…" Wulfhild said warningly. 

"What?  Look, I'm a good enough thief that I stole Stoick's belt once—while he was wearin' it!"  She grinned in fond remembrance.  "Ah, that was great.  But point is, I'm already trained up!  And look at you!  No scars, no missin' bits!  It can't have been that bad if you got through it with your skin intact!"

Heather felt molten fury surge through her at those words.

Cami continued, not noticing—or caring—about Heather's sudden surge of anger, and ignited it.  "I'm not afraid of a little pain if it means I get to be that much more awesome!"

Heather glowered at her and staggered to her feet, wanting to be able to look Cami in the eye, rather than look up at her.  "So that's it?  You want to be 'awesome'?  That's it?  Do you have _any_ idea what I went through in my training?"

Cami shook her head.  "No, but I'm curious…"

Gritting her teeth, Heather leaned in close to Cami's personal space. " _Fine._   You want to know what my training was like?"  She reached out and grabbed a fistful of Cami's tunic.  "Then I'll _tell_ you."  She hauled Cami in closer.  "So, who do you love more, your parents or your crew?"

"What?"

"Who do you love more?  You commented on how unmarked I was.  There's a reason for that.  Anytime _I_ messed up, _my parents_ got tortured.  So, which ones in pain would be worse for you?  Your parents?  They're a little far away, but I'm sure that we could go get them by dragon.  Or, hey, your crew is _right here._   And you're sworn to protect them, aren't you!?  Imagine how you'd feel, how desperate to _learn_ you'd be, how desperate to do _anything_ you'd be, if you were tied to a chair and forced to watch while a torturer worked them over!"

Cami made a noise, but didn't dare break eye contact with her.

"Or, hey, you're what, sixteen, seventeen winters?  That's a little old, but we can work with that.  You've been trained, sure, but have you ever been tortured?  Beaten by somebody who knows just how hard they can hit before they'll break bones or leave scars?  Or how best to hit the bottom of your feet so that you can't walk and then force you to stand for hours?  Because I know how to do that, now.  And let me tell you, you'll think that your old training _was_ a pleasure walk by the time I'm done!  Maybe I'll have you stand barefoot on broken glass for it!" 

Cami was growing pale, and tried to step away.  Heather tightened her hold on the other woman's tunic and hauled her back. 

"Oh no!  You don't _get_ to go anywhere now!  And if you flunk out because you're not _good enough_ , if you want to quit, I'm _sure_ that you'll enjoy being _handed over to the guards to be raped,_ and everyone you care about sentenced to die.  Oh, wait though, we don't have a river marsh around here to bury your crew in up to their necks and place bets on whether they'll drown during the tide, die of thirst, or get their faces _eaten—_ but, oh well, I'm _sure_ I can come up with _something_ hideous enough!"  She started to laugh hysterically, her fury and all of the pain of the last few years bubbling up into some effervescent stew of mania.

"I can drag out my old exams for you!  How many languages do you speak?"

"Th-three…" Cami stammered.

"Okay.  Now, I'm going to have three people stand on the opposite side of the mead hall and talk in all of those languages, and you have to tell me everything they say—and if you miss anything, we'll start cutting on your crew.  I'll heat the knife so they don't bleed to death, I think that's fair, right?"

Wulfhild made a noise from off to the side, and Heather glanced at her.  Her friend was staring at her in horror… but Heather couldn't stop now.  The rage had her and it demanded that Cami be _shown_ the depths of her error. 

She returned her gaze to Cami, who was trying to step back.  "Or facts!  After all, hearing something means nothing if you can't understand what it means, or how important it might be!  So you'll have to get taught everything about everybody in the region!  And you can have the same exam as I did!  For every question you get right, one of your crew gets to have their first bite of food in three days—but for every question you get wrong, they get hit with a club, harder and harder.  It's very precise.  Five wrong answers will cost someone a broken arm."  She swallowed at the memory, and was grateful that her father wasn't here. 

She'd gotten six questions wrong.

She became aware that she was crying, even as Cami tried to back away, and she followed, and then _shoved_ Cami into the wall.  Cami hit with a thud, and then Heather was leaning up against her, her arm up against Cami's throat and pushing her head back, her other hand digging into Cami's gut, ready to stab her with her stiffened fingers.  "Or, hey, you're an adult!  Are you a virgin, girl?"

Cami shook her head. 

"Oh, good.  That means that you'll have something to work off of for the seduction training!  Oh, I know, I know, you're a Bog Burglar, sworn to Freyja!  You don't _need_ any training in sex!  But seducing a paranoid man isn't going to be as _easy_ as you think it is.  But at least _you_ have some knowledge of what's involved!  I _didn't!  I was fourteen!_  I was forced to watch my _owner_ have sex with a pleasure thrall, and they _taught_ me what to do in order to best please a man so that I could seduce him for information!"

Cami tried to look away, and Heather ruthlessly made her look back with an expert shift of her arm along Cami's neck, making Cami yelp in pain as Heather's wrist forced Cami's head to roll along the wall, Heather's elbow leaning against Cami's throat.  "Don't you look away!  If you look away, I'll pick one of your crew and have their fingernails ripped off!" she screamed at Cami even as tears raced down her cheeks.

Wulfhild audibly retched from nearby and Cami turned paler; Heather could feel the other woman's heartbeat underneath her arm. 

"Oh, and the best part!  You can't trust anybody!  Because I'll make sure that any friendships you have, you'll either have to betray them, or be betrayed!  A good spy doesn't trust _anybody!_ "

Cami took a deep panting breath and choked out past the arm on her throat, "I trust my friends…"

"For _now!_ " Heather cried.  "But wait until your friends have to choose between your secrets and a fresh loaf of bread and a whole ham to themselves when they've been starved for a month!"  She twisted and threw Cami to the floor. 

Cami hit the planks with a strangled cry, and Heather made to kick her, screaming inarticulately—and only a call of "Stop!" from Wulfhild made her pause. 

Wulfhild was looking at her, wide-eyed and terrified, and holding out her hands.  "Heather… stop."

Their gazes locked, Heather suddenly realized how heavily she was panting for breath; her eyes were streaming tears, and her heart was thudding in her ears. 

And Wulfhild was looking at her like she was afraid.  For her… or _of_ her, Heather couldn't tell.

The fury abated, along with her tension, and she felt exhaustion creep in.  Cami, panting hard herself, awkwardly crawled away on her back. 

Wulfhild came up from behind her and put a hand on Heather's shoulder.  "Heather?  Are you okay?"

Heather took a deep breath and turned as Cami was pulling herself up to a standing position.  "I wouldn't _wish_ that hell on my worst enemy—much less some starry-eyed thief who thinks that being a spy is something to covet," she said softly; then she turned too quickly, and Wulfhild caught her as she staggered.  "No.  I'm not okay," she answered her friend, her voice thick and rough with tears.  "I'm broken, and I'm not just talking about my lumps."

Wulfhild patted her on the shoulder.  "If you want to talk… I'm here."

Heather sniffed.  "I… I didn't want to burden you with it… with any of it.  You've… you're carrying enough for me."

"Heather… it's not a burden," Wulfhild said caringly.  "You're my friend."

Swallowing hard at the stubborn lump in her throat, Heather said, "I… I don't want to risk losing your respect."

Wulfhild deliberately looked her over and said, "How can I lose respect for someone who went through such suffering and is still able to smile and laugh and love?"

Heather smiled and pulled Wulfhild into a crushing hug. 

Behind her, Cami made a noise, and Heather looked at her.  "Still want to be a spy?" she asked, trying to sound stern… but the effect was weakened by the snot dribbling out of her nose and how she could barely keep herself from breaking down in tears.

Cami shook her head.  "I… I'm sorry."  She backed away, and whispered, "I'm… I'm goin' to go.  I'm sorry."  And she fled.  Wulfhild pulled Heather back into the hug, and the two of them stood together, Wulfhild crooning at her supportively as Heather shook and cried, the memories that Cami had dredged up taking their toll. 

Then the door opened, and Griselda came in, Mhairi at her heels, carrying a tray of food from the mead hall.  She stopped dead when she saw them.  "What's wrong?"

Heather tried to speak, only for a choked sob to escape. 

Wulfhild twisted slightly to address Griselda.  "Cami… asked something she shouldn't have.  And Heather is dealing with it."

Griselda put the tray down and came over.  "Come here," she said gently, and Heather pulled her into the hug.  "Hush, hush… it'll be all right…" Griselda said softly, rocking the three of them back and forth.

Heather then felt a smaller pair of arms wrap around her legs, and looked down to see Mhairi joining in. 

Then Heather's stomach growled, making Mhairi laugh.  Griselda looked at Heather and said, "You must be starving.  Go, eat."

Mhairi looked up and asked, "Hever hungy?"

They all looked down at her and smiled.  "I am," Heather said, looking at her younger sister. 

"Hever eats?" Mhairi suggested, and stepped over to the tray of food, picked up a roll of bread, and held it up in offering to Heather.

Smiling fondly, Heather accepted the bread, and tore into it hungrily.  As she stuffed her face, Griselda took Mhairi off to another room and then came back.

"Are you okay?" her mother asked as Heather forced herself to slow down and butter the roll properly. 

Heather shook her head.  "No.  But I've got friends to help me," she said, and patted Wulfhild on the arm.  "So I'm better than I was before."

The door opened, and Murray came back in, alone.  "He'll be along in a bit."  He glanced at Heather, and his face softened in concern.  Before he could ask, though, there was a sudden shriek of laughter from the next room, followed by the clatter of wood.  Griselda peeked in and smiled.  "It's all right.  Just the tower of dragons coming crashing down."

Wulfhild looked at her, and then at Murray and Griselda.  "She's not… neither of them… uh…" she floundered for a moment.

Heather looked at her parents; she could conceivably be their child, especially now, given how aged they looked after their thralldom, with Murray's short black hair and Griselda's short dark brown, both peppered with silver at thirty-three and thirty, respectively.  But Mhairi had the classic Eirish copper-red hair and freckled complexion—a few shades brighter than Dagur's, now that she thought about it.

Murray nodded.  "No, they're both adopted.  But they're no less our daughters for it." 

Griselda nodded in agreement and said, "We've tried… but we've never managed.  But Adalwin made us take care of Mhairi, and, well… like this place, she was a good thing to come out of that vileness."

Heather saw Wulfhild glance at her and then at the door to the room where Mhairi was playing and talking loudly to her toy dragons.  "Why… why would he do that?  Why would such an evil man have you take care of a little girl?"

Murray and Griselda looked at each other and shook their heads.  "We don't know—and were told not to ask."

Heather sighed, still feeling a little groggy—and very tired in the aftermath of her yelling at Cami and the injury—and took a large bite of the remaining bread.  "I don't know either.  But I can tell you that she's not his child—nor that of the only thrall I saw him with.  He's dark-haired, and she's as blonde as you are, Wulf."

"…I find it slightly disquieting that you thought that," Wulfhild said after a moment. 

"Imagine how it feels from the inside," Heather said, chewing on the roll. 

Wulf patted her arm.  "If you need to talk, I'm here."

Heather nodded, and gave her friend a smile.  "Thanks.  And… I'll take you up on that."

Murray leaned in.  "The same goes for me and Griselda."

She frowned slightly at them.  "Do you want to know?  Really?  You went through your own hell there.  Do you really want to take on mine as well?"

Murray nodded.  "You're our daughter.  We're here to help you." 

Griselda reached over and slung her arm around Heather's shoulder.  "We promised.  And, yes, you're an adult now.  But we'll stop worrying about you the day that they light our pyres."

Heather pulled all three of them into an awkward hug.  "Then… then I'll tell you all of it later.  All right?"

They nodded, and tightened the hug.

Heather slumped into their loving embrace.  Yes, she was broken… but she had love.  What else could she ask for?

###

**_Constantinople,_ ** **_Roman Empire_ **

 

Sigurd looked out at the mass of people milling about in the Constantinople marketplace and tried very hard to not feel like a provincial bumpkin.  It was hard, because there were easily twice as many people in the great marketplace that he could see as were in his entire village.  And it was much more intimidating on the ground than it was from the air.

Gunnar clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Magnificent, is it not?"

Sigurd nodded in agreement.  It wasn't a loss of face to acknowledge that much. 

He, Gunnar, Gudmund, Hrafn, and, annoyingly, Thorred were out to go shopping in the grand market—or, in Sigurd's case, to see about changing some of the spices he'd looted for coin; he had a small sack of pungent cloves in his pocket to start things off. 

They were being given a wide berth from their uniforms, and he heard more than a few mutter the word _draco_ as they saw him, which made him smile.  Now _that_ was respect!

Even from their position atop the nearby hill, it was overwhelming.  From here, he could hear Greek amidst a confusion of languages that he couldn't even begin to recognize.  Colorful awnings covered market stalls large and small, and the wealth of nations was available for him to buy—if he had the coin. 

Well, that was what he was here for.  He had some coin from his pay, plus some shed dragon scales from Hookfang—currently napping on the rooftops of the barracks—and once he was done selling the cloves, he already had a list in his head of things to check out and possibly buy on his way back out. 

He did his best to keep an eye out for the spice stalls, but the market overwhelmed him.  He saw weapons, including swords in styles that he never could have imagined, and wondered how he would look with a curved blade hanging from his waist.  He saw more varieties of fruits, vegetables, and meats from distant lands than he could have ever dreamed of—including some Asiatic peaches that made him smile in memory, and he promised himself that he'd pick up a few on his way back.  He saw beautiful silks, and linens that were so fine and sheer they made him itch to buy a bolt just to see what he could make of them.  The seller told him in broken Greek that they were from a distant place called "Egypt", which had been famed for its linen for thousands of years. 

He saw leatherworkers hawking gloves and belts and vests and boots and more, made from the skins of beasts that he did not recognize—and one that he did, as the man was selling gloves made from dragon-hide.  He felt disquieted and continued on.  There were sellers of freshly cooked meats and pastries that made his mouth water at the scent of their wares.  There were jewelers selling necklaces and earrings of gold and silver, embellished with sparkling gems that gave Sigurd a moment of consideration for having his ears pierced, just to be able to wear them.

And then he smelled—and then saw—the spice stall, and peeled off from his group of friends. 

Inside, he started trying to make out which kind of spice was which, and trying to determine the prices.  Poking through, he managed to get the attention of the shopkeeper, and identified himself with his poor Greek, making the man instantly become more solicitous. 

Talking with the man was difficult, however.

"No! Value wish see!"

"I can sell you some very nice cloves, young sir.  Sweetens the breath and a good cure for toothaches."

Sigurd sighed in frustration; he only had a short period of time before he had to head back for his next bout with the priest-tutor and the current bane of his existence—grammatical conjugations. 

Then a familiar voice cut in.  "Sigurd!"

He turned; Ben was standing there, a sack in his hands, looking amused.

"Hey!  A little help here?  I'm trying to get…"  Sigurd's voice faltered as he saw Pelagia standing behind Benjamin, her eyes closed as she sniffed the air of the stall with enjoyment. 

Benjamin just looked at him curiously.  "What do you need?"

Sigurd just took a deep breath.  No, he hadn't been interested in the girl.  He hadn't.  Nope.  He hadn't, because then it didn't mean that he'd lost out again.    He was interested in more than just a girl from the Constantinople peasantry.  He hadn't been beaten again.

Some of it must have shown on his face, because Benjamin just looked at him.  "You okay?"

"Yeah, fine, fine.  You here to sell your stuff?"

"That's the plan," Benjamin said.  He tossed a bag of something to the merchant, who bowed and placed it on a scale.

Adding weights to balance it took the span of a few moments, and the merchant counted out a fair number of coins, mostly bronze, but a few gold, and handed it over to Benjamin. 

Benjamin turned to Pelagia and handed her a handful of the bronze coins, saying something softly that Sigurd tried to not overhear, but heard anyway as something about her family. 

They kissed, and Snotlout turned away, grimacing, trying not to clench his fists, feeling jealous and hurt. 

Composing himself after a moment, Sigurd turned to the stall proprietor, and managed to force out in broken Greek, "Same agreement, you him, I you, coin trade spice."

The proprietor thought it over for a moment and nodded.  Sigurd, giving one last glance at the happy couple standing nearby, left the shop to get some of his loot from the chest where he kept it.

Hopefully, by the time he got back, they'd be gone.

As he walked, he rationalized to himself.  He didn't have time for a woman.  He was being watched by the entirety of the Guard and the Emperor.  Women were just too much time and effort right now.  When, in the last week or so since the death of the old Emperor, would he have had _time_ to start up with a woman?  The barracks were male-only, beyond the washerwomen that handled the laundry, and most of them were old, and the young ones were already with some other Varangian or other. 

He was busy.  He was important.  He was respected and seen as someone of worth.  He knew how to read and write, and had his own dragon.  His superior and the senior priest—the _patriarch,_ he corrected himself—were arguing over who got to keep him.

A woman right now would just be a distraction.  Something to slow him down from achieving the respect and awe that he deserved.  He would never be able to go home and take his rightful place if he got bogged down in a relationship now.

By the time he had walked a short ways up the length of the marketplace, he had almost managed to completely convince himself of all of it. 

Except for the howling little wound that echoed deep down. 

_Then leave!  And when you come back, I'll laugh in your face!_

He was so distracted by his own inner turmoil, that he missed the four men in concealing hoods who peeled away from the crowd and shadowed him. 

He didn't miss the moment when they struck, though.

He was walking along, hands jammed into his belt and his shoulders hunched in anger.  People were giving him a wide berth, which he would have appreciated if he'd been in the mood to even take notice of it. 

Then suddenly, as he passed an alleyway, an arm came up around his throat and cut off his air, with another hand covering his mouth.  As he jerked his hands free of his belt's confines, they were grabbed and twisted by two more men, holding him rigid as his joints screamed. 

He caught a brief glimpse of another hooded figure glancing around; then the man pointed into the alley.

As they dragged him away from the street, his eyes bulged in panic and he tried to scream for help.

None seemed forthcoming.

###

**_The_ ** **_Vatican_ ** **_, Rome, Papal States_ **

 

"This… is a disturbing report," said Reginerio, deacon cardinal of the Roman Church, looking at the nearly hysterical lines scribbled on a piece of parchment.  He and four other deacon cardinals were sitting in one of the splendidly appointed rooms within the Vatican's complex of buildings.  Together, they constituted a quorum.  Meanwhile, he knew that there were a number of junior priests listening in—or at least attempting to.  That was unsurprising, given the rumors flying about, all centered on the dispatches that were the focus of this meeting. 

"No worse than some of the others," said Ugo—older, balding and jowly—with a scowl.  "I wish that we had some witnesses to question instead of these useless notes."

"Agreed, but Harthacnut said that he would be sending witnesses from his ransomed party along shortly, once he could arrange sufficient passage over the Channel," said Franco—tall and thin and with a neatly trimmed goatee. "They are likely already on their way."

"Assuming that he actually _is_ Harthacnut," Ugo said, scowling.  "According to this note, the king was taken bodily by one of the dragons and eaten.  We may have a demonic impostor sitting on the throne up there."

"Perhaps, perhaps not," said Leone—short, squat and threatening to burst his vestments.  "A demon would hardly be interested in attracting the attention of the Holy See, and Harthacnut's message is a very polite cry for help from the Church."

"Perhaps," Ugo conceded, in a tone that indicated that he didn't actually agree. 

"Well, until we _do_ get to question actual witnesses—including the promised members of the king's captive party, which should be helpful to determine his demonic status or not—we do have these reports," said Franco, waving his arm to indicate the neat stacks of parchments, scribed with reports from the men of Harthacnut's fleet—clearly, the English king had decided that volume would be the best way to add plausibility to his outrageous tale.  "Are they credible?"

"Either they're credible, or the English Isles have collectively gone mad," Ugo said with a scowl that set his jowls quivering.  "Lucifer is moving to the north, and we had best be prepared to respond."

Giovanni—tall, with a Roman profile and a patrician's bearing—having been silent until now, bowed in his seat and said to the others, "Please.  Let us avoid a panic, my brothers.  Dragons are flesh and blood creatures, and can be slain like any such.  This is known, and there are still those who hunt the beasts in the mountains to the north.  Hysteria will not serve any of us."

"Yes, but they are deadly, uncanny monsters, placed on this earth by Lucifer!" said Ugo heatedly, ignoring the seniormost priest.  "They are some of his lesser servants, and I say that any that man who can ride one has struck a bargain with the devil himself in order to spread corruption on God's green earth!"

"Devils and demons or not," Franco said thinly, "what we do know is that there was a sea battle."  As Ugo tried to interrupt, Franco just kept talking over him.  "During this battle, dragons attacked the fleet, ridden by pagans who have figured out how—or bargained for the ability—to tame them," he said with a sidelong glance at Ugo, who settled a bit. 

"They attacked during the day and at night.  The day attack was beaten back by the king's forces, but the night action involved an overwhelming assault that destroyed the fleet."  He tapped the stack of parchments.  "The king was lost, captured by the pagans and held for ransom, which was paid.  We know that much from his own report.  His fleet broke under the assault, and there are wildly conflicting reports of pagan casualties.  However, given the range in these reports, there is no doubt that the battle was utterly one-sided.  While Harthacnut admits to not having full numbers, reading between all of these reports, I believe that at least a quarter, if not a third or more, of his forces were either captured or destroyed.  And that conclusion does not require the intervention of anything demonic in order to be terrifying."

Leone scoffed.  "The majority of those reports are from panicked parish priests and a few bishops caught up in the frenzy.  While I don't doubt that the situation exists, I doubt that it is as dire as reported."

"Then how do you explain it?" Reginerio asked quietly. 

"Simple.  Some pagans have figured out how to tame the beasts.  That, I do not dispute.  However, the numbers involved and the claimed canniness and deadliness of the pagans?  Feh."  He tossed a piece of parchment onto the table as punctuation.  "They are pagan Vikings from the far north.  Their grasp of strategy is crude, and tactics are cruder.  Look at the Varangians to the south to see _that!_   This breathless report of a deep and canny siege to the fleet feels like an attempt to save face, by making the fleet and attack seem larger than it was.  I mean, what kind of _idiot_ summons up his entire army in those northern wastes just before winter!?"  He tapped the table with a pointed finger.  "It was likely a smaller fleet sent to burn out an infestation of raiders who had lucked into a few tameable dragons, that got attacked and sunk, possibly attacking each other in the confusion of a night action."

"And the king's ransom?"

"We only have his say-so that such a ransom took place.  He is a foolish young man, and he may have exaggerated a payoff to the raiders in order to play upon our sympathies for more coin."

"What about the claim that the Norwegian king is allying with them?"

"Harthacnut is already known to have a rivalry with him.  Would _you_ trust him to make such a claim honestly when he has so much to gain from us believing it?"

"…I suppose not," said Franco grudgingly. 

"What really makes me skeptical," Leone continued, "is this description of the pagan dragon lord.  It feels like Harthacnut is deliberately playing up just how dangerous and _nasty_ the man is in order to gain assistance from the Church.  I mean, look at it!  A Viking raider riding one of the deadliest dragons on record?  Who singlehandedly captured the king and smashed the fleet without assistance?  He even noted that the rider is a sinister left-handed one!"  He dramatically ran his hands through the piles of parchment.  "But for all of those details, have you noticed what is _missing?_ "  He continued without waiting for their reactions.  "There are no details as to what form of assistance he needs."

"Meaning what?" Ugo asked with a scowl.

"Look at this!  He's all but _begging_ for us to assist him… but neglects to say what he needs!"  Leone spread his hands on the table.  "Imagine his thoughts—he sends us messages of dire import, messages that can have no effect but to terrify us into responding, to call upon all of Christendom to join forces and respond as one.  But he does not ask for such." Ugo tried to interrupt, but Leone overrode him.  "Then, once we have worked ourselves into a frenzy," he looked meaningfully at Ugo, "he sends a followup message, saying that the situation is dire… but can be solved with _money._   Imagine our reaction at not having to cajole monarchs into giving him aid!  We would empty our coffers and send sums to him!"

There were nods to this, varyingly enthusiastic or grudging in the point; the recent pagan uprising in Polska against the Church was something nobody wanted to repeat.  Ugo, however, jumped in at the opening.  "But if the pagans have truly bargained with the Prince of Lies for their power, then these dark tidings and portents that you casually dismiss are exactly what we would expect to see!"

"In an overwrought letter from a known oathbreaker?  Please!  We're being manipulated, and you're falling for it!"

Ugo roared back, "Lucifer is at large in the world and—!"

"You're deranged—!"

They all started talking and then shouting over one another, and it took Reginerio a solid minute to restore order. 

"Well.  Either way, we need more information, that much is clear.  I move that we adjourn on this topic until such time as the witnesses arrive and can be questioned.  As a preliminary point, in addendum, I suggest that we dispatch an investigator to the region to gather first-hand intelligence."

There were nods, either enthusiastic or grudging, to this.

"Excellent.  We are all agreed that this requires better knowledge than what we have available.  We will select a suitable candidate and send him to investigate." Giovanni shared a look with Reginerio.  "In fact… I have a candidate already in mind.  And I believe that he even is here in Rome, or at least not far…"

* * *

 

**A/N:** Whew, that was intense!  Poor Heather...  And this is what happens when I write a first draft, and my beta readers tell me that I can do better...

Meanwhile, some admin notes.  I'm going to be going on posting hiatus again shortly, likely for the month of March.  I have to take an exam in March to show that I understand at least the basics of German, and the sooner I get this handled and out of the way, the better—at the moment I actually cannot leave Germany until I pass this exam; they wouldn't let me back in.  I'll post more details in the upcoming author notes, but I don't intend to be off for too long—probably just a month—and this will give me a chance to do some more buffer building anyway.  But since my one year posting anniversary is the first Sunday in April (which happens to be April 1st...), I'll have to post _something_ that day. 


	40. Home Is People...

**Chapter 40: Home Is People** **…**

_**Trigger Notes:** Explicit Act of Assault, Explicit Attempted Murder_

* * *

 

_Draconic nests in the wild are universally situated atop geothermal sources, as high levels of heat (minimum 40 C, and optimally 50-55 C) are required in order for the eggs to successfully gestate.  This is part of the reason why dragons are so often associated with high mountaintops, as they made use of the volcanic vents buried deep within._

_Once dragons began their partnership with humans, however, they were freed from their dependence on these dangerous locales and their associated hazards of toxic gases, extreme heat, cave-ins, and the occasional decimation event of an ill-timed lava flow or eruption.  Humans in collaboration with their dragons, beginning with the Hooligan tribe of Berk, built artificial Brooderies in which the environment could be more strictly controlled, ensuring the successful hatching of a greater percentage of the dragon eggs._

_As a side benefit of these structures, the waste heat from their vents can be put to use for any number of productive ends, another concept that was pioneered by the Hooligans._

_In the modern context, Broodery management is a mature science…_

_—An Introduction To Dragon Biology, 17th Edition, Oxford University Press, 1693_

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

**_December, AD 1041_ **

 

The sounds of fists slamming into meat came up from the alleyway, which made every passerby turn around and continue walking in haste, as if they had not noticed anything. 

In the alley, Snotlout was fighting to get free as the fourth hooded man punched him in the gut, the chest, the face…

He had lost the air for screaming when the man had buried a fist in his gut, and he could already feel his right eye swelling shut.

"Ju… just… take it…" he slurred, motioning to his moneypouch; the man who was holding his right arm had taken it off of him already. 

The man who was delivering the beating stopped and laughed harshly. 

Snotlout froze, staring in sudden fear. 

The man spoke… in _Norse._   "This?  This isn't just a mugging, _Sigurd._   This is service of the greatest kind.  The Emperor wants you dead so that he can take your dragon for himself.  And I swore an oath that his desires will be taken as my laws."

"Kormak…" Snotlout said, trying to hunch over and protect his guts, but the men holding him stretched him out tighter.

"As you please, Trondsson," Kormak said mockingly, and punched him in the gut again. 

Snotlout whimpered with pain and shut his eyes.

Then his cheek exploded into agony as he was smacked with an open hand.  He turned his head to look at the other Varangian and tried to focus on him.   "Why…  why… no fighting in the ranks…" he asked, dazed, having a vague feeling of having missed something.  Kormak had backed down before.  What had changed?

"This isn't fighting.  This is _punishment._   This is _sanctioned._   You offended the _Emperor,_ Sigurd!  You are _guilty_ of violating your oaths to view his desires as your orders!"

"Then why…" Snotlout asked, his lips bloody, managing to indicate the ambush with a vague gesture. 

"Why this?  Because, dear Sigurd, you are _popular._   The other Varangians _like_ you.  If he ordered you executed, there would be dissent in the ranks.  And you've already denied him when he demanded that the dragon be turned over to him.  But the Emperor does not like the idea of a _pagan_ owning something denied to him.  So you will be removed, the tragic victim of a street mugging… and the Emperor will have his desires fulfilled."  Kormak produced his knife from somewhere and stalked towards Snotlout, his ecstatic smile the only thing Sigurd could see under his hood.  "And my brother will rest easier now…"

Snotlout had believed that he'd already reached his fighting limits… but the sight of the naked blade in Kormak's hands shot new fear and energy into him.  Fighting to break free like a trapped animal, he screamed for help without concern for his pride, unable to take his eyes off of the knife.  Kormak seemed to drink it in, and slowed his approach as if to savor the moment.

That was a mistake, as Snotlout, in desperation, using the grips on his arms as his leverage point, tucked his legs up into his chest… and _kicked_ Kormak right in the hand as he approached.  Kormak swore in pain and then denial as the kick sent the knife spinning away, deeper into the alleyway.  Snotlout felt it cut his boot, but thankfully the thick leather protected his feet. 

Kormak punched Snotlout in the gut, making him cry out in pain again.  "Nice try, but that won't change anything."  He walked leisurely away to pick up the knife, and casually bent—

Then there was a sudden rush of air and a roar of an angry dragon and a shout of _"STOP!"_

Snotlout whipped his head around and saw Gudmund at the alleyway's mouth, holding his drawn sword in hand, while Hookfang landed on the nearby roof and roared at the men holding Snotlout.

Kormak took one look, snatched up his knife, and bolted down the last few feet to the end of the alleyway, shouting behind him, "This isn't over!"

The men holding Snotlout tried to throw him away and scatter, but Snotlout tackled one of them, bearing him to the ground, where they proceeded to grapple.  Snotlout punched him and tried to get him in a joint lock, but the man was trying to get away from him, not fight back—which changed when Hookfang roared again.  His foe threw a number of rapid, weak punches into Snotlout's already battered face, shouting something panicked in Greek. 

He got a grip on the arm of the man he was grappling with, and _twisted_ him into a rough jointlock.  The man howled with pain, and he looked up to where Hookfang was, to see that Kormak had vanished, and that Hookfang had dropped off of the roof, clearly coming to help, only to come face-to-face with one of his attackers. 

The man tried to run past Hookfang, who roared at him.  The man screamed back, and that was a mistake. 

Snotlout grimaced momentarily as Hookfang, feeling threatened and angry, batted at the man with a flaming claw.  He hit the nearby wall with a scream, and Hookfang roared at him again—Snotlout could tell that Hookfang was terrified and trying to hide it with bravado.  It was something he sympathized with. 

A shout from the entrance to the alleyway drew his attention.  Snotlout watched the fourth attacker try to barrel past Gudmund, likely seeing the dark-skinned Varangian with a sword as _less_ threatening than the angry dragon behind him.  Gudmund sighed, and feinted with his sword, making the man dodge and lose his balance.  Recovering from the feint, Gudmund expertly shoulder-checked the man, knocking him into the wall of the alley with all of the force of the man's own motion.  The man bounced off of the wood and hit the ground with a thump and a moan.  A few moments later Gudmund, dropping his sword, had him in an armlock, pressed into the dirt—and then looked up and motioned urgently with his free hand down the street.

Gunnar and Thorred came into view, looking like they had just run flat out.  Gunnar looked over the scene and immediately came to assist, hopping over to Gudmund and putting his foot on the back of Gudmund's captive.  Then, almost politely, he reached down and picked up Gudmund's dropped sword and pressed it very pointedly in the middle of the man's back.  Sounding winded, he said something in Greek that sounded very formal. 

Gudmund leapt to his feet and bolted over to where Snotlout was holding down his captive—and just in time, because Snotlout wasn't sure how much longer he could hold the struggling man in a jointlock.  He felt woozy, and his head was ringing like one of the city's many church bells.  But Gudmund put one sandaled foot onto the man's neck, and helped Snotlout to his feet before looking up the alleyway and blurting in terror, "Tell Hookfang to cool it before he sets the whole quarter on fire!"

Snotlout looked up towards his dragon, and, sure enough, the nearby buildings were smoldering.  Painfully, he hauled himself to his feet and staggered towards Hookfang.  "Hooky, calm down, it's…"

Then he got a look at the body of the attacker that Hookfang had repeatedly savaged, and gagged.  The man was dead—or at least he sincerely hoped that he was. 

Hookfang scowled and rolled in the dirt to extinguish the flames, and then slapped out the few flames that had caught on the nearby buildings with his wings.

The excitement passed, and he staggered, feeling light-headed, and Gudmund hopped up from their captive and steadied him. 

"Damn, Sigurd, you're a mess." 

He made a pain-filled grunt, and then saw the man that he'd been fighting climb to his feet and try to run for it—only for Thorred to cheerfully tackle him. 

Gudmund said, "I saw Kormak. He'll pay for this—"

Snotlout shook his head once.  "He said… the Emperor… approved…"

"Oh _shit_ ," Gudmund hissed in dismay.

Then there was more shouting at the entrance to the alleyway as a squad of men dressed in the uniforms of the city militia appeared and called out in Greek.

Gudmund stepped between the militia and Snotlout, and cautiously pulled out a knife from a belt sheath.

Gunnar hauled his captive to his feet and started to explain something in rapid, smooth Greek as Snotlout leaned heavily on Gudmund and Hookfang.  He could feel his eyes already starting to swell shut, and his lips were split and bloody, and a few of his teeth felt loose as he probed at them with his tongue.  He didn't _think_ he had any broken bones aside from his nose, but a large part of him wanted to curl up around his belly and whimper in pain. 

At the mouth of the alleyway, Gunnar had put down the sword and was making animated gestures as he continued to speak to the militiamen.  He stepped forward, away from his captive, and the militiamen were trying to pay attention to him—but they were all glancing at Hookfang in awe. 

Then the man that Gunnar had taken captive tried to bolt for it as nobody was looking at him—at least, nobody in front of him.

Gudmund called out a warning, just in time for Gunnar to fluidly extend a foot.  The man tripped on it, which sent him crashing solidly to the ground with a wince-inducing wet cracking noise as his face hit the pavement stones.

His arm slung over Gudmund's shoulders, Snotlout limped up to the alleyway mouth, Hookfang right behind him. 

The militiamen's eyes were wide and staring, and it was obvious that Hookfang worked pretty damn well as an identifier for who he was.  Their tone became even more respectful, and then Gunnar turned to Snotlout and said, "They wish to know what happened, and I cannot give a full report, given that I came in late."

Snotlout asked Gunnar tiredly, "Could you translate for me?"

"Wait," Gudmund said.  "Sigurd's injured, and I saw almost the whole thing."

Snotlout turned his head to look at him.  Gudmund said quietly, "Let me.  And please trust me."

He nodded, and almost passed out from the effort, and leaned harder on Gudmund.  It was nice.  Gudmund was solid.  Gudmund made him feel safe. 

Then Gudmund spoke in careful Greek, and the militia men looked over the scene; one of the guardsmen bent down as Gudmund was speaking and drew back the attacker's hood—and Snotlout saw that he was a Greek.  If there was Norseman in there, it was very far back.  Another militiaman shook his head, incredulous.  A third laughed. 

Then Gunnar said to Sigurd in Norse, "I believe that the precise nature of their comments are along the lines of 'What a bunch of stupid idiots.'"

One of the militia men prodded Gunnar's captive with the tip of his boot and said something in Greek in a tone of disgust.  Sigurd looked at Gunnar, who said, "He recognizes him."

"How?" Gudmund asked, looking at what was left of the man's face.

"Tattoos, apparently."  And the fellow had a few distinctive ones, of horses with warriors on them.  "He's a known thug for hire."  The militia man looked at Gunnar and said something else, and Gunnar added, "And he's looking forward to you pressing charges so that he can haul him in front of the magistrate and get him finally off of the streets."

Sigurd nodded, and the alleyway swam in front of him. 

"Whoa there!" Gudmund cried, and caught him before he collapsed.  "We're getting you to a healer, right now!"  He turned to Hookfang and said, "Can you help get him back to the barracks?"

Hookfang nodded and bent his neck, and Gudmund helped Sigurd climb on, and then hopped on as well.  They held on tight as Hookfang climbed up the side of one of the nearby buildings and then launched himself into the air. 

"Fanks for t' rescue," Sigurd slurred out through his swollen lips.

"You're welcome, and, damn, you're lucky that I saw Hookfang flying in without you and ran to investigate!"

He nodded, waves of pain wracking his body.  Gudmund held onto him carefully, and whispered, "If Kormak has the backing of the Emperor, then the worst we could do is press charges against him." 

"Wha do y'mean?" he mumbled back.  Hookfang was flying very slowly and carefully, and they weren't to the palace yet. 

"If it's our word versus Kormak, then it goes before a tribunal, Sigurd.  And if the Emperor tells them to rule in favor of Kormak… they could confiscate Hookfang as your punishment for false charges." 

"But…"

"Sigurd.  I'm your friend.  I'll make sure that nothing happens to you.  Okay?"

Snotlout had just enough time to nod, and they were landing on the lawn of the barracks, and Gudmund was shouting for a healer.

Feeling safe with his friends watching over him, Sigurd slumped out of Hookfang's saddle, landed bonelessly on the grass, and passed out. 

###

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

A sudden scream of abject terror woke Wulfhild from a sound sleep.  She bolted out of bed, dressed only in her nightgown, as the scream sounded again.  It was so high and shrill that she could barely identify it as human, much less the gender of the person making it.

_We're under attack,_ she thought, and made for the door, only to hear the screamer break down into sudden sobs. 

Downstairs, the dragons were huffing and puffing agitatedly; they'd clearly been woken by the scream as well—and then she realized that the sobbing noise was from Hiccup and Astrid's bedroom.

Despite herself, she heard Astrid whispering comforting sounds to Hiccup, even if she couldn't make out the specific words. 

Oh.

Moving carefully, she went down the stairs, stepping on the sides of them to keep the creaking noises to a minimum.  She went to the dragons' room, to find Stoick already there, calming the dragons.

"Woke yeh too?" he asked quietly.

She nodded.

"Nightmares.  He's been having them ever since the battle.  Almost every night for the first few weeks, and then less after Astrid came when they were betrothed.  This is the first bad one since you came."  He rubbed Toothless' snout; the Night Fury was looking at the ceiling, concerned.  "Don't you worry about him.  She's got him," he said to the dragon, and then turned back to Wulfhild. "I haven't said nothing to him about it."

"Why not?" she asked as she walked over to Mistletoe and helped soothe her dragon back to sleep. 

"Because he would just take it as me telling him that he wasn't good enough.  And I've done that to him enough."  Stoick sighed as Stormfly gave a sleepy chitter and curled back up to sleep. 

"What do you mean?"

Stoick sighed and rubbed at his face with a broad hand.  "I… I was a terrible father when he was a boy.  I didn't know what I was doing.  I was overwhelmed with chiefing.  My wife… was taken by dragons during a bad raid when Hiccup was a baby.  I raised him alone, hoping he would grow up to be big and strong.  Like me."  He slumped.  "Thickheaded and dimwitted, like me."  A self-deprecating smile crossed his face.  "He got the stubbornness, though."

Wulfhild was biting her lip to keep from laughing, but sobered as Stoick continued.

"But I kept telling him that he was no Viking.  That he wasn't one of us."  He rubbed at his face.  "More fool I.  But now, if I went up there and told him to stop crying…"  He grimaced.  "Aye.  He'd stop.  Because he thinks a Viking doesn't cry.  Doesn't weep.  Doesn't feel.  Because I taught him that.  And I wish I could take it back."

Gently, she patted Stoick on the back of the hand.  "I don't know what to say to that.  But I know that he loves you."

"Aye, as his father.  And I'm shocked that I haven't messed that much up," Stoick said morosely.  "But I'll ask yeh… as part of the clan now… not to bring it up with him.  Nobody knows about the nightmares, and I want to keep it that way.  For his sake.  Aye?"

She nodded, swallowing hard against a lump in her throat.  "I'll wait for him to tell me," she said softly. 

"Aye.  Good.  And lass?"

"Yes?"

"If he doesn't… don't take it personally.  But Astrid has nightmares too."  He looked pensive.  "So do I."

###

**_Mead Hall Kitchens, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Heather chopped the onion with quick, practiced motions.  Making food was a calming, centering activity for her.  Always had been.  She spent her time doing something useful, productive, something that contributed to the general health and wellbeing of the community, something that she had as her own talent, not forced onto her.  Certainly, it had been cultivated by Alvin as something useful for her to do publicly, but she'd been taught how to cook by Griselda for as long as she could remember.  It was _hers_ , and she refused to give it up to Alvin's taint. 

The kitchen was her sanctuary.  Always had been. 

Even now, with the harassment, although thankfully it had dropped off in here after Stoick had talked to Magnhild the other day.  Magnhild had been upset, and had told Heather, explicitly, that she expected to be told about future harassment. 

But she couldn't order the kitchen workers to be nice to her—or to treat her with any warmth.  So Heather just ignored them and got ignored in turn.  After her shift, she would be going to the glass hut and spending time with Fishlegs as usual—and today, Hiccup, Wulfhild and Astrid as well, as Hiccup had scrounged up a new crucible for them to use.

She had just come back from depositing the chopped onions into the prep bowls when Oof came up next to her and started to chop some celery.  She gave him a sidelong look, but didn't say anything.  Then he muttered, "I'm sorry for my brother's behavior."

She intensified her sidelong look, and he squirmed. 

Finally, she muttered, "Why is he joining in, then?"

Oof slumped and said, "…Dad died during the attack, and he's… well, he's not blaming you, but…"

"But he's blaming me because he needs to attack an outsider to feel better about your dad, and I'm handy," she finished. 

He nodded, looking sheepish and apologetic.

"And I'm already being badmouthed by Twiglet as a traitor and all of that," she said.

He nodded again.  "I've been trying to get him to stop, but he's so… so _angry…_ "

Heather suppressed a scowl.  "Thanks," she said, as she pondered if he was angry enough to cut her saddle girth and belaying lines.  "And the others?"

He shrugged.  "Not my business, but Twiglet has been pretty convincing.  But… I heard what you went through, and I… I figured I should try to do what Hiccup does and apologize."

She looked at the Jorgenson triplet.  He was two years older than her, unmarried, and was one of Magnhild's grandkids—which, around the kitchens, meant that he and his brothers were held to high standards.  His father, Gallbrute, had died in the first few moments of the battle two months ago. 

And he was deliberately emulating Hiccup.

Well.  That was a good sign.

She gave him a smile and said, "Thanks.  So… um… this is going to sound a little odd, but has Twiglet asked you or your brothers to write anything?"

He cocked his head to the side.  "Not that I know of.  Why?"

"Oh, it was another prank.  That's all."

"Um… look.  I don't want to get between you and her.  But some of what's going on has been wasting food, and I don't like that, so… I'll try to get my brother to stop at least."

She nodded wryly and smiled.  "Thanks.  I appreciate it."

Hiccup came in at that moment, trailed by Astrid, Wulfhild, Fishlegs, Gobber and Murchadh, all of them carrying various parts for Hiccup's latest creation.  Magnhild followed them, looking anticipatory—and following her was one of other grandsons, Gabber, and his Whispering Death, Fault.  The kitchen staff paused to watch; they'd made extra food yesterday so that the fires could be quenched today, ahead of schedule, to allow for installation.  And given that the day after tomorrow was the start of Yule, they were eager to get things up and running again as soon as possible.

As Gobber, Murchadh and Gabber carefully guided Fault into carving the side access shaft that Hiccup needed—which would also allow for easier access to the smoking hooks, a move that was much appreciated by all of the staff—Hiccup took over one of the tables and started to assemble his latest creation, showing Magnhild and the others how it worked and how to maintain it. 

Heather watched with a smile; Hiccup was in his element, as he showed off what he had wrought from iron and wood to an appreciative crowd, Astrid handing him parts as he needed them without having to be prompted, and Wulfhild checking them off on a list. 

Fishlegs came over to her and she leaned against him.  Then she caught an irritated look from Twiglet, and, despite her own stated desire not to provoke the other woman, she couldn't resist the urge to pointedly wrap her arms around him.  He was _hers,_ and Twiglet would just have to deal with that.

Twiglet scowled and turned back to watching Hiccup at work, while behind him, Fault and his rider delicately cut a hole in the wall.

Others were coming in to watch, and over the next hour or so, a number of Hooligans came by to watch Hiccup's latest creation as it was installed.

Finally, the new cover to the equally new access shaft was hammered into place, and the oven fires were rekindled.  There was a general hush… and then the small device—what Hiccup had dubbed a 'windmill', in relation to the watermills that he'd already been improving—started to spin inside the shaft behind the wall, the warm air from the fires rising, hitting the angled blades, and making them spin.  Their motion was captured and transmitted by the complicated array of gears in the man-sized windmill, and from there to a belt and axle system that lead out of the access shaft.  That then turned Magnhild's new toy: a modification to the massive ox-sized spit mounted above the main hearthfire, allowing it to turn with no need for lazy hands to crank it. 

The spit—loaded with a mutton carcass—began to steadily turn above the fire.

And the crowd cheered.

Heather heard comments about how it was good that Hiccup was building up the village, instead of burning it down, among others.  Then someone called out, "Hoy!  Hiccup!  What number is this?"

Hiccup beamed and shared a look with Astrid.  "Four!" he announced. 

###

**_The Smithy, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Hours later, Hiccup, along with Astrid and Wulfhild, watched carefully as Fishlegs and Heather poured the sand into their new crucible.  Well, "new" for them; it was Gobber's old one, kept in deep storage against the risk of a dragon eating the furnaces, and only a bit bigger than Hiccup's cupped hands. 

As for the forge-eating dragons… Their dragons were curled up in a pile nearby, watching the proceedings with interest, but generally lying about like lazy lumps at the moment.  When Wulfhild had commented on it earlier, Hiccup had suggested that they were lying together like that to conserve heat in the cold weather. 

They lit the furnace with a precise shot of Toothless's fire, and everyone took a turn at working the bellows.  As the furnace was brought up to heat, Heather explained what kind of alchemy they were doing here.

"According to what Fishlegs found, glass is more than just melted sand; apparently there are other things in there that help the glass melt.  So we've been trying different things to see what might work."  She indicated various little pots and containers around the room. 

Hiccup looked over the setup and asked, "So, what problems have you been having?"

"The glass keeps cracking after it melts and cools," Heather said with a scowl.  "We make a shape, and it reduces itself to a pile of shards."

Hiccup cocked his head.  "Have you tried quenching it?"

"What's that?" Heather asked.

"Smithing technique for helping the metal harden; if you let it sit out and cool slowly, it might anneal, which makes it softer—good for some things, bad for others," he said.

"Well, we're still having difficulty getting the sand to even melt consistently," Heather said, frowning.  "Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.  It's like having little gnomes messing with the stuff from batch to batch."

"That _is_ weird," Wulfhild said, working the bellows.  "I thought that they went after socks?"

"The weirdest one was the batch where the cauldron melted before the sand did," Heather said.  "I still have no idea why that happened."

Hiccup grimaced and nodded.  "That was a _mess._   And it's trolls that steal your socks.  But only the left ones, according to Gobber."

Wulfhild cocked her head.  "…doesn't he only _have_ left socks?"

"You know, I've made that same point to him before…" Hiccup observed casually, and they all laughed. 

"So, what are we adding to it today?" Astrid asked, looking over the various little piles of materials.

"Well, I've got some ground stone, some salt, and a few other things," Heather said.  "Limestone, in particular; I noticed our best batch had a smell like a quicklime furnace I smelled once and I want to see if that works."  She picked up one pot with powdered stone and poured it into the cauldron. 

A harsh, tangy smell quickly hit the room, making people cough.  As she stirred, the sand and powder started to melt.

"Would you look at that!" Astrid said in awe.  Wulfhild was grinning and giving little spats of enthused clapping. 

"Now, to mix and test.  Apparently, the way you make anything is by blowing bubbles through a tube," Heather said, "and we'll get to that in a bit."  She turned to Hiccup.  "Can we try that quenching thing you mentioned?"

"Sure; we just need a bucket of water."

Wulfhild volunteered to stir the glass as it melted; as she carefully stirred the small pot, the others worked the bellows and Hiccup got an array of tools from the smithy.  Once the glass was fully melted and glowing with heat, Heather pulled on some thick gloves and picked up an iron spoon.  Wulfhild stepped back, and Heather scooped up some of the glass, doing her best to keep it well away from her hands and body.  She turned and poured a little droplet into the bucket.  It hissed as soon as it hit the water, forming a solid drop that clunked to the bottom.

Encouraged, she made a few more as Fishlegs grabbed the iron tube that Gobber had made for them last week and scooped up a ball of molten glass on the end of the tube.  He blew into the other end, making a bubble in the glass. 

Which started to fall off the end immediately.

In a panic, Fishlegs started spinning the tube to keep the bubble on it, which, oddly, worked. 

"Yay!  I'm okay!"  He paused.  "Now how do I get it off the end?"

"Uh…" Hiccup looked at it.  "No idea."  As he and Fishlegs were trying to figure out how to get the bubble off of the tube, Heather was fishing the glass teardrops out of the bucket. 

"Hey, look, these haven't exploded yet.  Looks like your idea was right, Hiccup."

"Yes!" he exulted, and turned to Astrid.  "That's five!"

"Five?  But there are six—oohh!" Heather said as she laid the teardrops down on the table gently.  "For Astrid's challenge?"

Hiccup gave a beaming grin.  "Yep!"  He glanced at Fishlegs, who was still spinning his glass bubble.  "And, no offense, Fish, but helping you get that bubble off that isn't going to count."

"No worries," Fishlegs said, still anxiously spinning the pipe; every time he paused, the bubble started to sag downwards.  "I think that I have to let this cool just enough, and then cut it free."

"Sounds like a plan!" Hiccup said, and went over to the table with all of the tools and grabbed a knife and his own pair of thick leather gloves. 

As he did so, he heard Astrid and Wulfhild walk over to the other table to take a look at the droplets.  "They're very pretty," Wulfhild said.  "Look, there are little bubbles inside the glass!"

"Which is something we don't want," Heather said, "if we're going to make these into cups and jars and such."

Wulfhild shrugged.  "Still pretty in these.  I'd wear one on a necklace, that's for sure."

As Hiccup turned, he saw Heather cock her head, pursing her lips in thought.  "Something to consider."

Fishlegs, meanwhile, was looking up gratefully at Hiccup as he came with the iron knife.  "Okay, ready?" Hiccup asked.

Moving gingerly, aware of just how hot the glass was, Hiccup did his best to cut the bubble free of the pipe.  It cracked a bit, but he got off the end mostly intact.  It had a surprising texture—soft like honey when he poked it with the blade, yet still stiff enough to crack somewhat.  Tossing it from glove to glove, he crossed the room and put it on the stone bench. 

"Now what?" Astrid asked. 

"Now—yeah, there it goes," Heather said with a sigh.  The crack near the edge was visibly expanding, and grew through the entire bubble over the next minute or so.  As the two biggest pieces slumped onto the bench, surrounded by a pile of smaller shards, Fishlegs sighed.

Hiccup looked at it, pondering.  "I'll think on it, but I think I have an idea what's making it crack," he said, his half-curled hand wrapped around his chin.

"What?" Heather asked testily.

"Uneven cooling.  The inside's still warm—even in a layer only a barleycorn thick—and the outside is cooling faster, especially in the colder air in here."

Heather and Fishlegs shared an expression of irritation, and then both of them sighed and slumped together dramatically.

"What's wrong?" Hiccup asked.

"We've been fighting with this problem for a month and more, and you walk in here and solve it," Fishlegs said a bit sourly.

"Well, we don't know if I'm right or not," he said, holding up his hands.  "It's just a guess."

"Well, what about those?" Heather said, pointing to the droplets.  "Those haven't exploded yet." 

"The water would have cooled it pretty much instantly.  Looks like that's an option for glass that won't explode.  I just wonder if there's any way to shape them now?  Like carving them like they were stone or something?"

"Try it?" Heather said with a shrug.  "Worst case, we have more scrap glass."

Fishlegs nodded, and Hiccup went to get another knife from the smithy, this one for carving. 

Coming back in, he picked up one of the middle-sized teardrops and held it up to the lamp light—and then posed it in front of Astrid.  "What do you say, milady?  Would you like a commemoration of me succeeding at your challenge?"

She snorted and grinned.  "Sure!"

Wulfhild smirked and rolled her eyes, and then picked up another one of the teardrops.  "Could I request this one as a necklace?  If you're carving them into jewels and all that."

Heather clapped her hands with glee.  "Ooh.  I like that.  Can I get one as well?"

Hiccup bowed dramatically and said, "Certainly!"

Fishlegs turned and started to rummage on the desk.  "One moment…"  He came up with a corkboard and a piece of parchment.  Pinning the parchment down, he grabbed a charcoal writing stick, and said, "Okay!  Just tell me your observations as you go."

"Sounds good," Hiccup said, and sat down at the desk.  Bracing his elbows on the desk, he held the teardrop up to his eye.  "Not much here to work with," he observed, poking at the bulbous end.  "But I suppose they could be carved into toggles for tunics or something.  Plus, obviously, jewelry."  He placed it down on the desktop and started to try to scratch the surface.  "End is really tough; carving this will be a pain."  He scratched at it and couldn't make a mark.  "Okay, I'll get back to that later.  For the rest, if I'm carving this, I guess I should get rid of this tail—"

POP!

"—WHOA!"  He jumped back and felt grains of glass pepper his face as, the instant he snapped off the tail, the teardrop literally exploded.

He looked up at the others.  "Okay, that was unexpected."

There were astonished nods.

"Maybe that one was defective?"

"Try another one?" Wulfhild suggested.

Heather mutely handed him one, and he set it down on the desktop again, near the powdered remains of its fellow.  Once again, the knife didn't even leave a scratch on the bulbous end, no matter how hard he leaned into it.  Even pressing with his whole body weight behind it didn't make a dent in the glass.

Then he slipped, and in trying to keep himself from stabbing himself with his own carving knife, he jumped back—and they all saw the teardrop roll… enough that the very end of the tail hit the desk—

POP!

The teardrop exploded, sending fine grains of glass flying everywhere and leaving a mound of larger and coarser granules lying on the desk. 

Fishlegs picked up one of the teardrops.  "One moment."  He picked up a piece of parchment, put the teardrop on it, and very, very carefully traced the outline of it.  As he did so, Hiccup put back on the leather gloves.  Then Fishlegs mutely handed the teardrop off to him.  Hiccup took a firm grip on the bulb in his right hand before reaching up and flicking the tail with his left index finger.

POP!

He opened his right hand, to reveal a handful of glass powder within.

"But the end is so tough!" he said in disbelief.  "My knife couldn't even scratch it!"  He picked up another one and, taking a firm grip on it, started to tap it into the desktop with increasing force.  Then he started to whack it into the wood, which left dents in the wood and an unharmed piece of glass.

Even a hammer, brought over from the smithy, wasn't enough to crack or chip the bulb-end of the the teardrop of glass. 

But break the tail just a little bit…

POP! 

A pile of glass powder in the blink of an eye.

After the sixth and last one reduced itself to dust, Hiccup looked up at Heather and said mournfully, "Looks like quenching is _not_ going to be your cooling method of choice."

She nodded.  Astrid came over and ran her fingers through the pile of glass grains before turning to Hiccup.  "Annnnnd… we're back to nothing."

"What?  Hey!" he protested.

"Hiccup, they _exploded._ "

"But I had it…" he moaned, and started to thump his head into the desk, away from the glass grains. 

Heather laughed a bit, while Wulfhild consolingly patted him on the back of the head. 

"Don't worry, Hiccup," Fishlegs said.  "I'm sure you'll get it."

"Thanks, 'Legs," he said.

"It's only been a year and a couple dozen creations so far, after all," Fishlegs said, smirking. 

Hiccup gave him a sour look that edged into amusement after a moment. 

Astrid grinned and gave him a kiss on the top of his head, and he laughed.  "Yeah, it did explode.  Fine.  I'll get there eventually.  It's just… if not for calibration issues, I would have gotten there already," he said, holding Astrid's hand in his own. 

"Well, let's see what we can do with this," Fishlegs said.  "If quenching doesn't work, is there another way to cool metal?"

Hiccup nodded.  "Annealing.  We have a small annealing furnace out back—which might perfect for what you need.  It'll let it cool slowly and evenly."

Heather grinned.  "All right!  Let's give it a try!"

###

As Hiccup and Fishlegs were out in the back of the smithy, carefully bringing the annealing furnace up to temperature, Wulfhild pulled Heather aside, into the main part of the smithy.

"Yes?" Heather asked.

Wulfhild looked her over, and hid a frown.  Her friend was looking better than she had the other day, but it had been only two days since the avalanche, and three days since she'd been burned, and her skin still looked reddish and was peeling in spots. 

"I've… I've been wanting to talk with you.  Since the whole thing with Burl."

Heather winced.  And then winced again as her motion tugged at the stiff skin on her face.  "Yeah?" she asked softly.  "What about?"

"I was thinking about what Woodnut said… and…"

For a brief moment, Wulfhild gave serious consideration to telling Heather about everything, just to unburden herself to her friend.  Especially when the irony struck her in that moment that, once again _,_ the two of them were mirrored in their situations.  Before, they had been faux-freedwoman and captive princess, both seen to be free, while the truth was otherwise.  Now, they were again oddly mirrored, Heather assumed to be fornicating out of wedlock while Wulfhild knew that wasn't the truth, and herself assumed to be regularly bedding Hiccup in formal concubinage… which was again not the truth. 

But the moment passed, and she reached out to her friend.  "…and I wanted to say that I support you.  I know that their accusations are fueled by base envy… and that there's no truth to them."

Heather slumped.  "Thanks… but… I wish that they _were_ true."  She looked at Wulfhild plaintively.  "Sure, it might not be ideal… but you have Hiccup.  Meanwhile… well…" she slumped further, practically bowing her head, "all I have for memories of sex and the like is what Alvin taught me.  And I'd dearly, dearly love to be able to start putting those nightmares behind me and changing those memories out for time with Fishlegs."

Wulfhild blinked… and considered telling her friend what Fishlegs had asked her earlier in the past month—about betrothal gifts.  From her perspective, it was about time.  But that had been before the avalanche and the saddle…

"Have you told him that?" Wulfhild asked.  Given Fishlegs' attitudes, that might be what pushed him over into a betrothal… which was legally binding to the point that nobody really considered a betrothed couple to be fornicating out of wedlock. 

"I offered!" Heather said, and then she muttered dejectedly, "…and he turned me down.  And then we almost caught Burl with the dragon piss, and we never finished that talk…"

_Oh._   Wulfhild sighed.  Great.  That explained a lot of the awkwardness from the last few days.  She reached out and patted Heather on the shoulder.  "Then go finish it," she said, pushing herself to a give a smile.  Now if she could just finagle a minute or two alone with Fishlegs before they finished up today…

Heather gave her an odd look.  "Just… go talk to him?"

"Well, he's never going to bring it up on his own, is he?" _Or at least… he probably won't if I don't meddle.  But you two need to stop making each other miserable.  Again._

Heather shook her head.  "No, he won't.  But… but I'm surprised that you're giving that advice…" she grimaced, "you being a Christian and all."

Wulfhild bit her lip.

"I mean… you're basically telling me to go talk to the guy courting me to see if he's willing to take me to bed… and… well…"  Heather shrugged painfully. 

"Well, um…"  She glanced around.  "Look.  Heather.  The Church might have very strict things on the topic of fornicating out of wedlock.  But… well…"  She took a leap.  "He's already asked me about possible ideas for betrothal gifts for you."

Heather stared at her, her jaw hanging open, and then she asked huskily, "He has?"

Wulfhild nodded.  "And… and you'd say yes, right?"

Heather looked like she was misting up, and nodded. 

"Then it's fine.  It's like…"  She shrugged.  "I didn't say anything about Hiccup and Astrid when they were sleeping together during their courtship.  I was actually happy for them."  She gave Heather a sardonic quirk of the eyebrow.  "And the only holdup was that Hiccup _had_ to be dramatic."

Heather chuckled.  "True…"

"So, yes, I won't be a hypocrite about you two… being together."  She didn't bring up her own hypocrisy as the light suddenly dawned.  Her own concubinage to Hiccup was in much the same legal standing… and yet she'd let the Father walk her right into the situation she found herself in. 

Something must have shown on her face, because Heather was giving her an odd look.  Before she could say anything, though, Astrid came in, holding a slim book under her arm—and saw them.  "Oh, sorry.  Am… am I interrupting anything?"

Heather shook her head.  "No."

Wulfhild glanced at Astrid, and braced herself with a deep breath before saying, "Actually… Astrid, I have a question."

Astrid twitched for a moment, and then nodded.  "What about?  Something for Heather?"

Wulfhild nodded.  "It's… well, I was thinking about Twiglet and Burl and Woodnut.  And what Woodnut and Burl said.  So… I was just…"  She grimaced.

Heather shrugged and interjected, "Basically, I need to corner Fishlegs and take him to bed already, since I'm already guilty of that in the eyes of the village, so I might as well get to enjoy myself."

Wulfhild shook her head.  That _hadn't_ been her intention in pushing her friend. 

At the same time, Astrid coughed and then asked delicately, "Oh.  You haven't?"

Heather shook her head—and then winced, holding her hand to the lump on her head.  "No.  And I tried a week ago.  But you'd have thought I scalded him with the way he reacted."

Astrid groaned and put the book down on one of the workbenches in order to rub her temples with both hands.  "So what's the question?"

"Would them actually bedding each other make things better or worse, in the eyes of ma—in the eyes of the village?" Wulfhild asked. 

Astrid considered.  "Well, for one, they wouldn't be able to answer truthfully to that question any longer.  Then again, everyone seems to just be assuming, rather than asking these days…" she said, that last with a scowl.  "I'm so _angry_ with the lot of them for how they're treating you."  She snorted.  "For Tyr's sake, Heather, here—if you go ahead and bed him and they start hassling you over it, come and get me and Hiccup.  Because we broke that law too."  She smirked.  "As frequently as we could, starting well before he _finally_ proposed." 

"So… would it make it worse?" Heather asked.

Astrid shrugged.  "I have no idea.  But I'm more than willing to call them out on their hypocrisy if they start again."  She went to pick back up her book, and then a sly smile crossed her face.  "Hey.  Speaking of breaking the rules… here.  And…" she glanced at Wulfhild, "Wulf… you too."

"What?" Wulfhild asked.

"Technically, I'm not supposed to show this to unmarried women," Astrid said with a conspiratorial whisper, "But… well…"  She flipped open the book, looking for a specific page, and then presented it to them.

Wulfhild glanced and felt a flush start to rise in her cheeks at the writing and illustrations.  "Oh my…"

"Yeah.  Freyja's knowledge for the married woman," Astrid said with a grin.  "What to do, how to do it…"  She glanced at the third member of their group, and cocked her head.  "What?"

Heather was looking over the page with an odd, bemused look, and then glanced up.  "May I?" she asked, holding out her hands. 

Astrid, looking confused, handed it over.  "What?"

"Is this… a holy book?" Heather asked delicately, still reading, a smile growing on her face.

Astrid shook her head.  "No.  I was given it after the feasting week with a comment that I might have something to learn from it—even though I'd already been sleeping with Hiccup for months.  It's apparently a honeymonth tradition to loan it to newlywed brides."

Heather quirked an eyebrow.  "Well, I can tell you this much…" she said, tapping one of the illustrations and the accompanying text.  "When it's my turn to hold it, I hope I'm allowed to make additions."  She smirked. 

Astrid blinked, and Wulfhild suddenly remembered what Heather had shouted at Cami the other day.  "What sort of… ' _additions'_?" Astrid asked.

Heather started to explain, and Wulfhild listened, half in awe and half in growing respect for Heather's fortitude.  Because she knew where these suggestions came from, suggestions that were making Wulfhild's pulse start to thrum and Astrid's eyes grow wide in intrigue and lust.  The fact that Heather was looking to turn her old master's teachings into something for the benefit of others, to take her pain and transmute it into something that brought joy to the marriage bed…

Wulfhild wanted to weep for her friend, and scream at the Hooligans who were calling her traitor. 

The moment was interrupted when Hiccup came into the forge.  Astrid quickly took back the book as her husband went over to the tool rack and grabbed a hammer and one of the iron sheets they'd made the other day, and left, not even really noticing them where they were standing in the back of the forge.

But Astrid was giving him a look that made Wulfhild think of someone eyeing a filled waterskin after a long footrace.  Once the door closed behind him, Astrid turned to Heather and said, "I'll give those a try and tell you how it worked out, okay?"

Heather laughed honestly and earnestly.  "Sounds good to me."

"And for you…"  Astrid sighed.  "Fishlegs has always been about doing the proper thing, following the law, reading the books…"  She sighed again.  "I think that he's trying to follow the law as best he can."

Nodding, Heather said, "Yeah… that fits.  But he… he wants me!  I can tell that he wants to!"  She slumped.  "I just… I wish…"

Wulfhild didn't find out what she wished, though, as the door opened, and Gobber and Murchadh came in.  With looks of mutual understanding between them, Wulfhild and her friends returned to the glass-shop for another round of glass-making experiments.  The annealing oven was up to temperature, and they were going to try to make several different things out of glass and stick them in the annealing oven to see what happened. 

###

Heather, smiling wryly, watched Fishlegs shut the door on the annealing furnace; it would cool slowly over the next day, and they would hopefully be able to wake up tomorrow morning and find intact blobs, bubbles and balls of glass inside it.  They waved goodbye to Hiccup, Astrid and Wulfhild, the intriguing book tucked under Astrid's arm. 

Heather found it honestly endearing that someone had written down sex and marriage advice for the Hooligan women to pass among themselves.  On the one hand, she deeply approved of their education being much less traumatic than her own.  On the other, it explained _a lot_ about the lack of creativity among the Hooligans in the bedchamber, if they were all consulting from the same slim book. 

After the three Haddocks and their dragons left, Mistletoe grumbling mightily about being roused from the pile of cuddling dragons, Heather turned to Fishlegs as he carefully quenched the furnace fire, the empty crucible already set aside to cool.  "It took the Romans a few centuries to figure it all out. I think we're doing pretty good for having gotten as far as we have in a few weeks, especially since we have other work," she said gently, knowing that he was feeling a bit frustrated.

He looked up with a grimace.  "Yeah, but it's still… annoying.  I figured it would be easy to do!"

"And why did you figure that?"

"Well, it was all written down in the books…" he said.

"And that was a valuable start, but they didn't write down everything, 'Legs."

"Yeah, noticed that," he said sourly, his arms folded.

"I think we'll need to import some experts," she said, "rather than try to rediscover it all ourselves."

"Well, Stoick was saying that he loves the idea of us, of Berk, becoming a place that makes glass as well as dragons and headaches for the neighbors."

She laughed and walked over to him.  "Come on, I think we've spent enough time in here today."  She took his hand and they walked out, their dragons following them. 

Meatlug and Windshear had become cool friends, but it had taken some effort to get the Razorwhip to trust the Gronckle, and they occasionally scuffled when Meatlug, being smaller, followed them into places that Windshear couldn't. 

"So, how do you think we should go about importing some experts?"

"Well, if I remember correctly, Johann, when he's name-dropping places that his stuff is from, mentioned that the big places for glass are Venice, Abbasid, and Alexandria.  I _think_ the first and last one are waaaaay down south, in that big sea, the Mediterranean?  So I guess the best way to do it is to tell Johann and the other traders that we're looking for glassmakers."

"And what if they don't want to come?"

Fishlegs shrugged.  "Maybe the old ones won't, but if we get just a few younger ones willing to work as teachers, we can build off of that… and we can tell the traders that we'll pay the traveling expenses plus a reward, for any glassmakers that they can convince to make the journey." 

"Makes sense."  She sighed as they walked.  "It'll just be a wait."

"Yeah.  Meanwhile, at least I have the Broodery to keep me occupied; we have the eggs laid from the autumn to keep warm and turned."

"When are those going to hatch?"

"Probably the spring, like they did this past year; we collected all of the eggs from the old Nest and brought them here, but not all of them hatched; when I," he leaned in and whispered, "when I cracked one open with Hiccup to see what had happened, it looked like the baby dragon died in the egg early on, which is why we've been working so hard to keep them warm.  I think that, between the Green Death trampling them and the mountain's insides getting exposed to the cold, the majority of the eggs died."

She grimaced and he nodded.

"Yeah, sad thought.  But we have nineteen thousand, five hundred and ninety eggs down there now, so hopefully more of them will turn out to be viable this year."

Her eyes widened at the number; she'd known that there were a lot, but so many…  " _Nineteen thousand, five hundred and ninety?_ " She stared at him, dumbfounded, unsure if her shock was at either at the number, or the precision. 

"Yep.  I've been tracking them all pretty closely.  We actually just finished re-counting yesterday, just to confirm."

She grinned at him.  "You're nuts."

"Thank you!  I'm just the number-oriented Viking for the job, according to Hiccup."

Still grinning, she gave him a kiss.  "Yep.  You really are."  The kiss deepened, and she broke it after a moment.  "So… spring, eh?  We'll have another… gods… _twenty thousand_ dragons next year?"

"That's my hope.  But it's really crowded down there.  We've got the eggs on wooden racks that let us turn them, and they cover all of the walls down there," Fishlegs said.

"And they're okay with that?  I thought the whole thing with the Green Death was that it was holding their eggs and young hostage."

"Well, we showed them around the Broodery, and they seem to approve, as they helped cart the eggs down there and place them."

Heather grinned.  "That's amazing."  She leaned in.  "So… what now?"

"Well, we're trying to turn the eggs as often as we can, and based on last year, the hatching should be…"  He trailed off as he saw her smile.  "What?"

"I meant more in an immediate sense, Fish," she said fondly.  "What's your plan for the rest of today?"

"Umm…"

She leaned up against him.  "Can we spend it together?"

He nodded, and then paused.  "But didn't we just do that?"

"That was in the glass hut, with three other people.  Does not count."

"I… uh…"

"Fishlegs, if you're uncomfortable being alone with me, I'll understand."  And, gods, did it hurt to say that.  But she didn't want to push him into something that would hurt him.  "But… we've already spent time alone together—" And their last time they'd done that, he'd rejected her proposition.  The time they'd been buried in the avalanche didn't count.  And while they'd been together constantly over the last few days, there had been other people around.  She swallowed.  "I… I want to talk to you.  About us.  About what you said when… when we almost caught Burl in my room."

He looked pained.  "Do, do we…"  He looked away and then back.  "Okay," he said softly.

"My house?  My parents are out with Mhairi, helping with the Yule preparations."

He swallowed hard, but nodded.

They walked in silence until they reached the small house she and her parents were living in; Windshear's scales were helping pay for a significant portion of the house's rent from the Hofferson clan, who owned it. They went inside, trailed by their dragons.  Grabbing some sticks and tinder from the nearby stack, she piled them as kindling in the hearth.  A snort of fire from Windshear ignited it, and Heather quickly built it up with larger logs.

As the dragons curled up around the heat source on the stone slabs that were becoming standard furniture in Berk households, she turned and looked at Fishlegs, who just blushed.

She braced herself for the painful conversation they were about to have.  But, even if it hurt, it couldn't hurt as much as what had happened to her in Vedrarfjord… and even if it did, he was worth it. 

She guided him over to a chair, and gently made him sit before stepping back and sitting on the floor, leaning up against the snoozing dragons, her legs tucked under her.

"So…" she began, and then swallowed, a sudden lump in her throat.  "So.  We're courting.  And that gives us certain rights and status here," she said, thinking of the silver in her coffer from Woodnut. 

He nodded.  "But that all got messed up because of Stoick's cover story," he said softly.  "I wish I hadn't agreed to it.  Because now people are trying to hurt you because of it."  He slumped.  "And I don't want to give them another reason."

Ah ha. "Fishlegs… they're being jealous.  If it wasn't that, it would be something else."  She smirked wryly.  "You don't seem to understand that _they want you too."_

He flushed and mumbled something. 

"What was that?"

"I don't understand why…" he said, looking away from her. 

"Why what?  Why you're desirable?" she asked.

He gave a single sharp nod, looking away from her.  "Yeah."

"Well, you're smart, skilled, come from a powerful clan…" she listed off.  "That's why _they_ want you."  She pulled herself to her feet.  "But I don't care about those parts.  I just want _you."_

He flushed again.  "Heather, what are you doing?" he asked in a mumble, turning to look at her.

"I'm trying to talk with my boyfriend," she said tartly.  "Because I love the big lout, even if I feel like I could dance naked in front of him and he'd blush and look away."

He blushed and looked away.

Her hand touched his, and she said quietly, "Look, Fishlegs.  I know I'm being blunt.  I was trained to be a spy for two years.  I know how to hit people, I know where to stab to kill them, I know how to listen without looking like I am, how to sneak, how to hide without being spotted, how to pick locks and pockets, how to seduce a man and give him pleasure so that I can worm my way into his confidence and get information."  She sighed and patted his arm as he stood there, still and blushing.  "I don't have to _do_ that anymore.  But it's still there."

He mumbled something and made a vague motion at her. 

She shook her head. "No, I'm still a virgin, but only because I wasn't supposed to be 'despoiled' before being _given_ to someone, but I was taught by Alvin's pleasure thrall everything I needed to know."  She scowled.  "With demonstrations on him."

Fishlegs, showing his skill at the impossible, blushed harder and mumbled something that might have been _I didn't need to know that_. 

She sighed.  "Fishlegs… let me tell you something.  Three months before I came here, I had to _force_ myself to blush when a young maiden should, because I was getting so jaded.  But, when I came here, got close to you… when it was _your_ honor and _our_ reputation on the line… it came back."

He sighed and looked at her dartingly.  "I… I just want you to be happy… and safe.  And I'm worried about your reputation, and your honor."

She smiled.  "That's sweet… but I can worry about my own reputation.  And I want you to be happy too."  She leaned forward a bit.  "Are you happy?"

He darted a glance at her, and nodded.  "I mean… I… not right now, but…"

"Yeah… I know that feeling."  She sighed.  "But being with you… I'm so happy."  She crossed her arms and leaned back.  "And I think we need to be honest with one another if we want each other to be happy."  She smiled wryly.  "And one thing I was not allowed to be when I was a spy was honest, so I know exactly how painful honesty can get." 

He grimaced.

"Yeah.  I wish I'd been honest with you before you caught me.  It would have hurt a lot less."  She glanced at his arms, where there were long scars left from her scratching him.  "So I'm being honest with you now.  Completely.  It's a hard thing for me to do, but you're worth it.  Fishlegs, you gave me my _life_ back.  Let me give _you_ something… even if it's just my word that I love you and a promise not to hurt you again.  But we need… we need to work through this."

He flinched.

She sighed.  "I'll try not to do anything that makes you uncomfortable."

"Too late," he said, hunching his shoulders in a vain effort to look smaller.

Another sigh.  "Aren't we a pair?  A girl who had to relearn shame, and a boy with too much of it."

He laughed a bit at that, and the tension broke.

She patted his cheek.  "Why are you so uncomfortable, love?"

"I… I don't know."

She sighed.  "You can _look_ at me, Fishlegs.  I give you permission."

"It's not that.  I just… I mean…"  he groaned.

She moved away to give him space.  "Is that better?"

He hunched again.  "I… I don't know."

"Should I leave you to think?"

"No!  Stay.  Please…" he said, sounding panicked. 

"Then look at me.  Please."

"I… I…"  He held his head in his hands and looked down.  "Why is this so hard?"

"I don't know.  But… please.  Look at me.  Look at me and talk to me," she said.

With visible effort, he turned and looked at her.

She wondered what it was that he saw, really.  She knew that she was considered beautiful; it had been part of Alvin's plans for her. 

_Heather stood in the office, dressed in the sheer gray gown and collar, as Adalwin walked around her, examining her, a wooden rod in one hand that he tapped against his thigh as he walked.  She was trembling and trying to hide it.  Adalwin was discussing with Fagr, the thrall-woman who was her other trainer, like she wasn't even there._

_"Men are intimidated by tall women," Fagr said; she was a petite blond woman who came up to Heather's nose, with a braid down to her thighs, and cold eyes._

_"Aye, but mac Arailt supposedly has a weakness for slender girls.  That's a point in her favor," Adalwin said.  He reached up and ran his fingers through her hair, which he'd forced her to cultivate for the last two years.  "And he'll enjoy this as well."  He made a fist in her hair and yanked her head back.  "And look at those pretty green eyes.  Guileless and beautiful.  Oh, yes…"  He shrugged and released her, and she kept from gasping._

_"Her bust could be bigger," Fagr said flatly, and Heather didn't say anything, even as she kept staring straight ahead at the wall.  Fagr's chest was certainly more ample than her own—and she'd seen it during her training multiple times._

_"And if we were sending her to Mön and Echmarcach, I'd agree with you.  But Arailt likes a more girlish figure."_

Heather clawed her way out of the unbidden memory; three weeks later, there had been a ship sitting in the courtyard and a dire change of plans… which had resulted in her being here, now, talking with a man who loved her. 

But Fishlegs wasn't lusting after her body.  If anything, he was doing the opposite.  So she wondered what it was that he saw when he looked at her that he saw as worthy of being loved, especially after she'd spent just about four months spending every moment lying to him. 

She awkwardly reached over and patted his knee fondly.  "There.  Was that so hard?"

He shook his head.  "I… I don't know.  Dragons, I know.  Math, I know.  Scribing, I know.  Girls… especially girls who…" he reddened and started pushing his fingertips together in an anxious motion, "girls who say that they want to be with me… much less love me and want to… to…"  He swallowed and blurted out, "have sex with me… I don't know what to do."

"Fishlegs?"  He was looking away again, and she was resisting the urge to sigh.  Also, resisting the urge to just be jaded and cynical again, and to then strip and throw her clothes at his face.  That wouldn't help matters. 

"Yeah?"

"I see a few things in there.  First, this is new to you.  I get that.  I don't want to make you uncomfortable.  But I'm also not going to let you just run and hide in your comfort area, or avoid talking about this.  Not if we're going to make this work."

"Are… are you going to leave me?" he asked in a scared tone, hunching in on himself again.

"No… although I will admit to frustration right now."  _In a few different ways,_ a sardonic thought echoed at the back of her head.  "But I think we can get through this."

"I…"  he hung his head.  "I can't believe this either.  I mean… You're smart, and you listen to me, and you're interested in my writing and stuff, and you're my friend, and…" he waved generally at her body, "and you're beautiful, and it just feels like the gods made a mistake!"

She scowled at him, making him flinch.  "Okay, first off, _if_ there are gods, they _didn't_ make a mistake in pairing us up.  Okay?  You… you… _listen_ to what you just said!"

"What?"

"On that list, where did my body end up?"

"Uh…"

"At the _end,_ Fishlegs!  Everything else was you being interested in _me,_ not my body!  You're my _friend!_   Let me tell you something—when Alvin told me that he was shifting where he was sending me from Dubh Linn to Berk, I almost panicked.  I know Dubh Linn; I spent a year learning about it!  But Berk?  It was a Viking village filled with raiders as far as I knew, and I was afraid that I was going to be given to someone even more power-hungry and nasty than _Ímar mac Arailt,_ which would take some doing!  I was picturing someone who thought with his ax, acted like he thought Bragi would show up at any minute to compose his personal saga, and would use me as a bed toy!" 

She calmed herself down with an effort of will.  "Instead, I ended up with you."  She started to pace, waving her arms about with increasing agitation.  "You, who composed welcoming poetry for me.  Who would take time to just show me the book that you'd been working on!  Who would ask me how my day was, and made sure that I was comfortable and introduced around to everyone.  _You,_ who, even when you _caught_ me in the act of betraying you, literally let me _rip open your arms with my bare hands_ rather than hurt me!"  He flushed and covered the healing scars on his arms self-consciously. "So, no, the gods _didn't_ make a mistake, and I don't want to hear you selling yourself short like that again!"

He was staring at her, his eyes circles. 

"Uh…" she said, suddenly sheepish, her near-fury from a moment ago dissipating.

He blinked, and then smiled slightly.  "You've been hanging out with Astrid too much."

She grinned at him.  "I'm going to take that as a compliment."

He looked down and smiled.  "It was intended as one.  She's scary, and awesome, and…"  he looked up up at her, his eyes filled with concern, "after how you were when Burl burned you… it's a nice change."

She flushed.  "I…"  She looked away and rubbed at her face.  "I… I guess it's easier to stand up for you… than it is to stand up for myself."

He reached out and took her hands.  "Try.  Please."

She smiled, and then pulled herself against his hands and deliberately landed in his lap.  "I don't want to stand up at the moment though."

He blinked, and then smiled.  "I don't mind being your support."

"But do you want to be… with me?"

He blinked and looked away. 

"Fishlegs?"

"Heather… think of what might happen."

She reached up and cupped his cheek with one hand.  "I love you.  I want to put the nightmares from all of this, from all of the… from the last two and a half years behind me!  I want to be _with_ you.  I… you're my friend and we're courting to be wed.  There is _no_ doubt in my mind that you're the one that I want to be with!  And if that means arguing with you round and round for hours and hours until, agh, until you're not feeling shy and out of your element anymore, then, fine, I will _do_ that!"

He grinned hesitantly at her as she finished, and she smiled at him.  "Are we good?" she asked softly.

He hugged her.  "I just… I just don't ever want to hurt you."

She hugged him back.  "You're _not_ hurting me."  She smiled crookedly.  "I'm going to be completely honest here."  She wiggled in his lap.  "I _want_ this.  I want _you."_

"But I could hurt you!  If… if we, we…"  He flushed, but forced the words out with visible effort, "If we slept together, then either we give Twiglet and the rest arrows to sling at you if we tell the truth, or we'd have to lie!"

She scowled.  "And why should I care what Twiglet and the rest think of us?"

"We'd be breaking the law!" he said emphatically.  "They could take us before a court for violating it!"

"And do _what!?_   If they did that, I'd counter with all of the shit they've already been doing!  For Tyr's sake, we have been telling them the truth the whole time, and they didn't believe us!  They didn't believe Stoick!"  She rose out of his lap.  "I don't _care_ what they think we've done!  I want to be with you!  And since they already believe that we _have_ been together and won't believe otherwise, why _not!?"_  

He looked at her, clearly thinking. 

She crossed her arms.  "Is it the law itself that's a problem?  Because, Fish… we can't get married until the mead is brewed… _next summer._   And I really, _really_ don't want to wait that long."  She sighed and sagged.  "But… but I will if I have to.  You're worth it."

He rubbed at his face with his hands.  "Yes… no… maybe?" 

"Well, what is it?" she asked.  "Because, well, if it comes down to it, Astrid already said that if anybody wants to take us to court over it has to go through her, because she and Hiccup broke that same law.  A _lot._   And they all said _nothing."_

"Because he's the Hero!" Fishlegs said intently.  "But… no… it's not the law.  I mean, yeah, it is a bit… but if we're found guilty, I'd have to pay a fine."  He snorted.  "And I can afford it."

She grinned.  "Now _that's_ the spirit!"

"But… but I couldn't bear it if they used it to attack you," he said earnestly.  "And _that_ I do care about!"

She pursed her lips and then scowled.  "Fishlegs.  They've already convinced themselves that we've slept together."

"But your honor—!"

"Oh, damn the honor!" she bellowed.  "I want my boyfriend!"  He shrank back, and suddenly she felt a chill in her gut like the winter snows outside.  "You… you do… you do want me… don't you?" she asked in a small voice.

He continued to look away, and his earlier rejection of her bubbled up, but then… he nodded. 

"I do… I do so much.  I… I… dream about you.  Dreams that make me _angry_ at Nótt for sending them to me for what… what you _do_ in them, when I don't even know if you wanted—"

She reached over, grasped his shoulder, and gently turned him to face her.  "I have those dreams too.  And I don't seem them as taunts.  I see them as promises."

He blinked.  "You do?"

She nodded.  "I want you.  I've said it, and I mean it.  Not just as a friend, but as a lover.  As my partner.  Like what Hiccup and Astrid have, where they're so together that it almost _hurts_ to see them."

"You… you really mean that?"

"Yeah, I do," she said softly.  "The only reason I'm not dragging you off to my bedroom right now is because we _need_ to talk."

He stared at her… and then started to laugh helplessly. 

"What's so funny?" she asked, confused.

"I… I don't know what to do!" he confessed.  "I… I didn't know that you wanted…"

Heather blinked, and there was a moment of understanding.

"You thought that you'd have to talk me into bed… because I wouldn't be interested?"

He nodded guiltily.  "And I didn't quite believe it… but… I just… I don't want to hurt you.  Ever.  And—"

She rolled her eyes.  "Fishlegs."

"Yes?" he looked at her guiltily.  "I…"

"Where did you hear such an absurd thing?" she asked.  "I mean… you've _seen_ Hiccup and Astrid, haven't you?  For Freyja's sake, whatever made you think that _I_ wasn't interested?"

Fishlegs blinked.  "I… I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Seriously, where did you get the idea that I might not be interested?"

He slumped, clearly thinking.  His brow grew steadily more furrowed, until he said, sounding disgusted, "Dogsbreath and Snotlout."  He bit his lower lip and had an adorable pout.  "I overheard Dogsbreath and a couple of the other men in the bathhouse giving Snotlout advice on chasing Astrid during Wash Day a few years back.  And then they looked at me… and gave me advice.  That… that girls aren't interested, but… but if you keep up the chase, they'll say yes.  And… that I'd need to do that because of… how ugly I am.  And… and I didn't know any better."

Heather made a disgusted face. 

Fishlegs tucked in on himself a little bit.  "Please don't hate me."

"I don't.  But, argh, I feel sorry for their wives."  She reached over and cupped his cheek.  "But let me assure you that they're dead wrong.  Women can be quite interested in men.  Well, most women.  Some are interested in other women."

To her surprise, Fishlegs nodded.  "That part I know."

She blinked in surprise. 

"Well, there's Nanna and Sorcha, and a few other couples," he said, taking his usual informative tone.  "Although they typically take male concubines in order to have children."  He shrugged.  "The clans don't always approve, though."

"Thaaaat… I was not expecting to hear," she said, filing the tidbit away for later followup.  "But I'm glad to hear it.  But, um… my point was that, yes, I'm interested in you.  Although I can see why Dogsbreath thinks that."

"Well, yeah," Fishlegs shrugged painfully.  "He keeps getting turned down."

"Exactly.  So his pride demands that it not be him… but us," she said.  Then she cocked her head and looked at Fishlegs.  "But… but if you believed that, why didn't you chase _me?"_

He looked down.  "Because I didn't ever want to be like that.  I saw how Astrid and Ruffnut reacted to being chased… and I didn't want to be like that."  He looked up.  "I… I figured that I would end up getting an arranged marriage.  And then I, I met you… and I tried to follow the rules as best I could, so that you wouldn't feel like I was chasing you."

Heather was surprised that her heart wasn't a literal puddle on the floor, after the way it had just melted. 

"You… you're following the letter of the laws… so that I wouldn't feel pressured?"

He nodded.

She pulled herself into his lap again and gave him a long and deep kiss.  "I'm not pressured.  In fact… I'm actively frustrated that we're taking so long on this.  I've been willing to sleep with you since the day you gave me this," she said, touching the peridot pendant hanging from her neck.  She smiled crookedly.  "When you said that you had a surprise for me and to close my eyes… I thought that I would open them to find you without anything on."

He looked appalled.  "Why would I do that?!"

"Because I didn't know that you were better than that, and I'm sorry," she said, giving him a weak smile.  "But… if you'd done that, I thought to myself that I'd take you straight to bed."

He blinked. 

She cupped his face with one hand.  "I… I wish that we'd had this talk before.  Because I…"  She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. 

She felt his cheeks flush next to her own, and then pulled back.

He was staring at her, his eyes round. 

She nodded cheerfully at him.  "Yes, I want to do that.  That and _more._   I'm getting really, _really_ frustrated on it, actually.  Remember, I got _training_ on this, that I've never gotten to use."  She grinned at him, feeling her heart flutter.  "Admittedly, I didn't anticipate having to seduce the man _quite_ like this, but, hey, I think we're making progress."

"Uh… are we?"

"Given that I just whispered an act in your ear that I doubt that you even _imagined_ before a few minutes ago and you haven't come to a stammering halt, I'd say… yes."  She shook her head.  Of all of the men on the planet, she had to fall for a sweet-minded, kind, overly honorable Viking boy.  If they existed, the gods definitely had a sense of humor.  And, if not for that often-damned training, she probably would have just lost what was left of her self control and started pulling his clothes off already, so there was at least that.  And the whisper in the ear to create a false sense of intimacy when they were _already_ alone definitely worked as she had been told. 

"So… now I have another question for you."

"Yeah?" he asked a little numbly. 

"Do you want me to leave you to think this over, have me stay and help you think it through, or have us go to my bedroom and I can demonstrate?"

His eyes widened.

"Uhh…"

"Because, being honest, I'm getting to the point where I'm actively resisting the urge to just take you to bed.  But whatever you decide, I'll be fine with.  I want you to be _happy._   And I want this to be right for us."

He just sat there for a moment, and she could practically hear the wheels in his brain spinning.  She just hoped that they weren't spinning uselessly. 

After a minute or so, he seemed to come to some kind of decision, blinking to himself, a moment of clarity that she could practically _feel,_ and nodded at her.  "Can I kiss you?"

She laced her fingers in his hair and pulled him into a bruising kiss.  Breaking it after a moment, she said, jokingly, "You seem capable.  But you don't have to ask me for permission to kiss me, Fishlegs, unless I tell you otherwise."

He nodded, bent, picked her up, and then started walking towards her bedroom. 

She cheered. 

He grinned at her, still blushing, and said, "Apparently I've been a bad boyfriend—or at least I still have a lot to learn about being a good one.  Can you teach me to be a better one?"

With a deliberately level tone, she breathed, "Oh, I think we can manage that." 

"Good.  I love to learn," he said, his cheeks on fire next to her, but he kept moving forward resolutely.  He pushed the door open with his foot and she kicked it closed after them. 


	41. ...Not Places

**Chapter 41:** **…Not Places**

_Having succeeded to the imperial throne on December 10, AD 1041 after the death of his biological uncle and predecessor, Michael IV, Michael V Kalaphates (the Caulker, after the original occupation of Stephen, his biological father) was determined to rule on his own.  Immediately, he began to reverse his uncle's decisions, recalling courtiers, nobles and soldiers that Michael IV had banished, and banishing, framing, or otherwise removing Michael IV's own appointments.  This immediately brought him into conflict with John the Orphanotrophos, senior court eunuch, his biological uncle, the effective prime minister of the Byzantine Empire, and the man directly responsible for his family's elevation from Paphlagonian peasantry to the imperial throne.  Michael V promptly banished John to the monastery of Monobatae, and had the majority of the male members of his family castrated as well, to keep them from being threats to his rule…_

_…mostly due to happenstance in timing, Michael V is given perhaps undue credit as being the founder of the Byzantine Empire's corps of dragon riders.  As Sigurd Trondsson had arrived a short period before Michael IV's death, and the program was formally begun under Michael V, with Michael V being recorded as the first dragon-riding Byzantine Emperor, it can be stated with some certainty that Michael V benefited from Sigurd's timing more than from significant insight._

_—The Byzantine Emperors, Athens University Press, 1812_

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

**_December, AD 1041_ **

Hiccup looked around the mead hall with a grin.  With Yule almost upon them, the preparations were in full swing.  He could smell the hams roasting and smoking in the kitchen.  Nearby, the young Timberjack Whittle and her rider, Knutnut clan Thorston, were helping ready the massive Yule log, debranching it together as others took the limbs to stack in a pile; the log would be burned as a slow fire over the course of Yule.  Meanwhile, the Yule goat, assembled by the village artisans, was standing by his father's throne; Hiccup would later get to place it in someone else's house without them noticing or getting caught, and it would end up being passed around most of the village by the end of Yule.  Whoever had the straw goat at the end of Yule got to chuck it on the bonfire, but also had some responsibilities to Gothi for the rest of the season, so there was something of a game not to get stuck with it. 

Meanwhile, the hall was being decorated.  The chandlers had been busy making candles for a month, and these now occupied spots on the walls and pillars.  Elsewhere in the room, the children were making evergreen wreaths, supervised by the adults, and their festive output was being hung as soon as they were finished.  Finally, strands of mistletoe had been stretched out between the wall tapestries.  The entire vast room smelled like evergreens, roast meat and clean woodsmoke, and echoed with cheerful singing and the sound of happy conversation. 

Astrid came up and pulled him over to where there was a plate ready for him; she and Wulfhild had gone and grabbed food when he'd been waylaid by Magnhild, who wanted to show him that his new powered spit was working, and working _well._   She was planning on roasting the Yule boar on it, and given that it weighed over twelve stone, she was hoping that his creation would be able to turn it.  He was reasonably sure that it would, if slowly, and showed her how to set the gears for the maximum amount of strength and slowest rotation.

Dinner was unexceptional tonight, although Hiccup didn't mind.  It consisted mostly of bread, butter, and stewed greens, and that was his own fault, in a way.  It was due to a combination of Magnhild saving the good stuff for Yule, and the installation of the windmill earlier in the day interfering with the kitchen operations.  What had stood out was a slice from that first bit of spit-roasted mutton—and it was delicious. 

He was talking with Astrid and Wulfhild about the exploding glass droplets when Cami flopped into the seat next to Astrid, her plate clattering on the tabletop.  "Hiiiiiiiiii," she drawled tiredly. 

Hiccup rolled his eyes at Cami's dramatic entrance.  "How's it going, Cami?  All settled in?"

She nodded.  "All me tribesmates got beds, clothes, and food.  So thank you for that."  She and about a third of the Bogs had been lent the guest hut next to the chief's hut, and the others were scattered around the village in various lodgings.  At least  there were beds to spare, due to Hiccup's in-laws taking a tithe and more of the village off with them to Vedrarfjord.  She looked down at her plate morosely, and asked, "How's Heather doin'?"

Hiccup gave her a sidelong look.  "She's all right; we saw her a little while ago at the glass hut, and she seems to be healing up all right."

Cami nodded.  "Good.  I was hopin' to see her."

"Well, she's not here at the moment," Astrid said.  "What do you want to see her for?"

"Apologies.  And an offer to help her hunt down the bastard who hurt her," Cami said with a scowl.  She shared a look with Wulfhild, who gave her a small nod and a smile in reply.  Cami responded in kind, and then abruptly said, "So!  Her and Fishlegs?  Are they good for each other?"

All three of them nodded in unison. 

"She's so broken after what Alvin did to her," Wulfhild said, "and he's her rock."

"And she's helping him grow, too," Astrid said approvingly.  "He's gotten so much more confident in himself since they started courting."

Cami smiled.  "Good.  I always liked Fish, but he wasn't my type."

Astrid snorted.  "Yeah, I thought you'd be interested in Tuff, maybe."

Cami considered that for a moment, but before she could say anything, she was looking past Hiccup and at something along the wall.  "Uh… Astrid?  Who is that?"

"Who is who?" Astrid asked, as Hiccup turned to look.

"The guy with the Bog.  The one with the red-gold hair."

Hiccup saw the pair and blinked in surprise.  The Bog girl was easy to pick out—an unfamiliar woman about their age, gorgeous, with a pair of artful braids framing a loose cloud of curly red hair.  And with her was…

_"Dogsbreath!?"_ he and Astrid breathed in unison as the Bog and the Jorgenson stood together, holding hands.

Hiccup slumped back into his chair, stunned.  "Did Dog just find someone?"

"He'll drive her off sooner or later," Astrid said sagely.  _"Especially_ a Bog girl.  They don't take his kind of crap."  She glanced at Cami.  "Who is she, by the way?"

"Inga Roswynnsdoittor," Cami said, still staring, and then Hiccup saw her expression turn more shocked.  "Wait.  _Dogsbreath?_ "

They all nodded in unison. 

"Dogsbreath _Rolfsson_ clan Jorgenson?" Cami squeaked. 

Hiccup leaned in, curious.  "What?  What is it?"

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…" Cami was panting, looking like she couldn't decide between running for safety or sitting back and watching.

"Camilla… what is it?" Astrid asked, sounding worried.

She turned to the three of them, her eyes wide and filled with terrified mirth.  "She promised she wouldn't start anythin' when I said we were headin' for Berk…"

Hiccup glanced at the pair of them.  "Looks like she didn't _start_ anything."

"It's Dogsbreath.  She didn't have to," Wulfhild said tartly.  "He even made a pass at _me_ when I first got here."

Hiccup and Astrid gave Wulfhild a shared look of surprise.  "You never said anything!" Astrid said.

"That's because Eindride complained to Stoick, who took Dogsbreath aside and threatened to feed him his own body parts, starting with his most treasured ones," Wulfhild said sharply.

Everyone else snorted and burst out giggling at that. 

Astrid turned to Cami.  "So, who is Inga, and why is the fact that she's tolerating Dogsbreath's pawing at her—" And she was, Hiccup could see; Dogsbreath kept trying to slip his hands under her tunic and had this repeatedly stymied look on his face as it looked like he was hitting some obstruction; meanwhile, Inga looked amused and while she wasn't encouraging him, she wasn't stopping him, either. "—important?"

Cami's head sagged over her plate.  "Because her Ma was banished from here by Clodgall for crimes against the clan… while bein' courted by _Rolf Snideloutsson clan Jorgenson."_

Hiccup and Astrid shared a look of impending doom.  "Wait.  She's _that_ woman?"

Cami gave a helpless nod.  "She ended up with us Bogs, had a couple daughters… includin' Inga there."

Wulfhild blinked.  "What happened?"

"Short version," Astrid said, watching the couple as if they were a cloud of floating Zippleback gas edging towards a lit candle, "Inga's mother was a freedwoman being courted by Rolf… and, well, it ended poorly."

"How poorly is 'poorly'?" Wulfhild asked, sounding both horrified and fascinated.

"Legendarily so," Astrid said.

"With her being banished, Rolf saying that he dodged an arrow, and her screaming from the longboat that he hadn't seen the last of her—which was audible from the chief's hut, according to my dad," Hiccup said in a monotone, watching Inga and Dogsbreath with the same sort of trepidation.  Then he looked at Cami.  "Does she know who he is?"

"Probably," Cami said, still watching them. 

Wulfhild asked, "Does _he_ know who _she_ is?"

"Doubtful," Hiccup said sardonically.  "There are days when I wonder if he knows who _he_ is!"

Astrid snorted.  "Well, Cami, your call on how to handle it."

"Why do I have to be the responsible one?" she whined. 

Hiccup turned and gave her the most deadpan look he could manage, and Astrid twisted in her seat to deliver the same.  "Because she's your responsibility?" he suggested lightly.

Cami slumped.  "Oh, all right.  I'll remind her not to maim our hosts."

Wulfhild commented, "And besides, maybe this is a good chance for him to learn to keep his hands to himself?"

Cami sighed and looked at Hiccup.  "Your call.  He's one of yours."

Hiccup thought for a moment; Dogsbreath was one of the worst womanizers in the tribe—he'd been Snotlout's role model in many ways, as his older cousin.  And then he nodded.  "So long as we don't have another _holmgang_ at the end of it… sure.  Give her a warning."

###

Astrid tore her eyes away from watching either Dogsbreath taking advantage of a guest, or a guest baiting a trap for Dogsbreath, and shook her head.  They were both adults, and if not for the sticking point of hospitality, she would have happily stood back and watched, perhaps after making sure that the Bog girl knew who she was egging on. 

She glanced around the room again to see what else was going on.  Her eyes fell on the group of adults and children making the evergreen wreaths and ropes, and she smiled at the sight, especially with several of her younger cousins in there.  In particular, there was Vigdis, who was helping her young daughter Gytha bend the springy branches into the right shape and bind them in place. 

Astrid paused; she hadn't talked with her cousin since the day after her wedding, nearly a month ago.  Given her thought the other day about Heather and her issues, maybe she could mend that bridge and get Heather some help at the same time?

She turned to Hiccup and the others at the table and said, "Excuse me for a moment." 

Hiccup nodded and she got up and walked over to the wreath-makers.  Picking up a bundle of evergreen branches, she took a seat nearby Vigdis.  Her older cousin-by-marriage glanced at her and returned to what she was doing.

Astrid sighed.  So much for this being easy.  She started to twist the branches into the shape of a wreath, and bound them into place.  After she'd gotten the basic frame of the circle in place, she spoke to Vigdis softly, "Can I ask a favor?  Or are you still sore with me?"

Vigdis scowled but nodded.

"I know you had a rough life before you came here," Astrid said, deliberately understating matters, mindful of Gytha's presence.

Vigdis snorted, but didn't respond any further, instead twisting an evergreen branch into her current wreath. 

Astrid bulled on ahead.  "I know that we don't get along… but I was wondering if I could ask you for some help with something?"

Giving her a sidelong look, Vigdig scowled and asked, "What?"

"Well, Heather needs help—"

Vigdis startled, her expression briefly surprised, but then she reverted back to her earlier scowl.  "What sort of help?"

"Well, her life was… really really bad before coming here.  Bad in the same sort ways that yours was," Astrid said, trying to keep from announcing some of the worst details of Heather's life to the general populace of the mead hall—much less Gytha, sitting at Vigdis' feet, captivated by her efforts in braiding in the evergreen branch into her wreath.  "And I remember how you were when you got here… and was wondering if you could help her…?"

Vigdis was staring at her like she had just suggested stripping and dancing naked on one of the tables… and given Vigdis' personal history, that might not have been far off the mark, Astrid realized.  Astrid was asking her to revisit some of the most painful memories of her life, after all. 

She looked away as her cousin composed herself, and busied herself with her wreath. 

She had braided in another two branches when Vigdis said flatly, "If she needs help, ask Mererid clan Ingerman.  She's much less busy than I am."

Nodding apologetically, Astrid gathered up another handful of branches, said, "Thank you," and fled the crafting circle. 

Vigdis _harruph_ ed behind her, and then turned back to Gytha to help her with her wreath, which had bent out of shape and was now lopsided. 

###

**_Fortress of Einar Thambarskelfir, Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Ruffnut scowled at Father Henriksson, and imagined how he'd look with blue skin.  She had a jar of indigo dye, after all, that had been a gift from Einar's wife. 

They were standing in the great hall; having just finished a late breakfast, she'd been on her way to oversee the construction of her hospital, and Father Henriksson had intruded without being invited.  Now they were having an argument. 

_Again._

"Now, Milady Fairhair, you must understand.  Rejecting God from your healing hostel is not how things are done," he said with maddening certitude.  "All such centers of healing are done under the auspices of the Church!  We alone have the learning, the training and the calling to heal the sick and injured!"

She scowled at him.  "I have the learning, they," she nodded towards the midwives and healers that she'd found and recruited so far, "have the training, and we _all_ have that calling!  I don't need your help!"

"Milady Fairhair, please, see reason.  You propose constructing a place for the healing of the earthly vessel, but make no provisions for the nourishment of the soul!"  He gestured intently, his eyes wide with zeal.  "Such places of health and support for the good of the body _must_ likewise support the health of the soul as well, or you risk their damnation!"

She gritted her teeth.  "I'm not making my _hospital_ into, what, what's it called, a _monastery!_   It is going to be a place for everyone to come and get help, Christian or pagan—"

"Now, see here, milady—!" Henriksson said, alarmed. 

"No, you listen to me, you—!" she bellowed back.  The various assistants she was accumulating for this project shrank back at the anger in her tone. 

"What seems to be the problem?" another voice intruded.  She turned to look, and saw Yngvarr standing nearby; there was a stack of books under his arm, and his usually-neat hair looked like he'd been running his fingers through it.  He'd  clearly just emerged from the nearby records room, and right into their argument. 

With an air of relief, she said to Yngvarr, "The Father here is trying to dictate to me how _my_ hospital should be organized, staffed, managed, run—he's trying to take it over!"

"I am not!  I'm trying to advise you on—"

"You told me that having midwives and other women—like _me—_ working in the apothecary and treating patients was unseemly and profane!" she spat. 

"Because it is!" Henriksson insisted.  "Milady Fairhair, do you realize how vulgar the healing profession is!?  How it will tempt those weak of heart and faith to sin, and cause others to accuse a highborn lady such as yourself—"

Ruffnut laughed harshly at that.  "I'm not highborn!"

"You're married to the king, milady!  You might as well be!" Father Henriksson nearly bellowed back.  "And exposing your royal person to the risks—not just physical and spiritual, but social—that such a position would entail—"

"I've been soaked with my own aunt's blood as she _died,_ you arse!" she screamed at him.  "I know just how _brutal_ it is!  And the sick, injured and _dying_ don't care if the hands that are helping their pains have tits or a dick attached!  And if people accuse me of impropriety, I'll happily take them to the _holmgang_ for slander!"

"My lady!" Henriksson sounded appalled—at her threat of violence or her vulgarity, she couldn't tell and didn't care.

Yngvarr, sighing, put his books in a neat stack on the floor and stepped between them.  "May I?" he asked with a sigh.

Ruffnut nodded with enthusiasm… and then Henriksson nodded, much more hesitantly. 

"Good," Yngvarr said, and then seemed to pause for a moment.  "Now… Father.  While I'm sure that Lady Ruffnut appreciates your concern for the decorum of her office, telling her that healing the sick and injured is vulgar…"  Yngvarr rolled his shoulders and spread his arms in an expressive shrug, "I would remind you that Our Lord healed all, regardless of who they were, and commanded us to visit the sick and clothe the naked."  He raised his hands in a 'so there' gesture.  "Telling Lady Ruffnut to abstain from the same acts as the Lord Christ did…"

Her assistants were nodding in agreement with Yngvarr, and Father Henriksson scowled.  "The Lord Christ was a man.  Many of the things he did would be inappropriate for a woman to do."

Yngvarr shrugged.  "I'm sure that would be news to Saint Dymphna."

"Who?" Ruffnut asked.

"Oh, she was a blessed saint from Eire from three centuries ago, milady," Yngvarr said, not breaking eye contact with Father Henriksson.  "And, like you, she opened a hospice for the poor and sick, down in the flatlands near Normandy."  He smiled guilelessly at Father Henriksson, and Ruffnut distinctly heard, _your move._

Henriksson seemed to realize that Yngvarr had effortlessly undercut his argument.  He nodded, but said, "I still say that the Church needs to have a hand in it as well!  It is our mandate, as you say!"

"It is your mandate to feed the hungry as well, but I don't see you trying to have a hand in the city bakery," Yngvarr said with a small smile. 

One of the elder midwives that Ruffnut had recruited—Svanhildr Olafsdoittor—was visibly choking on her laughter, and Ruffnut watched in glee as Henriksson visibly swallowed several replies. 

Then he nodded curtly, and sketched her a polite bow.  "Milady Fairhair, I believe that you have made your position more than adequately clear, even as I beg you to reconsider.  And should you ever need mine or the Church's help, my door is open." 

He turned and strode off with the same abruptness with which he'd inserted himself into her discussion in the first place. 

She smiled at Yngvarr.  "Thanks," she said, and he nodded. 

"Pardon me," he said, and went to pick back up his books, and strode off in a hurry.

She cocked her head at him, and then turned to her assistants.  "Go on without me, I'll catch up."  They nodded, and she went after Yngvarr.  "Hey, wait up!"

He turned and looked at her.  "Milady—"

"Ruffnut," she said firmly.  "You've got my permission, and you're a friend."

He smiled at her.  "All right.  So, Ruffnut…?"

"I've barely seen you since we got back!" she said. 

"…yes.  Magnus has me researching something, and it has been eating up a considerable amount of my time," he said as they walked along.

"Oh?  Something in the books?"  She shrugged.  "I doubt I'd be much help.  Books kinda bore me."

"I appreciate the sentiment anyway," Yngvarr said with a smile.  They reached Magnus' office, which he'd recently commandeered from Einar; a quick knock and a word of approval from Magnus, and they entered. 

Ruffnut took the moment to step around the desk and give Magnus a kiss, plopping herself into his lap.  "Morning!" she said cheerfully.  He'd left at dawn, while she was still a tired lump huddled under the furs. 

"Ah, you're out of bed!" her husband said with glee.  "How are you feeling?"

"Sore, but not as tired, thank the gods," she said, and gave him another peck on the cheek.  "And Yngvarr rescued me from Father Henriksson."

Magnus glanced up at Yngvarr. 

"The good Father was trying to insert himself into the organization of Ruffnut's hospice," Yngvarr explained.  "I convinced him that his aid was not desired or welcome."

Magnus, to Ruffnut's surprise, scowled.  "Thank you, Yngvarr." 

Before he could say anything else, though, there was a firm knocking at the door, and Vladimir's voice came through.  "Kinsman!  I am need to speak with you!"

"Come in?" Magnus said hesitantly, and Vladimir didn't need to be told twice.  The door swung open, and he marched in.

"So, Magnus, _when_ did you plan tell me that you give Wulfhild to Dragonlord Hiccup as concubine?" he asked with a hard edge in his tone.  "I come very long way to offer Elisif's hand to him, and I am rejected because he loves this girl Astrid from his tribe.  I accept that.  But now I ask, does he also have feelings for Wulfhild?"

Magnus set down the quill that he had in his hand and looked at his kinsman.  "No… but it was more complicated than that."

Vladimir scowled.  "Looks simple to me.  I am told that our suit is rejected because of lovematch.  I accept that."  He slammed his hand down on Magnus' desk and leaned forward. "But Wulfhild he does not love either.  So while I am happy to have kinswoman with tie to Berk, you understand why I am…" he pulled back, "irritated."

Magnus scowled.  "Like I said, more complicated.  It wasn't my intention.  But I got a letter from the scared old men who call themselves my vassals that essentially threatened civil war if we didn't tie Berk to us more tightly.  After Hiccup treated a fleet of longboats as an evening's challenge, they realized that they didn't have any handles on him—and wanted one." 

Ruffnut chimed in.  "And if it was a little hard on Astrid and Wulfhild, well then, that was just too bad." 

"'A little hard'?  What do you mean?"

"We had a huge argument over it," Ruffnut said, "and it almost got to the point of Hiccup and Astrid calling insult, and Hiccup said that he was just about ready to go to war over it."

" _Bozhe moi_ ," Vladimir said, scowling.  "And you _agreed_ to this?"

"It was this or civil war, Vlad," Magnus said.  "And… and Wulf wanted it."

Vladimir scowled.  "Of course she did.  That much power—"

Ruffnut hopped to her feet and glared at him.  "Don't insult my sister-in-law!"  The room swam a bit, and Magnus reached up to steady her, but she didn't break her glare at Vladimir.  "You know Einar runs this place!  When Wulfhild saw her chance for a place that was safe from him, she went for it—not because it gave her power, but because Hiccup and Astrid are her friends!"

Vladimir scowled, but Magnus jumped in.  "And given the alternatives, I'm glad that she's safe with them."

Vladimir turned away and paced for a moment.  "They threaten civil war?"

"Yes, they did.  Not in so many words, but they brought up Cnut's regents, saying that it looked like it was a return to those old days.  They wouldn't do that if it wasn't a justification.  And when I say 'they', I mean 'Einar Thambarskelfir', because he's the one who orchestrated it all."

Vladimir glanced at Yngvarr, who was standing at the ready off to the side.  "Is true?"

Yngvarr nodded.  "It is.  And I think the only reason it _hasn't_ gone to civil war— _yet_ —is because they're terrified of Lord Hiccup."

"Then why did they push for that?" Vladimir asked, sounding confused.

Yngvarr shrugged. "I haven't asked—and I doubt that they would tell me if I did—but I speculate that their initial letter was intended as a hardline position in order to extort concessions.  Or, at least, it was intended as such for those that actually had thought in it, and not just panic."

"I see," Vladimir said, and turned in thought as Ruffnut shared questioning looks with Magnus and Yngvarr.  Then Vladimir said, "So, why don't you tell me this earlier?"

Magnus snorted.  "Right, because _that's_ an easy conversation to have!  'Hey, Vlad, cousin!  We just gave my half-sister to the man that you offered your own sister's hand in marriage to.  No hard feelings, right?  Sorry about beating you to the chase.'"

Vladimir snorted and then laughed ruefully.  "Da, I suppose that is difficult conversation to have.  But we are having it now."

"Yes, and I'll say this much, cousin—if you and your father want to keep me, as  your kinsman, in power here, I could really use your help.  _This_ time."

There was an indecipherable moment between Magnus and Vladimir, and then Vladimir turned away, looking ashamed.  "You know Father is not wanting to get involved in Norse power struggles."

"I know.  And he was supportive and saw to it that I was educated," Magnus said.  "But I still spent years in exile because he refused to help my father.  But the situation is different now.  And I could really use your help—and I'm doing my best to make sure that it doesn't come to all-out war."

Vladimir sighed and nodded ruefully.  "Da.  I suppose is least I can do."  He leaned in.  "But why so concerned about war now?  They would have brought it on themselves, and you have ally who could crush them like overripe cherry."

"At the cost of how many lives?" Magnus rebutted. 

Vladimir snorted.  "You are concern for your enemies?  Men who challenge your rule?  I thought that you were _Vikings_ here."  He curled his lip in a cruel smile.  "Your people are respect _strength!_ Show it!"

Magnus glared at Vladimir and stood.  "If I have to, I _will._   But such a war would harm not only my enemies, but the common folk caught in the middle."  He stared Vladimir dead in the eye, his expression giving Ruffnut chills, and said, "And _they_ are my people.  And a king protects his own."

Vladimir looked confused, but seemed to shrug it off after a moment.  "I think I am not understand, but if you say that it helps you stay in power here, then I help you as best I can."

Magnus reached over and extended his hand.

Vladimir took it and shook it.   "Just one question."

"Yes?"

"Is any chance I could get dragon?" Vladimir asked.

Ruffnut snorted.  "Talk to Hiccup.  But help Magnus, and I'll put in a good word for you."

"And that is good reason right there," Vladimir said with a wry nod.  "Now, what is situation?"

"Complicated," Magnus muttered.  "I have that bedamned letter around here somewhere… let me show it to you…"

 

###

**_The Smithy, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

"Where _are_ they?" Hiccup asked impatiently.  The annealing furnace had cooled overnight, hopefully allowing the glass inside to cool without cracking as well.  But they hadn't opened it yet to check, because they were waiting on Fishlegs and Heather to get here first!

And more than half the morning was gone, and there was no sign of them!

Wulfhild picked up one of his experimental ball bearings and spun it in her hands.    "I'm sure they haven't forgotten," she said.

"But they missed breakfast!" Hiccup said.  "Do you know what it takes to get Fishlegs to miss breakfast?  And Heather to miss work?  Are they okay?  They didn't get attacked or anything?"

"They're _fine,_ Hiccup," Astrid assured him.

"Are you sure?  Have you seen them?  I mean, after everything, are you sure that they're okay?"

Astrid coughed and shared a significant look with Wulfhild, and they smiled at each other, even as Wulfhild blushed, which made Hiccup look at them with confusion. 

"What?" he asked. 

Wulfhild and Astrid shared another look and then both of them started to… laugh.  Slowly at first, but then they both broke out in giggles, which escalated to full-on laughter, and from there to whooping gales of guffaws at the befuddled look on Hiccup's face, which he was not bothering to hide.  Instead, he crossed his arms and gave them both pointed looks, which just made them burst into renewed laughter each time they glanced at him. 

_"What?"_

Then the door opened, and Fishlegs and Heather came in, holding hands and smiling—

And Hiccup took one look at those grins on their faces and _got it._

"Oh!"  He looked at the two of them and beamed a grin of his own at them.  "Congratulations!"

Fishlegs turned bright red, but didn't let go of Heather.  Instead, he drew her closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulder in a way that Hiccup was very familiar with. 

"Well, I guess for reasons to miss breakfast, that was a good one!" Hiccup teased gently.  "So, ribbing aside, are you two… _good_?"

Heather gave him a deadpan look, dramatically coughed to clear her throat, and started to sing. 

Hiccup blinked and started to blush, because the song was cheerful, bright… and extremely _detailed_.  He'd heard it before—about a Norsewoman seeing her husband's longship returning from the horizon after months at sea and thinking to herself all of the things she wanted to do with him—but with _rather_ different lyrics for the bits about what the woman wanted to do. 

Thankfully, she cut off at the end of the second stanza, because Hiccup didn't know if either he or Fishlegs would survive another one.  Astrid was turning bright red for a different reason; she was laughing so hard that she'd fallen on the floor, and Wulfhild was gasping for breath as she was staggering, bending over, and offering a hand to Astrid. 

Fishlegs was flushed as well… but he looked so proud of Heather, and tightened his arm around her shoulder, and when she stopped singing, she immediately turned and gave him a kiss. 

Hiccup looked at the two of them as they kissed.  Once they broke apart, he said, as deadpan as he could manage, "I'll take that as a 'yes'?"

They both nodded, grinning.  Then Fishlegs said, in a matching deadpan tone, "I hope you weren't waiting long.  We… overslept."

Heather cackled, and Hiccup took a moment to appreciate the cheek-splitting smile on her face; the tension around her eyes and mouth had released, and while she had rings of exhaustion under her eyes, she looked so _happy_ that, even if he'd been inclined to in the first place, he wouldn't have begrudged either of them the late start.

"Eh, I had some more ideas that I wrote down," Hiccup said, waving it off with a grin.  "Now… shall we?"

Fishlegs nodded and said, "So… it's nearly noon, and we put them in the furnace… what, three hours after noon yesterday?"

Hiccup nodded.  "Sounds about right.  Sundial was useless yesterday, though—too cloudy."

"So they've been in there for nearly a full day," Fishlegs said, getting his notepad from the desk and writing the details down.  "And the furnace is cool?"

Hiccup nodded; the sides of it were only slightly warm to the touch, meaning that the inside was probably slightly still warm, but not hot enough to make water steam. 

Heather looked around and asked, "So, who does the honors?"

Everyone turned and looked at Fishlegs. 

"M-me?" he stammered.

"This glassmaking project has been your idea since the start," Hiccup said earnestly.  "Go for it."

Fishlegs grinned, and Hiccup handed him the thick leather gloves.  Fishlegs pulled them on, unlatched the furnace door and pulled it open…

To reveal a shelf full of _intact_ pieces of glass.

Everyone cheered and whooped. 

Working carefully, they emptied the shelf; some of the pieces stuck to the stone and cracked when they tried to get them loose, while others had slumped like soft candle wax… but the majority of them were cool enough to handle with bare hands and shaped just like they'd intended them to be. 

Hiccup held up one of the glass bubbles that they'd made; it was lopsided and thick-walled, perhaps half an inch thick, with a small gap the size of his finger for a mouth, the whole thing about the size of his fist.  "Hey, Fish, mind if I try something with this?"

Fishlegs grinned.  "Go for it!"

They looked out over the bounty of freshly made glass laid out on the table, and high-fived.  "We did it!"

###

That evening, after the lighting of the Yule log and the Yule _blot,_ Astrid sat with her family in the chief's hut.  A year ago, she and Hiccup had sat in this chair, cuddling together.  Now… now they were married.  They had kings as friends and enemies.  Hiccup had a princess as a concubine.  She had an iron-bound trunk filled with her personal wealth, which came to nearly a thousand pounds silver between her ransoms and Hiccup's morning gift to her. 

Heather came in, shadowed by Fishlegs, carrying a tray of foodstuffs for the chief's hut, and went over to the cabinets to start stocking.  Wulfhild got out of her chair and went over to Heather to get a mug of ale.  Stoick was sitting by the fire, whittling, and tossing in the slivers from his block of wood as he worked. 

Outside, people could be heard singing—and a number of dragons were warbling accompaniment.  Toothless was lounging in the rafters near the _skorskeinn_ , his tail dangling down like a cat's, while Stormfly and Windshear were snoozing in the corner, coiled in on each other.  Thornado, meanwhile, was outside with Gobber… singing.  The Thunderdrum seemed to be trying to echo the smith's voice as loudly as possible. 

Hiccup was sketching out some new designs for his next attempt at succeeding at her challenge.  She peered over his shoulder, but couldn't make heads or tails out of his designs. 

"Is that a pipe?" she asked, pointing at one bit.

He nodded and grinned.

"Then what's with all these rings?" she asked.  "And is that a chain?"

"It's a pump," he explained.  "I'll hook it up to a windmill to power it, and the rings are wood and leather washers.  See?  They'll drag the water up the pipe up to here, and then out."

She leaned in.  "Oh, I see.  You'd need a lot of chain, though.  And if any of it breaks…"

He grimaced.  "Yeah."

She leaned in.  "And what's this one?"

"Quick release for the drop-forge.  See how the hook is shaped?"  He took his stylus and made a motion like it was a beam attached to the pulley.  "It gets pulled up… hits the beam, which makes it rotate…"

"And what's hanging on it slides off the end of the hook?" she said, trying to follow. 

He nodded.  "And drops onto the shape."

She pursed her lips and nodded.  "Should be interesting."

He got back to sketching, and then Wulfhild came up to her hesitantly.  "Hey, Astrid?"

"Yeah?"

"I… I know that things have been a little rough lately… but… well…"  She held up a King's Fist board.  "Magnus and I used to play on Yule.  I was wondering… if… if you'd be…"  She looked at Astrid hopefully.

Astrid blinked, and felt a smile grow on her face.  "Of course!"

They went over to the table, and played… just like they used to.  And while the banter wasn't as light and easy as it had been before… it was there again. 

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

****

Snotlout looked across the desk at Father Metaxas, horrified.  "What do you mean, I'm not needed anymore?"

"You're not needed anymore.  We've dispatched a fleet to capture this Hiccup and Fishlegs to be scribes for us, and to capture their dragons.  You're not needed anymore.  We'll have all the scribes and dragon riders we'll ever need."  He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a quill and inkpot.  The inkpot was filled with red, and it sloshed over the side, staining the priest's hands.  "Now you can just work all day as a scribe.  Don't mind the blood, it'll wash out."

Snotlout backed away in a panic.  He had to warn them, warn them what was coming.

"But, but…"

"Harold already signed you over to me.  Now, start scribing what I tell you to."   He handed over a giant book to Snotlout and fluttered the pages.  Arcane letters and words and drawings danced in the motion—and then he opened the book to the page he wanted, and the words called out and mocked him, even as he tried to focus on them, but they danced around the page and formed rude words.

He pushed himself away from the desk, and ran through the door.

Then he was on Hookfang's saddle, the two of them flying through the air. 

"Faster, Hookfang, faster!" he urged, not looking back, leaning forward over his friend's head.  He didn't dare look back.  He was afraid to see where the fleet was, knowing that they were in pursuit, knowing that they'd be captured if they were seen.

But as they flew across the water, the mountain of Berk visible in the distance, there was a great flash and billow of flame and smoke ahead.

He was too late…

But as he and Hookfang landed, he saw that Hiccup had won… he was dressed in the Emperor's coronation outfit, riding Toothless down a main street on Berk, which had grown to match Constantinople in size.  The crowds were cheering his great victory, looking at his cousin like they'd looked at the Emperor and him…

He tried pushing through the crowds of his tribemates, but nobody was paying any attention to him.  He wasn't even being ignored—they just didn't see him. 

Then one person saw him.

Astrid.

"Astrid, Astrid, I—"

"You shouldn't have come back, Snot," she said angrily. 

"What?"

"You shouldn't have come back," she repeated, her tone growing harder.  "How can you ever have a greater saga than him?  He beat the Romans!  We don't need you!"  She grabbed him and pushed him away—

And he landed in the arms of Kormak and his hirelings.  Kormak grinned manically at him, holding his knife, the sun glinting along the edge.  "Hello, Snotlout.  _I_ haven't forgotten you…" he said, and stabbed.

Snotlout blinked awake, breathing hard. 

Just a dream… just a dream…

His body hurt, like he'd been… well, beaten.  But he'd rather deal with that pain than go back to _that_ dream.

The room he was in was dark, and he was lying in a bed, covered with a linen sheet.  There were bandages all over his body and face.  Nearby, he heard two people talking, and tried to listen, hoping to figure out where he was.

"If you're offering to keep my secret," he heard one voice, which he recognized as Gudmund's, "what do you want in exchange?"

Gunnar's precise voice replied, "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing," Gunnar said firmly.  "As far as I'm concerned, you are my brother-in-arms, and I would do nothing less for any other Varangian thus sworn.  That is why we are here tonight, is it not?"

Snotlout couldn't hold back the moan of pain any longer, and it let loose.

Wood scraping across stone sounded, and a moment later, he was looking up at Gunnar and Gudmund, Gudmund holding a lamp in one hand.  "You're awake!" Gudmund said, sounding relieved.  "Gunnar, get the physician."

He nodded.  "I'll be a short while if I have to roust him out of bed."

"Take your time.  It's the middle of the night," Gudmund said, and then turned to looked at Snotlout.  "Sigurd, do you remember what happened?"

"Kormak…" he rasped as Gunnar left the room.  "Kormak attacked me… said it was ordered by the Emperor."

Gudmund nodded.  "Officially, you were attacked by a gang of opportunist muggers.  They've been executed.  Kormak is back in the barracks and nobody has said anything… but also nobody is trying to take possession of Hookfang for the Emperor."

Snotlout blinked.  "What… how… how long have…"

"You've been out for two and a half days; they had to give you opium for the pain while they set the bones in your face.  Depending on how you want to slice it, it's either very late the night of Mani's Day—December twenty-first, according to the Romans—or early in the morning of Tyr's Day, December twenty-second.  You were attacked on Laudardagr, on the nineteenth."

Snotlout blinked.  "That long?"

"Yes.  And Gunnar, Thorred, Ketilbjorn, Hrafn and I volunteered to keep watch on you, and Harald backed that up with an order.  He knows and wants to speak with you once you're healed up."

Snotlout blinked, surprised.  "Why…"

"Why, what?  Why did we do that?"

He nodded, giving him a wave of pain and nausea. 

Gudmund looked at him with narrowed eyes.  "Because, Sigurd, you're our friend.  And friends help each other."

The door opened, and Gunnar and a Greek man came in.  The Greek was dressed in night clothes and carrying a case.  "Ah, good, he's awake."

As the healer worked him over and gave him a dose of foul-tasting extract to keep the pain at bay, Snotlout kept reflecting on Gudmund's words. 

He had friends… willing to help him against the Emperor.

They wanted him…

That thought sustained him through the painful examination, and warmed him as he drifted back off to sleep. 

They wanted him…

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

As the sun rose and the skies lightened, Heather and Fishlegs were sleepily cuddling in his bed in his house, both of them wonderfully, gloriously bare except for the thick furs lying on the bed covering them.  Fishlegs had barred the door to keep his siblings from entering.  His parents had been officially amused when she and he had announced her intention to stay the night last night.  Hers had been energetically supportive.

It was the first morning of Yule; they were sleeping in after an early night that had included at least _some_ sleeping.  Now, she was dreaming sweet, sweet dreams…

And then the horn blew, and those dreams evaporated like dew under the summer sun.

She jumped to her feet before she even realized what was going on, and, moving by reflex, she started scrambling for her clothes and his as the third horn blast sounded. 

Fishlegs was stirring much more slowly, and managed to lurch to a sitting position just as she threw his trousers into his face.

_Not how I intended to throw clothing at him,_ she thought sardonically to herself, finding her own trousers crumpled on the floor and yanking them on. 

"Where's the fire, Heather?"

"Horn's blowing.  Incoming ships," she said tersely, finding her shirt and pulling it on, to find it inside out.  She sighed and pulled it back off.

He blinked sleepily and then blinked again as what she said apparently sank in.  "It's winter."

"No kidding!"

"Nobody sails in winter!" he said, starting to move a bit more quickly himself, pushing the furs off to the side. 

"Well, apparently they didn't get the memorandum!"  She finally had the shirt turned the right way and pulled it on roughly, and started strapping on her belt. 

He slipped out of the bed, and Heather allowed herself a single quick glance of appreciation before trying to find where her boots had been flung off to in the darkness of the previous night.

"Who do you think—?" he asked and trailed off, shoving an arm down one trouser leg to get it turned right-side out. 

"No clue, and, no offense, any other time I'd happily enjoy naked fun times with you in a locked room, but now isn't the time."  Her boots weren't on the floor… where had they gotten to?

In a tone of agreement, he said, "Yeah, given what the last few surprise ships visits were, I'm not offended at all."

"That's one of the reasons why I love you," she said, looking around furiously, unwillingly remembering the _last_ time she'd been dismantling this room with a search.

As he pulled on his tunic and trousers, she found one boot. 

Somehow it had managed to get flung on top of his bookcase.

She stared at it and then, sighing, she stretched, reaching up and grabbing at it. 

It was _all_ the way back against the wall, just out of reach.

Putting her hands on her hips, she considered for a moment, and then grabbed the books that it was resting on and lifted them down. 

"How'd it get up… oh," he said, and she could visualize the blush spreading across his face, and the rest of him.  He _did_ blush all over, after all.

Shrugging, she tilted the books to dump her boot on the floor, and went to replace them on the shelf.  Then she paused as the anomaly registered. 

"Love?"

"Yeah?"

"What language is this?  I don't recognize it." She looked at the cover, which had the feeling of great age, and had writing in some weird script that looked a little bit like runes, with straight lines and hard angles, but wasn't any runes that she was familiar with. 

"It's one that my great-grandfather wrote in and spoke," Fishlegs said with a grunt, pulling on his boot.

She put the book gently back up on the shelf, then started hunting for her other boot. 

"Why did your great-grandfather speak a different language?" she asked as she rooted around on the floor.

"He was a thrall who got taken on a raid from Francia and then escaped here," Fishlegs said absently, rooting around in the furs on the bed for something.

"That isn't what they speak in Francia; they speak the _langues d'oïl_ or Vulgar Latin down there, and those use the Latin alphabet."

He shrugged and tossed her her other boot, from where it had been hiding in the folds of the furs.  "He spoke a bunch of languages.  Norse, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and those two, and I think a few more."

She blinked.  "That's… impressive."  Then the words fully penetrated.  "Wait.  Those _two?_ "

"They use the same alphabet.  He called them," he screwed up his face, trying to remember as he removed the door bar, "Evreet and Aramaya?"

She shook her head.  "Never heard of either."  Boots on, they ran out the door to find out about the approaching ships.

###

**_The Vatican, Rome, Papal States_ **

****

The tall man with the dapper beard stood in the meeting room, pondering why he had been called here, examining the various precious art on the walls.

He had many valuable skills, which, of course, made narrowing down the possibilities more difficult.  Ergo, attempting a person-first estimation of selection reason was the wrong way to approach the question, as the possibilities were simply too numerous for easy elimination. 

The alternate issue, however, was that he simply had not possessed sufficient time here to be able to fully appreciate and comprehend the local zeitgeist, which would give him more valuable insight from which to properly draw conclusions. 

The most significant rumors that he had heard were Norman and Varangian mercenaries fighting to the south, the Roman emperor was dying and had likely passed already, the defeat of a Viking navy by dragon-riding pagans, and various revolts and uprisings large and small, mostly crushed.  He hadn't had much time, however; his rumor-gathering had been confined to the short time it had taken for him to traverse the distance from the monastery where he had been overwintering to the Vatican's stables.  

He pondered, knowing that he was being kept waiting by the cardinalis specifically in order to impress him with the other man's importance, but that just meant that the time could be used for more fruitful ends.

His skillset and personal origin would be useful and relevant to any of the major incidents, he knew as much.  He rather doubted that he would have been summoned with such speed to simply deal with a peasant revolt or generic pagan uprising. 

After full consideration, he discarded the Romans as a possibility.  Agents would already be in place in Constantinople, with established networks, and Emperor Michael IV was already known to have been dying for some time.  Years.  That would not explain the urgency for which he had been summoned in the middle of winter, only days before Christmas—and to the Vatican itself, no less.

A similar train of thought led to the rejection of the Varangian and Norman mercenaries fighting in the southern regions over the old Roman Catepanate of Italia.  That had been ongoing for years; William Iron Arm the Norman was currently proceeding to give the Romans a thorough thrashing, having defeated them twice in major battles in the last year alone. 

Although, in his estimation, those defeats were due more to the Empire's rather disgraceful waste and inefficiencies from current mismanagement than William's martial prowess. Ah, well, the Macedonian dynasty would come crashing down sooner or later, and perhaps a younger, more vigorous dynasty would take the lead.  It was just… rather sad.  In the mere sixteen years since his death, the great military and economic structure managed by Basil the Younger had essentially collapsed.  And that was due to his brother and his niece, the current empress, having allowed it to rot out of sheer incompetence. 

Lessons to be learned there, for certain. 

But, regardless, that circumstance had existed for some time, and did not explain the energy with which he had been called up to serve by the Church.  For certain, being Norman himself, he could easily infiltrate the Norman adventurers or the Varangians, but that was mostly a civil conflict between Christians—although, given the tensions between Constantinople and Rome, he wondered how long it would be before the two churches excommunicated each other.  And they _were_ two churches, despite their pretensions otherwise.  One Pope, several Patriarchs, and each side liked to pretend that it was the sole leader of all of Christendom, each wanting the other to support them against the Normans, among others.  Which side he would personally pick, well, that would be a matter of which one paid better.  The religious aspects of it all bored him.

Oh, he could fake piety, for certain.  But, in the current Church as it stood, corruption was simply the best means by which to fit in.  Priests sold indulgences, bishops sold titles, even Pope Benedict sold rulings.  He was here for competence, not fervor or zealotry. 

But, with the discarding of the Roman-Norman wars to the south as well, that left one final option. 

Which, to be fair, he was ideally suited for.  It was just, perhaps, somewhat surreal to contemplate.

The door opened and the Deacon Cardinalis Giovanni walked in, his bearing dignified and self-important.

"Thank you for your patience, Brother—"

"I accept the assignment," he said, hiding a smile.

That took the elderly priest aback.  "Excuse me?  I haven't even told you what it was, yet."

"You wish for me to take my old Dragon Hunter team to the Alban Isles and replace rumor with fact in regard to the dragon-riding pagans.  You have chosen me due to my proven competence in dealing with and hunting dragons, my observational skills and discretion, my existing familiarity with the region, its languages and peoples, and my known loyalty to the primacy of the Church."  After all, what the was purpose of being loyal to a major power if it didn't _stay_ a major power?

Giovanni blinked. 

The man allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction.  It was always enjoyable to remind a career bureaucrat like the cardinalis of _exactly_ who and what he was.  If nothing else, it allowed him to command their respect.

"However, as part of the assignment, I require my costs and those of my team to be covered by the Church in their entirety, as well as doubling my usual fees."

"That is acceptable," Giovanni said, still trying to bring his surprise under control, just as intended.

"I will also need to question the witnesses and read any dispatches myself."

"That is also acceptable," Giovanni nodded, his face much more schooled and under control by this point. 

"Then I accept."

"When can you leave, Brother?"

"I will spend the winter preparing and assessing the intelligence, and leave as soon as weather permits, if not sooner," he said, anticipating the new challenge.

"Then let us begin, Brother Viggo."

Viggo Grimborn, one of the most accomplished and skilled Dragon Hunters of his generation, smiled and bowed politely.

"Of course, Father."

* * *

**A/N:** Because of a bet I have with one of my beta readers...  if you went 'HOLY SHIT' or some variant thereof for a certain character intro at the end of this chapter, please leave a review that contains your exclamation. :)

Also, since this is such an excellent stopping point, I'm going to start my hiatus now.  Toodles, and see you all in March!  *evil grin*  Posting will resume March 25, 2018, with Chapter 42.  

 


	42. The Pen...

**Chapter 42: The Pen** **…**

_The economic and demographic growth of Berk's territory can be tracked due to the tribal census records.  Begun in AD 950 under the auspices of Chief Hiccup II, the yearly census tracked a slow, steady and inexorable contraction over the next ninety-one years, with the first census recording a population of 1,373 people from eight clans and nearly 400 clanless freemen, dropping to 712 across five clans and 208 freemen in early AD 1041.  After the end of the Dragon War, however, the pattern reverses itself explosively, with the Eirish annexations and the tribe's own natural growth.  Child mortality drops in all of the tribe's holdings, and immigration begins in earnest.  At the start of AD 1042, according to the census for that year, the total population of the Hooligan holdings was recorded as 4,902 humans, and approximately 12,000 dragons…_

_…Vedrarfjord, as an Eirish city with room to expand that was unavailable to Berk on its small and hilly isle, is extremely illustrative of the growth that occurred.  Beginning with approximately 2,000 people in AD 1042, plus another 2,000 in the immediate hinterlands within walking distance, the city's population boomed over the next ten years to 31,826 permanent residents—after contracting from a refugee-boosted height of 56,105 in AD 1044, nearly all of whom ended up settling elsewhere in Berk's territory (see Chapter 23: The Eastern Massacres)._

_In that first census, the image revealed is of a small Viking trading port, primarily focused on agriculture, with the majority of the population involved in farming, herding or fishing and the other major industries being shipbuilding and other port-related activities.  Recorded in that first census, there were 8 shoemakers, 9 furriers, 10 tailors, 6 barbers, 3 jewelers, 4 tavernkeepers, 4 bakers, 9 carpenters, 12 weavers, 5 chandlers, 2 scabbard-makers, 3 brewers, 5 coopers, 2 butchers, 3 fishmongers, 6 smiths (specializations not noted), 8 healers, 3 millers, 8 ropemakers, 36 shipwrights and 2 tanners recorded._

_Ten years later, the portrait of Vedrarfjord is that of an industrial and educational center, featuring glassmakers (207), teachers (572), bookbinders (17), papermakers (98), ropemakers (453), weavers (429), tailors (168)…_

_—Origins Of The Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631_

**_Sound of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

**_December, AD 1041_ **

 

Hiccup and Toothless flew through the frigid air out to the incoming ships and shivered.  The sun was shining and it was a beautifully clear day, but it.  Was.  COLD.  The niceness of the weather was probably why the lunatics in the ships had tried at all today, but they would still be getting splashed and drenched with winter seawater as they went through the waves, and there was always the risk that the weather could turn in an instant. 

The two ships were making their way towards Berk under oars at full speed; he could hear the drummer's beat from up here. 

"C'mon bud, let's go take a look," he said, patting Toothless's neck.  "Faster we get this done, faster we can go home."

Toothless, who was clearly imagining a warm house—and more importantly, himself _in_ said house—poured on the speed with an approving _horf_.

As he got closer, not seeing any archers at the ready on deck, he hailed the ships.  "Hello the ship!  What business do you have with Berk!?" he called in Norse and Gaoidhealg.

"Hail rider!  We come to Berk with entreats from the _rí ruírech_ of Ulaid for alliance!" a man at the prow of the ship called back in Gaoidhealg, his hands cupped around his mouth.

"I see!  Do you swear to abide by the laws of hospitality!?" Hiccup replied in the same tongue.

"Aye!  We do!"

"Then adjust your bearings slightly to port, and follow us in!  Or, better yet," he said after a moment, "I'll have someone meet you at the sea stack maze to guide you in!"

"Sounds fine to us!"

"I'm going ahead to get the cooks started on something hot for lunch for you and your men!"

The rowers all cheered, and the man at the prow called out, "Thank you!  We've been sailing since dawn yesterday!"

Hiccup and Toothless turned around; eyeballing the distance, they probably had at least two hours until the Eirish would reach Berk.  Fortunately for them, flying was _much_ faster, and only a few chilly minutes later, he and Toothless were in the warm mead hall.  As Toothless wrapped himself around the hearthfire, Hiccup went and found Magnhild and Stoick.

"Two ships from Ulaid," he reported.  "They've been sailing since yesterday, and are coming in for diplomacy."  He looked at Magnhild.  "They swore to abide by hospitality and I promised them something warm for lunch."

She snorted.  "They'll need it on a day like today.  We'll get started."  She turned and started to call out orders. 

Hiccup looked out over the mead hall, and saw the people he was looking for.  Intercepting Heather before she reached the kitchens, he pulled her aside.  "Heather, you know Eire politics, right?"

She nodded mutely. 

"I need you tell me everything you can about the King of Ulaid and his kingdom, and quick."  Hiccup remembered his lack of understanding at last Thawfest, and wasn't going to make the same mistake twice—and while he knew a little bit about Eire, he'd come to realize just how little he actually knew. 

Comprehension lit Heather's face.  "Got it.  Do you need it _immediately_ quick, or can I get something to eat first?  I don't want to talk Eirish politics on an empty stomach."

"We've got the rest of the morning.  Go, get something to eat, and I'll get everybody," he replied with a smile. 

Within a few moments, the five of them—Hiccup, Astrid, Wulfhild, Heather and Fishlegs—were sitting around at a table with a tray of warm mulled ales, and some bits of leftover breakfast.  Spooning out a bowl of barley porridge for Fishlegs and another for herself from the crock, she handed her boyfriend his bowl and looked around the group.  "Getting my thoughts in order.  We woke up when the horn blew."

"Fair," Hiccup said, nodding and taking a mug of steaming ale for himself. 

As everyone grabbed something or not, as suiting their preferences, they all sat back for a moment, waiting on Heather as she ate the barley porridge, her eyes tracking back and forth at nothing in particular.  Finishing the bowl, she set it down, and then spoke up.

"Okay.  So, Eire politics.  Short version.  There are five traditional Eire tribal kingdoms, the _cóiceda—"_

"Literally, 'fifths,'" Hiccup observed, and then gave her an apologetic look.  "Sorry for interrupting."

"No worries," Heather said with a smile.

"And since I don't speak Gaoidhealg," Wulfhild said, "I appreciate the translation."

"I'll let Hiccup handle that, then," Heather said with a grin, and glanced at him.  "But you're exactly right… except that the _cóiceda_ are currently broken up into six or seven kingdoms," Heather said, as she cut a small loaf of bread into slices.

"Why?" Hiccup asked.

"It's complicated, but at the basics of it, there are really about a hundred and fifty kings, each ruling their own tribes—a _túath_ —across the island." 

Astrid whistled at that.  "Sounds messy."

"Yeah.  But while they call themselves kings—well, they used to, these days they call themselves _tigern_ or _toisech_ instead…" she glanced to Hiccup.

_"_ Lord or leader, _"_ Hiccup noted, and Wulfhild gave a thankful smile.

Heather nodded.  "And, of course, some of them are still really touchy about how they're addressed."

"How big is a _túath_?" Wulfhild asked, curious.

"About six to nine thousand people, although some are larger.  They're composed of at least two _trícha cét…_ "

"Thirty hundreds," Hiccup supplied. 

"Yep.  Ideally thirty people per dwelling, one hundred of them in a _trícha cét,_ two to four of those in a _túath,_ and anywhere from ten to forty _túath_ in a _cóiceda._ "

Fishlegs was mumbling numbers under his breath, and then said, "So… anywhere from eight hundred thousand to one million, two hundred thousand Eirish in total?"

"That feels a little high," Heather said, considering.  "And that's assuming that most of the dwellings are full, which many aren't.  But we're getting sidetracked." 

"Sorry," Wulfhild said, looking a bit sheepish.

"Not a problem for me," Heather said. 

"Nor me," Hiccup said.  "The refresher is good."  He scratched at his hair just as sheepishly.  "I'd forgotten about how every tribe has its own king."

Heather nodded and continued, "Now, nearly all of the _túath_ give fealty to a greater king, the _rí ruírech,_ who rules and leads the _cóiceda,_ or to a _ruirí,_ an overking who rules part of a _cóiceda,_ and who in turn owes fealty to the _rí ruírech._   But they're always making and breaking alliances," Heather said.  "And to make it even more complicated, there are also five surviving Viking cities that the Eirsh haven't managed to kick off the island yet."

She laid out slices of bread for the kingdoms and pieces of dried apple for the cities. "The five _cóiceda_ are Ulaid in the north, Mide in the center, Connacht in the west, Mumhan in the south, and Laighin in the east.  The cities are Vedrarfjord, Hlymrekr, Corcaigh, Veisafjord and Dubh Linn." 

As she placed each one, Hiccup did his best to tie them to what he knew about the geography of the island. 

"The _cóiceda_ and cities have a very unfriendly relationship; about a hundred years ago, Dubh Linn was actually abandoned by the Norse for fifteen years after getting chased off the island.  Then about twenty-five years ago, they had a big battle at a place called Clontarf, near Dubh Linn, which broke the power of the Vikings in Eire at the time.  I think something along the lines of ten thousand people were killed in the course of the battle, most of them Vikings.  But the High King of Eire, the _ard rí_ , Brian Bóruma, who had brought all of the _cóiceda_ under his control, also died in the battle.  So the cities and the Eirish still don't like each other."

As the others nodded, Fishlegs added sardonically, "An unfriendly relationship based on war, thrall-taking and raiding?  Say it ain't so!"

"Exactly, love.  Dubh Linn is the biggest thrall port in the Isles; Eire produces three things for trade—wood, cattle, and people, and the Viking cities are the ports of sale."

Hiccup grimaced, and his father's rumble behind him startled him.  "Aye, and I'm more or less waiting for the other cities to pick a fight with us before doing to them what we did to Vedrarfjord."

Heather smiled at Stoick, who had come up silently behind Hiccup and was also listening intently.  "That would be amazing." 

"And a headache, but if they're responsible for that much thrall-taking, I'd consider it worthwhile."  He motioned for her to go on.

Heather grinned at him, and then continued.  "The _cóiceda_ and the various petty kings are the larger concern; they're all engaged in this constant fight for one-upsmanship—have you heard the Táin Bó Cúailnge?"  There were nods from everyone except Wulfhild, who looked disappointed and a little left out.  "It's a very Eirish tale," she said and turned to Wulfhild, "and basically is one of the stories of their great hero of the Ulaid, Cu Chulainn, fighting back against an attempt by the Connacht queen to steal the great stud bull Donn Cúailnge, so that she can equal her husband's possessions."

Astrid smirked.  "You forgot the part where the Hero is our age."

"Yeah, although he's as far from Hiccup as you can get," Heather said with a wink.

Hiccup made an overblown grimace and gasp, clutching at his chest dramatically.  "You wound me!"

Astrid snorted and gave a light punch to Hiccup's arm with a roll of her eyes. "Definitely get one of the skalds to sing it for you later," she said to Wulfhild, who nodded. 

Heather waved her hand to recapture everyone's attention.  "But you get the idea from that.  If _Beowulf_ is the Norse tale held up as how to live—or was, given the whole 'dragonslaying' thing—then Cu Chulainn's tales are the Eirish equivalent.  And they do their best.  The _cóiceda_ and all of the petty kings are constantly competing for prestige and status against one another.  And so it's this _mess_ of them raiding and warring on each other one month and being allies the next and then back again."

Stoick grunted.  "Aye, it's a fine mess."

"Gets worse," she said.  "That's the general background.  But the details get even messier."

"How so?" Hiccup asked.

"Well, Ulaid's traditional territory is currently split between the _cóiceda_ of Ulaid, and a different group—basically a dynasty—called the Uí Néill _._ They control territory in both north and central Eire.  So, if the _rí ruírech_ of Ulaid is sending a request for alliance, I know what _he_ wants for his Yule gift. "

Stoick grunted again.  "Aye.  That much I knew—and saw coming.  I just wonder why it took this long."

"Pride, I'd guess," Heather said with a shrug.  "Niall mac Eochada is his name, and he's been _rí ruírech_ of the Ulaid _cóiceda_ for about twenty-five years, and is supposedly as stubborn as you are, Chief."

Hiccup deadpanned, "Nah.  He can't be.  Nobody's that stubborn."

As Stoick gave Hiccup a flat look, Astrid snorted.  "Like you're one to talk."

There were chuckles around the table.

Heather shook her head and said, "I don't know as much about him as I do about the king of Dubh Linn, Ímar mac Arailt, who I was going to be… given to," she clutched at Fishlegs for a moment, who put his arm around her, "but I learned a bit about him."

Hiccup nodded.  "Take your time."

"Just not, you know, too much, because they're almost here," Astrid said with an understanding smile. 

Heather nodded.  "Like I said, I don't know too much, but he's managed to invade Dubh Linn for captives twice, but that was before any of us," she indicated the younger people around the table, "were born.  He's known to be straightforward, blunt, and brutal.  He trades a bit with Dubh Linn, selling them war captives, and then attacking the city.  The other cities are further away and harder for him to reach.  I doubt that he's on those ships, but he did fight a sea battle with Dubh Linn twenty years ago, so who knows?  He _is_ a stubborn man."

"What can you tell us about what else he might want?" Stoick asked.

Heather considered.  "The big point that comes to mind is that he's one of the primary rivals to Diarmait mac Máel na mBó, the _rí ruírech_ of Laighin; while all of the _rí ruírech_ want to be the _ard rí_ and rule all of Eire, those two probably have the best chance to actually manage it, and they both know it." 

Hiccup nodded.  "So he's going to want us to be mercenaries for him."

"Essentially, yeah," Heather said, and then shrugged.  "Beyond that, unless we want to talk about the particulars of Dubh Linn, I've got nothing.  I'm sorry that I'm not of more help." 

"It's more than I knew when I walked in here," Hiccup said.  Behind him, his father grunted in agreement. 

Then Picknose came running up.  "Fishlegs!  Oh, thank Tyr I found you!"

"What's wrong, Picknose?" Fishlegs asked the younger Jorgenson.

He glanced around the group and hesitated.  "It's…"  He bit his lip.

"What is it?" Hiccup asked. 

"We just found more damaged eggs!" he said.

"'More'?" Hiccup asked.  "As in, there already have been some?"

Fishlegs grimaced and nodded.  "We found one that had cracked open—from the _inside_ —last week on Frigga's Day."

Wulfhild blinked. "Oh.  _That's_ what you got dragged away from Heather's bedside for?"

He nodded and Hiccup grimaced.  "Any idea of what caused it?"

Fishlegs shook his head.  "I thought it was a fluke, which is why I didn't mention it."  He shrugged.  "Nineteen thousand eggs… and I talked with Mulch about his chicken egg-hatching rates, and he says that he rarely gets more than eight in ten to hatch.  The Changewings and Terrors that help us out down there didn't seem surprised, so I figured that it was just a sad anomaly."  He bit his lip.  "Now…?  I don't know."

Hiccup nodded.  "Go check on it."

Fishlegs gave him an affirmative nod.  "Will do."  He turned to Picknose.  "Show me."

Hiccup watched them go, wondering what was going on… but knowing that the best person they had to handle it was on the case, so he could put it out of his mind without worrying.  And that was good, because it was time to get ready to formally greet their visitors. 

He, Astrid, Wulfhild and Stoick left the hall and returned to the chief's hut.  Astrid helped him with his formal clothing, which was starting to fit better than it had over the summer, and he shook his head in amusement.  A year ago, it had been peaceful, and quiet, and the biggest issues they'd faced were Mildew's attack on Stormfly and his dragon-launching catapult destroying itself.

Now kings were risking sailing in winter just to talk to them. 

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

The door to the hospice room opened, and Harald and Jorn entered, flanked by several of the other senior Varangians. 

Snotlout swallowed painfully—and not just because of his broken nose.

"Spatharokandidatos Sigurdsson," he said and gave a salute, as did Gunnar and Gudmund from their spots by the wall.

"At ease, Trondsson," Harald said, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at Snotlout… who felt weak, broken, and foolish.  "Thane Hallvarsson reported to me what he saw," he gestured towards Gudmund, "but he missed the beginning.  Can you make your report?"  His eyes narrowed and he motioned to one of the thanes by the door, who closed it.  "Your _full_ report?"

Snotlout nodded, which set his head to spinning.  "I… I had just sold off some of my loot from the _polutasvarf_ in the marketplace, and was walking back to the palace when they jumped me and dragged me into the alley."

Harald nodded.  "Four-on-one odds from ambush?"

Snotlout gave a small, painful nod.  "Uh… there was one of them on each arm and another holding back my head, while… while the _fourth_ one worked me over."

Harald pursed his lips, and narrowed his eyes at Snotlout's emphasis.  "And quite a job of it he did, too.  You'll get to keep all of your teeth, but you'll be eating soft foods for a while."

"And try to keep from sneezing," Jorn added helpfully.  "It might hurt.  A bit."

Snotlout gave him his best _oh, aren't you so funny_ glare.

"Then what happened?" Harald asked.

Snotlout exhaled and said, "I told them to take my moneypurse… and then the fourth man spoke in Norse."

Harald nodded.  "And what did he say?"

Snotlout blinked and screwed up his eyes, trying to remember.  He felt fuzzy from whatever it was in that foul syrup that they gave him for the pain, but after a moment, he remembered.  "I… I identified him… and he responded…"

Harald held up a hand, "I've already been informed as to who is responsible… and his motivation."  He glanced at Gunnar and Gudmund.  "That individual does not have an alibi for the assault, and I've seen his hands—although he claims that he injured them while training.  Short of an accusation from you, I cannot do anything at present."  He leaned forward.  "So… what did he say?"

"When… when I asked him why… because he's backed down before…"  He glanced to Gudmund, who nodded in corroboration.

"Thane Brandrsson threatened Thane Trondsson in the barracks last month, drawing a weapon and declaring intent to inflict bodily harm, but disengaged after being censured by the senior Varangians present," Gunnar said precisely. 

Harald nodded.  "Good.  That means witnesses if it comes to that."  He turned back to Snotlout.  "What else did he say?"

Snotlout blinked and then screwed his eyes shut, trying to remember exactly what Kormak had said.  "Said it wasn't fighting… that it was sanctioned punishment… for having violated my oath to the Emperor."

"On what logic?" Jorn asked, sounding appalled.

"Because… because the Emperor wanted Hookfang… and I didn't give him up… and we're supposed to view the Emperor's desires as our orders," Snotlout said slowly. 

Harald quirked one eyebrow—the one that was already higher than the other—and said, "That's not how that works."

Jorn snorted.  "Aye.  If it was, Harald here would be long since dead!"

Harald gave his second a flat look that made Jorn chuckle.  "What?  It's the truth!"

Harald sighed and rubbed at his face.  "I suppose that it is."

Gudmund cocked his head.  "If I might ask, how so, sir?"

"Certainly!  It's relevant, anyway.  Harald's seen twenty-six winters," Jorn said cheerfully, gesturing towards his senior officer, who looked unamused, "and he's been here since he was nineteen.  And for the last five years or so, the Empress has been trying to get him to… _guard_ her… in her bedchamber.  Alone."

Gudmund's and Gunnar's jaws dropped open in unison, while Snotlout's stared with wide eyes. A moment later, Gunnar asked carefully, "Correct me if I am wrong… but is not the Empress forty years senior to the Spatharokandidatos?"

"Thirty-eight, Thane," Jorn said cheerfully.  "But Harald has managed to dodge that…" he glanced at Harald, who looked like he was considering warmly shaking Jorn—by the throat, "…particular duty.  And—"

"You're forgetting one thing, Jorn," Harald interrupted.  "She can't _order_ me into her bed.  She's already married, and therefore such an assignation has to be handled with at least some degree of deniability.  For Trondsson, he—and I—publicly denied the Emperor in front of the assembled court.  Which makes me wonder if this was actually _ordered_ by him—because I have heard of no such order—or if this was the result of creative interpretation by a man who has a grudge."  He folded his arms, looking irked.  "At the same time, it is a valid point.  The Emperor cannot _order_ you to give up your dragon without compensation or reason, according to rules and strictures of the Varangians.  We _are_ mercenaries, after all, and such a precedent would completely undermine our reliability."  He nodded towards the cross necklace dangling loosely from Sigurd's neck. "Prior to your conversion, he could have simply had you executed as a pagan, in accordance with the law," Snotlout heard Gunnar shift uncomfortably, "and then simply confiscated your property.  Now that avenue is closed to him, and he doesn't have many good options to act in such a manner."  He stroked at his neatly trimmed beard.  "That being said, there are legal ways in which he could still confiscate your dragon…"  He pondered for a moment.  "Trondsson.  Did he say anything else?"

Snotlout took a deep breath to reply, coughed, and then gasped at the pain in his chest, only made bearable by the fuzzy feeling from that syrup.  Gudmund came over and laid a comforting hand on his chest, which helped, and he managed a nod.  "Yeah… he, he said that, that I was popular… and people would be unhappy… if the Emperor just had me killed…  So they made it look like a mugging."

Harald cocked his head.  "Well, that rings true."

Jorn scowled.  "But he also could have figured that much out on his own.  So we don't know if he has the Emperor's backing or not."

"True…"  Harald said, clearly considering.  Then he looked up.  "You two," he said, looking at Gunnar and Gudmund. 

They both came to immediate attention.  "Yes sir!" they barked in unison.

"You're Trondsson's shadows until he gets healed up, and likely afterwards.  And aren't there a few more of you that are his friends?"

Gudmund nodded.  "Ketilbjorn Káresson, Hrafn Hrafnsson, and Thorred Folkmarsson.  We made the journey from Uppsala together."

"Good.  You're all on dragon-rider-guarding duty until further notice.  Work out watches between yourselves, and avoid any other traps."  Harald smiled unpleasantly.  "Such as any entrapment that might end with him being brought up on charges that end in confiscation of property."

Gunnar winced.  "There are a great many of those, sir.  And there are only five of us."

Snotlout coughed.  "Benjamin Axelsson."

"Who?"

"He's another… another friend I made.  During the _polutasvarf._   Seems like a nice guy," Snotlout said.

"I'll see if I can assign him as well," Jorn said with a nod.  "Also, Father Metaxas will be by to continue your studies, Sigurd."

Snotlout groaned.  "Can I pretend to still be unconscious?"

"No, and that's an order," Harald said, although he sounded amused. "Your orders right now are to heal and be ready.  Because this was just a love tap compared to how politics can get around here."

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

As the two Eire ships sailed into the harbor, Astrid worked to keep her face impassive, remembering the last time she had stood on these docks to formally greet new arrivals from a foreign court. 

Yngvarr's arrival had been so long ago, and her life had changed so significantly since then. 

At least this time she didn't have to deal with Spitelout's belief that she didn't belong there.  As the wife of the chief's heir and as the Master of the Dragon for Berk, she technically outranked _him,_ without even taking into consideration the morning gift's explicit authority over all of their dragon riders _._  

The cold seawater spray made her shiver slightly, not helped by the day's chill.  She was wearing a new fur cloak with a hood and a new naalbound shirt done in blue, but the gold armband that Hiccup had made for her wedding gift was a frigid spiral around her bicep. 

That didn't mean that it was coming off anytime soon, though.  She only removed it to sleep, having discovered that not doing so resulted in a pins-and-needles sensation in her lower arm upon waking, which was _agonizing._  

The ship came up against the pier and the gangplank was extended.  Astrid narrowed her eyes at the sight of it; maybe she was used to the smooth curves of a longship, but this vessel seemed much blockier to her. 

A middle-aged man, perhaps in his early thirties, well-dressed and wearing lots and lots and _lots_ of seawater-stained layers of fine wool, came to the bow of the lead ship.

"Greetings, great Dragon Lords!" he said in accented Gaoidhealg, bowing.  Astrid had to expend massive amounts of self-control to avoid rolling her eyes.  "I am _rí ruírech_ Eochaid mac Niall, co-king and son of _rí ruírech_ Niall mac Eochada of Ulaid!  I greet you all and thank you for your offer of hospitality, which is accepted with our profoundest gratitude!"

Astrid watched, holding herself politely rigid, as Hiccup bowed in response and stepped forward to perform his duty as herald.

"We welcome you under the bounds of hospitality, Eochaid mac Niall of Ulaid!" her husband said in his most pretentious Gaoidhealg.  "I am Hiccup Stoicksson clanheir Haddock, Herald of Berk."  He turned and started introductions.  "This is my father, Stoick the Vast, chief of the tribe, and my wife, Astrid Hákonsdoittor clan Haddock, Master of the Dragon—"

It was brief, but Astrid's eyes narrowed as she caught the moment of condescension and smirking assessment on the Eirish prince's face as Hiccup's back was turned. 

Hiccup didn't see it, however, and continued his introductions down the line.  "—our marshal and my uncle, Spitelout Clodgallsson clanheir Jorgenson, our steward and smith, Gobber 'the Belch' Oxwitsson clan Jorgenson, and our almoner, Princess Wulfhild Olafsdoittor clan Haddock of Norway."

Astrid kept a scowl from her face with difficulty as she again saw condescension and a brief smirk as the Eirish prince glanced up and down Wulfhild's body.  Oh, she knew what he was thinking well enough. 

Hiccup still hadn't noticed, and introduced their various dragons, to a murmur of awe from the Eirish—followed by a laugh as Toothless, looking irritated and cold, walked up behind Hiccup and gently whacked him with a paw before pointing his nose up to the village.

"I think that's our cue to get a move on," Hiccup said dryly. 

Eochaid smirked and stepped forward off of the boat, formally entering Berk's territory.  He reached forward and clasped hands with Stoick.  "I pledge to follow the precepts of hospitality, Dragon Lord Stoick."

" _Céad Míle Fálte_ ," Stoick said in Gaoidhealg.  Astrid remembered what it meant; literally, it meant _one hundred thousand welcomes,_ but the more general meaning was the Eirish oath of hospitality— _you are welcome, a thousand times, wherever you come from, whosoever you be._

_"Céad Míle Fálte,"_ Eochaid said and bowed politely.

The crews of both ships disembarked after Eochaid; they were all dressed in heavy winter clothes that were stained with seawater, and were making grateful comments about having reached land and safety. 

Stoick turned to the welcoming committee.  "There's a hot meal waiting for us up at the mead hall.  Let us retire there and welcome our guests!"

There were cheers all around.

###

**_Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

Gunvor Dugaldsdoitter marched into the rebuilt, if somewhat diminished, fortress of Vedrarfjord and threw her knife into the wall, where it quivered.

Her husband didn't even look up from the parchment on his desk.  Instead, he finished scribing his sentence, and then nonchalantly glanced at the knife vibrating in the beam about ten feet from where he sat, and dryly remarked, "You are managing to get quite the tight grouping on those." 

With an irritated grunt, she walked over and pulled the knife from the brand new scar on the wall, where it was immediately lost in the slightly lopsided circle of similar scars in the wood.

Walking back to the door, she threw the blade again into the wood, and remarked, "It's this or into someone's skull, and, while that's tempting, we're supposed to _lead_ these people, not kill them out of hand!"

"Oh, I know.  You said that yesterday," he said, making a new notation on the parchment; the waterwheels that Hiccup had designed were under construction, and the millstones and several of Hiccup's water-powered creations were being constructed as well.  "What is it this time?"

"Literacy classes!"

"I thought we funded those…"

"Oh, we did.  And they've started, and now all of the _other_ headaches are crawling out of the woodwork!"

"Well, are you sure that you're not simply scaring them out of their homes among the woodgrain?" he asked, deadpan, timing his question perfectly to be punctuated by another _thunk!_ of knife hitting wood. 

His wife glared at him, and he grinned before sobering.  "What's the problem?"

"On Berk, it's so normal as to be taken for granted now.  Children go to class, they're taught their runes, we go through a few reams of old scraped parchment and cleaned tree bark and a barrel of ink, they go through a phase where they write naughty words and giggle at their cleverness, and eventually become adults."

As she took a breath, he dryly commented, "And not all of them get past the naughty word stage, either."

She snorted.  "Aye, indeed.  Anyway, we've had it for, what, a hundred and more years now?"  She threw the knife into the wall again.  "Right now, I'm trying to imagine that we're reliving the same problems that my great-grandfather had to deal with, because _that_ had a positive ending."

"What sorts of problems?"  He made another note on the log of food stocks in the city; one of the wonderful things about Vedrarfjord was that, apparently and wonderfully, _it didn't snow here._   It was only a few hundred miles from Berk, but the multiple feet of snow that usually buried his home rarely arrived here.  So they could keep growing onions and the like right through the winter.  So they were working on farming as best they could.

"Argh!  All kinds!  We don't have enough teachers, even with our kin helping out, as they have work to do as well!  Also, the adults need teaching; I think only three out of ten have any familiarity with reading at all.  What language do they teach?  Gaoidhealg?  Norse?  This Latin of their Church?  And, I just found out," she threw the blade into the wall again, "the _freeman_ children are refusing to attend class with the _freedmen_ children."

Hákon put down his quill.  "Say again?"

"Apparently, at least _some_ of our new subjects would rather go illiterate than have to attend class with people who had collars around their throats three months ago," she said angrily. 

Hákon blinked.  "But… that's so…"

"Stupid?  Asinine?  Self-defeating?  Moronic?  Spiteful?  If you have any suggestions for words to add to the list, I'm listening!"  The knife _thunk_ ing into the wall again punctuated her words as an emphasis to her frustration.

He shrugged helplessly.  "What about asking their Church for help?"

"They're part of the problem!  I just came from their temple and a nice long chat with their priest!  And _he's_ looking forward to recruiting every promising literate person into their priesthood!  He's willing to help—on the grounds that I will basically let him kidnap anyone that shows proficiency into one of their monasteries!"

"You're joking."

"Nope!  And he also made it _very_ clear that we're not supposed to teach anyone to read _Latin,_ because they might inadvertently read that holy book of theirs, and they're not supposed to!"

Hákon cocked his head.  "But… wait.  I understand it being kept a mystery.  That's fairly normal.  Gothi doesn't talk about the inner secrets of the gods' worship and all of that.  But if they have it written down… doesn't that mean that it's supposed to be read?"

"Only by the priesthood.  Otherwise, it's a violation against the gods—sorry, their singular god—and a pretty nasty violation, from what I gathered."

With a shake of the head, Hákon looked up.  "Well, we can't do anything about that.  We don't even have any standing in their Church."

"Oh, yes.  I know.  He wants us to convert, as soon as possible."

"Not happening," Hákon said flatly.

"That's what I told him."  She grimaced.  "So, what do we do?  As tempted as I am to simply march in the children into the classes for their own good, I don't know how productive it will be."

He thought for a moment.  "How about a tax or a fine?  If the children aren't in school, their parents have to pay a fine?"

"Except many of the freedmen need the help of their children to make ends meet, and many of the ones not letting their children attend can afford a fee," she said back.

Hákon sighed.  "And given the difficulties I'm having with getting people to believe us about the Bed Rights and Food Rights… yeah." 

"Oh?" she asked.

"I didn't mention this to you?  I've been trying to get a count of everyone within the region we control… and they've been…" he grimaced and said, in a tone of deliberate understatement, _"difficult_."  He drummed his fingers on the desk.  "They are apparently trying to make us underestimate how many of them there are, because they're certain they're going to get taxed to Niflheim."

Gunvor scowled and crossed her arms.  "Then let them learn.  The ones that cooperate get the full support.  The ones that don't, don't."  She shrugged.  "If they're insisting on being Mildews, don't try to make them Mulches."

Hákon grimaced.  "Point."

She rubbed at her nose.  "And it probably doesn't help that our traditional way of counting people involves giving up a coin per person."

Hákon scowled.  "A single half-penny each!"

"Husband dear, there just isn't that much hard currency here.  Most people are still bartering if they're trading at all," she pointed out.  "Great-grandfather's system isn't going to work here.  At least not now."

He sighed.  "Point.  Well, in good news, Bladewit sent over the first pages of the Laws with the mail; she wrote that she tried to guess what we'd need first, and will send the rest as it is scribed."  He motioned to a packet on a nearby table.  "But we'll have to get them bound as a book later.  Also, Wulfhild, as our new almoner, wants to discuss how we're going to go about handling Bed Rights and Food Rights."

Gunvor scowled and rubbed at her nose in thought.  "There's no way that Gobber's old system of chits and such would work when we don't need rationing, right?"

"Also no central kitchen; we have mead _halls_ , plural.  And remember how people would end up trading them as coins…"  He suddenly looked up as a thought occurred.  "Gunvor?"

"Yes?"

"I have an idea on how to handle it, but it'll be tricky; we'll need to talk your grandaunt, Gobber, Stoick and probably Wulfhild to see if we can make it work," he said, trying keep the idea in his head before it danced away.  "But… but what if we figured out how much coin is needed by each person to pay for basic food and a bed in the barracks… and just give everyone that much?  That way, we don't have to keep track of who is sleeping where, outside of the barracks we've built, or who has eaten what?"

She looked at him, obviously thinking hard, and said, "The immediate problem that comes to mind is making sure that people don't go back for second helpings…  but we'd have that problem regardless."  Hands on her hips, she said consideringly, "Also, that would help with getting more coin out there into people's hands, which will be helpful for the next counting…"

"Aye," Hákon said enthusiastically.  "And that way, we also don't have to worry about chits and such going to waste.  Some will spend it on barracks housing and gruel, while others will use it for renting better quarters and nice meals."

"And some will spend it all on beer and end up passed out in the alleyway," Gunvor said with a sigh. 

"Aye, but we can keep an eye out for those and try to help them in other ways," Hákon said.  "And, well…"  He sighed.  "There are always those that pick fights with angry dragons, trying to lose."

They looked at each other as memories of long-lost faces surfaced.

Hákon shook his head to clear it and pulled out a freshly cleaned piece of parchment.  "Well.  Let's get this idea written up and sent off to your grandaunt and the rest, yeah?"  He addressed the sheet to Bladewit and started to scribe the idea down—and much less haltingly than he had a month previously.  The parchment had been scraped clean repeatedly and was starting to wear thin, but he didn't exactly have much choice.  Already, the demand and cost for parchment and ink had risen up into the clouds, and several people had come to him to ask for loans to start parchment-making and other businesses—and he'd given them, along with several others for other ventures. 

He just wished that someone knew how to make _paper._

###

**_Mead Hall, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Heather was bustling around in the mead hall; Magnhild, in her efforts to keep her out of the kitchen and range of harassment, had taken her off of prep and shifted her to serving.  So now she was carrying out trays of hot soup and bread to the sideboard.  The queue that had formed didn't seem any shorter when she returned with the next tray, and she expediently placed the tray on the sideboard whole, and returned empty-handed.  By the time she came out with the next tray, the previous one had been emptied.  Placing the full tray down and picking up the empty, she started to turn back to the kitchen.

Then she she saw a face in the crowd—and almost dropped the empty tray out of shock.

Red curls framing a freckled face set with green eyes stared back at her, her own shock mirrored in the other woman's expression… above the thrall collar barely poking out around the throat of her sea-stained cloak. 

Toiréasa.

Heather and her… former friend? fellow victim? stared at each other for several heartbeats, before Heather held up the tray and mouthed, _talk later._

Toiréasa nodded and picked up a bowl of soup in shaking hands.

Heather returned to the kitchens, her mind running like a puppy chasing its own tail.

Alvin had sent the other woman as a gift to Ulaid last year—which meant that she was almost certain a spy, just as Heather had been.  A spy without a master any longer, unless Alvin had somehow reestablished contact… which, if he had, would be an excellent chance for her to track him down and gain vengeance for what had been done.

Of course, that was assuming that… that… that Toiréasa was still… loyal… to him…

Heather gasped as it suddenly came together in her head.

She knew who Mhairi's mother was… and why her parents had been ordered to keep the _red-haired, green-eyed_ little girl safe.

Because Heather's adorable adopted sister was Toiréasa's leash.  Just as Murray and Griselda had been Heather's. 

"Heather?"

She looked up at Oof, who was staring at her in concern.  "Are you all right?"

She nodded numbly.

"You sure?  You were standing there for a bit."

"Just… crowded in there, that's all.  Lots of new faces," she managed to say.

He considered that, and pressed a full tray into her hands and took her empty one.  "Well, take this out, would you?"

Heather nodded numbly again.  There was one thought in her head—she had to tell Stoick, as soon as possible. 

But as soon as she walked back to the door, she heard the angry yelling.

"Thralls!  They've brought _thralls_ to Berk!"

###

Down in the Broodery, Fishlegs looked over the racks of eggs, trying to keep his sense of growing alarm at bay.  It was swelteringly hot down here, and he could feel sweat dripping down his body as he held the torch up for light.  Nearby, a Changewing crooned from its place on the ceiling; the person-sized dragons were being extremely helpful with running and managing the thousands of eggs down here—if their actions were occasionally inscrutable. 

The latest egg to apparently shatter from the inside had done so with enough force to spray the yolk all over stone floor and the neighboring eggs in the racks.  At least the smell of the oily tar on the torch was keeping him from smelling it, thank the gods.  And the baby dragon inside hadn't survived, either—not that he'd found any remains in the guttering torchlight. 

"How many does that make so far?" he asked.

Chuffnut clan Thorston groaned.  "Nine so far that we've found," she said, sounding anxious, overlaid with pain at the eggs lost. 

Fishlegs could totally empathize with that.  "I thought that the first one was a fluke, but another eight…"

Silence fell over the small group of Broodery workers, and then Wallnut clan Thorston spoke up.  "Are we _sure_ that it wasn't from someone coming in and smashing them?"

Fishlegs nodded and said absently, "Look at the spray.  The shell isn't smashed from the outside in, but from the inside out."

"But how can you be sure?  Someone could have come and smashed it and made it look that way," Wallnut insisted. 

"But the door is locked," Fishlegs pointed out.

"Oh, please.  Ruff and Tuff taught me to pick locks.  I could get that door open in a few minutes if I wanted," Wallnut said.

Chuffnut grunted in agreement.  "Yeah.  That lock was there to keep the babies from escaping the nursery more than anything else."

Fishlegs frowned.  "I guess you're right, and I might be jumping to conclusions."  He hauled himself to his feet, sick of looking at the spilled yolk, nearly black in the dim torchlight against the pale stone.  He looked around.  The walls of the overheated tunnels were lined with wooden racks.  If not for the Timberjacks being able to cut planks with incredible speed, they never would have been able to build it all in the time that they'd had. 

Hiccup had come up with the elegant solution, of course—and Woodnut and the other carpenters were already using the same design for the main storage tunnels.  The racks were a vast grid, with the squares rotated so that their sides were at a forty-five-degree angle to the floor.  Notches cut into the long planks at regular intervals—using a jig that Hiccup had crafted—fit tightly into each other, letting the planks hold together without need for nails.  Instead, their own weight let them stand assembled—and to extend the racks, all they needed was more long notched planks.  It was a significant improvement over Fishlegs' first idea, which had been essentially endless rows of bookcases.  But this worked incredibly well—it let them put one egg per cubbyhole, and the regularity of the layout was making Fishlegs think of numbering them for next year so that he could keep better track of the hatching.

But with each cubbyhole measuring just about a foot on a side, there were over nineteen thousand cubic feet.  Fishlegs had done the math, just for his own visualization, and that would have been a solid block measuring roughly twenty by twenty-five by forty feet, after rounding up to twenty-thousand.  Except that they needed to flatten it out so that they could access every single egg… which took that block, which was the size of a large _house,_ and stretched it out by a factor of ten—or more, when you considered the solid rock's volume, plus the space for the fires below that heated the whole place. 

As it was, Fishlegs had forty-three people and forty-eight dragons helping him down here, and he wished that he had more.  But it wasn't like the tribe's other labor needs had just vanished, and with a tenth of the tribe having left for Vedrarfjord with Astrid's parents, it was a pinch all around.  And while the dragons helped with the village labor needs—a lot—they also required a significant amount of labor to take care of, just in feeding them, if nothing else.  They'd used up nearly all of the salt and brine they'd stored over the last nine months laying down enough salted fish to last them through the winter.

And now… there was this issue. 

He looked up at the Changewing dangling from the ceiling, and, not for the first or last time, really wished that he could hold a proper conversation with it. 

Although, to be fair, if he _could_ talk to dragons, he'd be chatting with Meatlug to the point that Heather might get jealous. 

With a sigh, he turned to the others.  "Show me the other busted eggs."

With a nod, Chuffnut turned and led him deeper into the tunnels.  Hiccup had done his best to get the Whispering Deaths to carve them in straight lines, but they hadn't completely listened to him.  As a result, the tunnels meandered a bit. 

And it was _so_ hot…

They regularly brought in barrels of water—or snow, so it would stay cool longer—for people to drink from, and they _still_ had people pass out every so often.  It was like a sauna in here—and in some spots, where the heat seemed to collect, almost like an oven. 

But given that the air was heated from blowing over an iron plate three yards wide and four yards long, which glowed cherry-red from the giant bonfire underneath it, maybe calling it an oven wasn't the worst comparison.  The smoke rose up a separate shaft and exited near the Rookery, and Hiccup was planning on figuring out a way to hang food in that shaft so that they could turn it into a giant smokehouse.  And that smoky air was also still warm—if not as hot as the fires were—meaning that it rose, and the dragons loved using the warm upwelling to carry them up into the sky.

They walked along—and then Fishlegs heard something.  Like a soft thud, followed by a squelching noise. 

"Did anyone else hear that?" he asked.

Wallnut cocked his head.  "Hear what?"

Fishlegs turned and went down the corridor that he thought that it had come from.  The light from the torch guttered as the flame popped, and he almost missed the mess on the floor.

Almost.

The inside of another egg was spattered around on the ground and opposite rack, with some of the yolk still dripping down onto the floor.

He knelt and looked at the mess.

"What is going _on_?"

The remains of the egg didn't answer.

* * *

 

**A/N: Whee!  I'm back!  And next week is one year since I started posting this fic, so, yes, there will be an update on April 1st.**

**In other news, I missed registering for the March German exam (it's the TELC-A1, if you're curious as to the specifics) by three days, so I'm instead going to take it April 20th.  So the next four weeks are going to be lots n' lots of drilling and practice for me, although I found a practice exam and have been getting decent scores on it, so that's good.**

**For fandom stuff, I reached a personal milestone: I got recc'ed on the TVTropes Fanfic Recs page for HTTYD, which was something that I've been hoping for since before I started posting.  Woot!**

**Also, the reactions to last chapter's reveal of Viggo had me floating through most of the last month.  So thank you to everyone that responded with your shock and profanity.  ^_^  (And I'm curious as to the reactions for _this_ week's chapter...)**


	43. …Is Mightier…

 

**Chapter 43:** **…Is Mightier…**

_To modern eyes, the historical emphasis on the importance of hospitality between guests and hosts seems to be of exaggerated, even absurd levels of importance.  We forget, with our modern mass transportation systems, or even just the freedom of movement that dragon-riding grants, that prior to the domestication of dragons, a journey of twenty miles was a day's trip by foot, with no guarantee of shelter or food at the end of it, except for hospitality.  Thus these rules resulted from tradition, practicality, and social necessity in order to keep peace between neighbors._

_Further emphasizing hospitality's importance, in nearly all pre-dragon societies and religions, hospitality was mandated by divine decree or example._

_…the Norse religion's canon offers up the_ Hávamál, _with the oral antecedents of the text dating prior to the Reformation, which details significant instructions on the duties and responsibilities of hosts and guests, dictated by Odin as wisdom and instruction on proper behavior…_

_…the Abrahamic religions all have strong injunctions and passages about the importance of hospitality.  Beginning with Abraham himself, he offered bread and gave a feast to guests and was blessed—and the subsequent passages deal with Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities that routinely and violently breached hospitality and were destroyed in divine punishment…_

_…Hinduism tells of the god of death, Yama, in the story_ Nachiketā, _who returned home after an absence to find that he had kept a guest waiting for three days.  Having violated hospitality by causing trouble for a guest, even unknowingly, Yama offered his guest three boons, and revealed secrets of the gods in the act of fulfilling them…_

_—Nationbuilding: How People Move, Talk, Think, Organize, & Structure Themselves, 1888, Amsterdam University Press_

**_Mead Hall, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

**_December, AD 1041_ **

 

"Thralls!  They've brought _thralls_ to Berk!" Stoick heard Sven the Wise bellow.  Stoick looked up and saw the Hofferson clansman pointing his finger accusingly at the red-haired woman seated among the Eirish at the mead hall's table. 

All heads turned and stared where Sven was pointing.  Angry voices started to spread through the hall, while the Eirish were looking confused and defensive—it seemed that while most of them could understand Norse, their skill with the language varied.  However, Stoick's focus wasn't on them, but on the young woman that Sven was pointing at.  He saw that, yes, there was an ornate collar around the woman's throat.  Until now, it had been lying unnoticed in the folds of her cloak.  She was cringing and trying to draw back into herself.

There was a sound of wood against stone as half a dozen Hooligans pushed their benches away from their tables and turned towards the Eirish—and as their hands reached towards weapon hilts, Stoick bellowed, "Stand down!"

The incredulous looks turned towards him.  "Stoick!  They brought thralls!  It's a slap in the face to everything—" Sven the Short started to say.

"I _swore to give them hospitality!"_ Stoick roared out over the tumult—which quieted as people paused and exchanged sickened expressions at the reminder.  "Less than an hour ago!  They are our guests!"  His eyes narrowed.  "Regardless of what… ill choices they might have made in their staffing."  One by one they reluctantly nodded, even as they variously scowled, grimaced, or clenched their fists. 

"But the law says that any thrall that sets foot on this isle goes free!" Thicknut clan Thorston rebutted, glaring with narrowed eyes at King Eochaid, sitting near Stoick at the high table.

The king looked to Stoick.  "What seems to be the problem?" he asked politely, and something in his tone irked Stoick. 

"There is an issue with one of our laws… and your… _servant_ there," Stoick said, nodding towards the thrall-woman.  "In fact… one moment."  His gaze sought out Bladewit, who was thankfully present.  "Lawspeaker!  I have need of your guidance and wisdom!"

She looked at him in surprise—and then her eyes narrowed.  "Aye, Stoick?"

"In this case, which takes precedence—freeing thralls… or hospitality?"

Everyone turned and stared at Bladewit, who looked as if she'd just found half a worm in her apple. 

"Allow me to think and confer with the other Lawspeakers," she said flatly, and beckoned to the other jurists present in the hall.  They gathered and went into a side chamber.

The hall was quiet as they left, but it was a quiet born of shock and fury, not any sort of peace.  People were giving angry looks at the Eirish, and pointing out the thralls, of which there were three—the red-haired beauty that Sven had pointed out, another woman with dark brown hair and a mousy demeanor, and a man with darker red hair. 

Eochaid was looking at the proceedings, curious, and asked Stoick after several minutes, "So, now that we seem to be waiting for your brehons to pass judgment, what are we being _tried_ for?  Exactly?"  He seemed amused. 

Stoick kept from scowling, and said flatly, "By our laws, any man or woman held as chattel to be sold is a freedman as they step onto our shore."

Eochaid cocked his head.  "Truly?  And here I thought that was bardic exaggeration!"  He still seemed amused… but there was an air of contempt to it as well that set Stoick's teeth on edge.

"No exaggeration at all," Stoick said flatly.  "It is a matter that is of deeply held importance to the whole of the tribe."

Nearby, Hiccup, Astrid and Wulfhild were trying to get people to return to their seats and their food as the Lawspeakers conferred.  Stoick gave Hiccup a grateful look and was given a brisk nod in reply. 

Eochaid gave Stoick an assessing look.  "Hmm.  Well, as my host, I will have you know that I am finding this of immense interest."  He turned and pointedly looked at the door to the chamber with the increasingly-loud Lawspeakers inside, whose indistinct shouting was audible to Stoick.  "It would be _good_ to be able to say to others that you are a lord who holds the tradition of hospitality truly sacred."

Stoick grunted in noncommittal reply, and then said, "This is a situation without precedence."

"How so?"

"We've never had anyone visit as a guest who brought thralls with them," Stoick said flatly.  "All of the thralls we've freed have been taken in raids or arrived as runaways."

"I see.  Well… this will be interesting indeed…" Eochaid said dryly, and turned, seemingly nonchalant, back to his soup.

Meanwhile, the hall was still tense, and people were watching the discussion with rapt interest. 

Finally, after a nearly interminable wait—that probably was only a scant passage in reality—the Lawspeakers emerged from the side room.  Bladewit turned and looked at him, the lines around her eyes drawn deep and the skin white with tension, and said, in a voice which suggested that she was speaking in spite of a deep stab wound, "Hospitality has precedence."

The assembled tribe, a hundred-plus strong, roared in protest, but Stoick waved them down.  "How so, Lawspeaker?"

"On several points.  First, they were already under the protection of hospitality before they officially disembarked and reached Berk's shores.  Second, _as of this moment,_ legally, until they undergo the _frelsis-öl,_ they are still… still property, with the rite marking the transition.  Ergo, freeing them from… from their current bondage would be… akin to theft from a guest, which is a violation of hospitality.  Third, we passed the law as a legal formality to… to mark it such that freedmen who came to our shores fleeing their old masters or taken in raids would be automatically freed… but now, these thralls are still in custody of their master, so we do not know if it is still applicable.  And the… the _guest,"_ she gave a brief, venomous look at Eochaid, "accepted hospitality in good faith and we cannot suddenly impose new terms to the hospitality after the fact."  She visibly swallowed in discomfort.

Stoick nodded.  "I see."

"All of that being said, the general opinion is that we should immediately attempt to push for their emancipation… perhaps through compensation to the guest in question," she said.

Stoick nodded again.  "Thank you, Lawspeaker Bladewit."  She bowed stiffly and sat.  Meanwhile, the hall broke out into whispers and mutters as the assembled tribespeople took in what she had said.  Several were already trying to find holes in the logic of the Lawspeakers.  Stoick turned to Eochaid.  "So, what do you say?  We'll compensate you for your three thralls, and we'll move on from there to the purpose of your visit?" 

Eochaid smiled unpleasantly.  "Oh, I think not.  I think that I'd prefer to discuss this… _properly_ … in our negotiations."  He nodded towards the beautiful red-haired woman who was looking uncomfortable at being the center of attention.  "She was a gift, actually.  Trained in the arts of the bedchamber to exquisite heights.  Such a rare and beautiful creature is not the sort of beauty that one finds—or sells—on a lark!"

Stoick had to remind himself that this man was his guest, and punching him in the face would make him into an oathbreaker before the gods.  If Thor and Odin could sup with the _jotunn,_ he could manage not to beat in the face of a rapist thrall-holder—even as he heard, in the back of his mind, his mother's voice telling him stories of what _happened_ to pleasure-thralls, and his throat filled with bile at the thought of showing hospitality to a man to whom 'yes' or 'no' had no meaning.

"I see," he managed to force out.  "And what, exactly, are you here to negotiate for?"

"Ah, no need to rush things now, is there?  In all likelihood, I'll have to overwinter here, as the sea conditions will only get worse.  We have lots of time to talk."

Stoick kept from frowning through heroic effort—because the smarmy Eirishman was right…

"You'll at least consider it?" he asked. 

"Oh, certainly.  And a tribe with your fabled wealth and power will certainly be able to afford taking them off of my hands, however much I might miss them when I leave," he said, smiling and finishing his bowl of soup.  "Ah, delicious.  My compliments to the cooks."

Stoick nodded and hid a scowl… even as he reminded himself that this was better than it had been the year before last.  Back then, when he'd had guests, the efforts to avoid insulting them had been in desperate attempts to keep them from calling insult and declaring war.  Bran mac Muchada, King Echmarcach of Mön's herald, had been particularly prickly—the man had wielded his liege's greater strength like a cudgel, and had deeply enjoyed every moment of making Stoick's tribe dance to his every whim for fear of war, and had still exacted a punishing tribute each year.  Stoick had taken such great satisfaction this past Thawfest when the man had shown up with tribute of his own. 

Still, he had the duties of a host, even if he was taking an instant dislike to one of his guests—and as he saw Eochaid giving covetous glances in Astrid and Wulfhild's direction, he said mildly, "By the way, you are not the only guests that I am currently playing host to this winter."

"Oh?" Eochaid asked in a half-interested tone.

"Aye.  We have a number of members of one of our allied Norse tribes here—the Bog Burglars of Deheubarth," Stoick said.

Eochaid cocked his head—and then started to laugh.  "Oh, them!  So they came here?"

Stoick narrowed his eyes.  "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, they came to Ulaid—assuming that it's the same ship, but I doubt that there are two such vessels at large in the Eirish Sea—only a few weeks ago, asking to overwinter."  Eochaid gave Stoick a guileless smile.  "And we said yes, of course.  And then one morning after only a few days, we awoke to find them gone!"

Stoick couldn't help himself. "Was anything missing?"

"Just some provisions that they had asked the cooks for."  His smile to Stoick grew even larger.  "Well, maybe you'll have the luck that I didn't!"

"What… luck?" Stoick managed to say.

"Well, that beautiful blonde, what was her name, Camilla, yes, that's it, I was certain that she would succumb to my charms before winter's end, but then she up and vanished!"  He gave an exaggerated disappointed sniff, and then his smile returned.  "But you said that she's here!  So I can resume my—"

"No," Stoick said flatly.

The levity drained out of Eochaid's face.  "I'm not used to being told what I can and can't do."

"She is my guest," Stoick said just as flatly as before.  "If your attempted seductions were enough to send her fleeing here—"

"Oh, please.  I won't force myself on her.  I wouldn't violate hospitality that way.  But unless you're already bedding her, then—"

Stoick slammed his hands down on the table, rose, and loomed over Eochaid as everyone around them stared at him.  "I will hear your petitions for negotiations.  But if you or your people lay one unwelcome hand on mine or my guests…" he trailed off ominously. 

Eochaid seemed unperturbed.  "Well, I guess that I'll just have to not be unwelcomed, then."

Stoick bit his lip and sighed, aggrieved. 

Lord Odin had _better_ be impressed with him when this was all over. 

###

People were muttering angrily at the mead hall tables as Astrid walked past them to get a fresh bowl.  She'd heard enough snatches from enough conversations to know that people were pissed with the Eirish for bringing thralls with them and then hiding behind hospitality.  Nobody seemed to be blaming her father-in-law… but instead, they were all _certain_ that the Eirish were going to demand dragons in trade for the thralls… and nobody was happy about that.

If for varying reasons. 

Astrid frowned as the heat of the soup bowl warmed her hands.  Some people were objecting because it would effectively be selling dragons into thralldom, and that just exchanged one thrall for another. 

Others… others were objecting because it would further break their near-exclusivity over dragons.

And that didn't sit well with her… and she knew that it would infuriate Hiccup.

She returned to the high table, where the Chief's family and noble guests were seated, and sat down next to Hiccup; on his other side was Wulfhild, who had a sheet of parchment, a quill and inkpot out.  She was conferring with Gobber on where to _put_ everybody—and was frowning.

A sudden clatter next to her drew Astrid's attention, and she turned to see Cami, her spoon still quivering on the table and her bowl of soup sloshing in one hand, staring daggers at the Eirish king, who was returning the glare with a smarmy smile. 

"You okay, Cami?" she asked quietly in Norse.

Cami scowled, but nodded.  "I wonder how he figured out that I was here."

"I don't know if he did or didn't, but Stoick already threatened to throw him out if he treats you poorly," Astrid said, continuing to speak in that low tone of voice.

Cami's lips curled in an unpleasant smile.  "Good.  I'll keep that in mind if he can't keep his hands to himself."

At Hiccup's other hand, Wulfhild finished counting, and then said, "Between the Bogs and the Ulaid… and keeping them separate… we're now officially out of beds.  And I still need five."

There was a mild chuckle from down the table, and she looked up to see Eochaid giving Wulfhild a patronizing smile, but he didn't say anything.  It was still better than the leers he'd been giving her and Wulfhild and now Cami.

Gobber leaned over and gave a pondering look.  "Put them up in Mildew's house," he suggested after a moment.

"Couldn't happen to a nicer guy," Astrid said, smirking… which faded as Gobber shook his head.  "What happened?"

He gave her a sidelong look, and said quietly, "Astrid, nobody has _seen_ Mildew since the Anglos came.  And maybe not since Magnus' wedding."

She blinked.  "What?"

"He vanished.  Gone.  Poof.  Stoick broke down his door and found the place empty," Gobber said.  "He clearly left, but to where, why, and how, we have no idea."

"I… didn't even notice." 

Cami, her tone sarcastic, simply breathed, "I wonder why…" looking with a smirk at Hiccup.

Astrid gave her cousin an unamused look. 

Cami replied with an innocent smile.

Rather than get into _that_ , Astrid instead chewed over her memories, trying to remember the last time she saw the old hermit.  But that was not helped by the fact that he _was_ a hermit.  Come to think of it, yeah, the last time she could remember dealing with him at all was the night of the attack…

They'd been scouring the island for materials to make the firecocks with, and she'd tried his hut in desperation for more jars.  And he'd given her a sack of a dozen glass jars through a half-opened door with a scowl.  Before she'd even had a chance to thank him, he'd slammed the door in her face.  She'd shrugged and gone back to the crafters with her haul of jars—and an hour later, they'd been dropping the new weapon on the attacking fleet.

"Well, if his hut is empty, that sounds like the perfect place to put some of our guests, then," she said. 

Wulfhild nodded.  "Hmm…"

###

**_Fortress of Einar Thambarskelfir, Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Tuffnut watched in awe as several of Vladimir's guardsmen and crew danced to the musicians' snappy tunes.  The tables had been pushed back, and the center of the hall, near the burning Yule log, had been cleared as a dance floor—and right now, the Rus' were coming and taking no prisoners.  Their dance featured huge leaping and spinning motions that had them bending themselves backwards or doing splits in midair, and down on the ground squatting and kicking with their knees up, with the rest of Vladimir's men setting the beat as they moved.  Everyone was clapping and cheering as the young men showed off.

Then Vladimir stepped forward and began to dance—and if his men had been skilled before him, he was a poem in motion. 

Tuffnut's jaw dropped in amazement as Vladimir's jumps and kicks made him wonder how the man was on the battlefield, given how crisp and strong his motions were.  He squatted and kicked at high speed, while his chest remained stationary, his arms crossed, and then leapt from the squat to a high kick that cleared higher than Tuffnut's eyes.  Landing lightly, he then leapt _again,_ this time into a split that touched his feet to his spread hands, and then he sprang into a series of leaping whirls, spinning in midair between lightly touching the ground, the baggy fabric of his trousers flapping in the air as he moved. 

Next to Tuffnut, Sigvatr, clapping along with the crowd, said cheerfully to Tuffnut, "You see why his nickname is Vladimir the Nimble?"

Tuffnut nodded enthusiastically, clapping along.

From up in the rafters and along the walls, the dragons whistled their approval at the humans dancing.  As Vladimir proceeded to make more incredible leaps, Huginn and Muninn flew down and started to fly in tight circles around the dancing Rus' prince, who grinned and incorporated their movements with his own. 

Eventually, the dances slowed, and the meal concluded.  Tuffnut wanted to ask Ruff if she'd be up for a flight, but she and Magnus vanished within a few moments.  As he went to leave, vaguely thinking of cornering Vladimir and getting some more Rus' training, he suddenly felt a hand touch his shoulder. 

He turned, and saw Magnus's fat regent Einar standing there.  "Tuffnut, could I have a moment of your time?"

"Uh, I didn't do it," Tuffnut said. 

"Do what?" Einar asked, looking puzzled.

"Any of it.  It was all Ruffnut's fault," he insisted by deep reflex.

Einar was giving him the most _baffled_ expression, but then seemed to gather himself and said, "I just wish to speak with you, not assign blame for any… possible actions you—or your sister—might have taken."

"Uh… okay?"

"Splendid," Einar said, and clapped him on the shoulder, and the two of them started to walk together.  They went out the doors and into the snowy courtyard, where the sound of the falling snow seemed to swallow all the noise.  The sun was already setting, judging by how dark it was growing—which was unfair, given how it had risen so late in the day to begin with.  Tuffnut was jealous; if he could get away with rising that late, he would!

Well, okay, he did, some days.  But other days he was dragged out of bed—sometimes literally—and made to do weapon practice.

Einar cleared his throat and said, "So, Tuffnut.  I've spoken with my son, and he says that you're one of his most… unique thanes, and that teaching you has been a rare experience."

Tuffnut grinned.  That was one way of putting it.  The other was that Eindride had a deliciously expressive face that was practically purpose-made for expressions of shock, surprise, incredulity, bafflement and bewilderment. 

"I was wondering, though, if you wanted anything else?" Einar asked.

Tuffnut cocked his head.  "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're the brother of the queen.  I was wondering if there were any ambitions that you might have.  Money… a title… lands…" he trailed off significantly, and looked at Tuffnut meaningfully.

Tuffnut cocked his head to the other side, and then said with a goofy grin, "The finest mace in all the kingdom and a live chicken to roost upon my head."

Einar gave him a flat look.  "Truly?  That is all?  A weapon, and a small bit of livestock?" 

"Um… yeah?  I suppose?"

Einar folded his arms, looking confused.  "That is all you aspire to?  A joke?  You have no greater ambitions?" 

"I mean… what else is there?" Tuffnut said, befuddled. 

"Oh, come now, lad, you can tell me," Einar offered with a smile.  "What is it that you _want?_   Fame?  Glory?  The thrill of conquest or exploration?  You can tell me."

"Um…"  Tuffnut stared at him blankly.  All of the stuff sounded nice… but… well…

He just stared at Einar, befuddled, and shook his head.  "I… no.  Not any of that."

"No?  None of those are your ambitions?"

Tuffnut shook his head.  "Sorry."

Einar's arms unfolded and he started to gesticulate angrily.  "You don't dream of great sagas sung in your name, or riches, or even the sights and explorations afforded to a dragon rider?  Your total ambitions sum to a _joke!?"_   He sounded offended.

Tuffnut rocked back on his heels… and blinked.  And then he stammered out, "I… I, I don't know."  He looked into Einar's face and felt a moment of something, a great and potent sense of befuddlement.  "I don't know."

There was a pause, and then Einar said softly, in the tone of a man uttering a curse, "You… you truly do not know, do you?"  He sighed.  "That's just sad."

Tuffnut didn't have anything to say to that, and so said nothing. 

Einar looked down at him, put his hands on Tuffnut's shoulders, and crouched slightly to look him in the face.  "Tuffnut… lad.  You're young.  But you _literally_ have the entirety of the world within your reach.  You will travel far, see great and wonderful things, speak to more peoples of the world than most will ever dream even possible, and be there to draw in the edges of the map.  You already fly through the sky on the back of a dragon, a feat that is of itself a near-miracle.  You've seen the top of a cloud, and looked down to see mountaintops far below."  He patted Tuffnut's cheek before placing his hand back on Tuff's shoulder.  "You've… you've seen things already that I, an elder of three score and more, find myself jealous of.  Your life is already a saga."  He leaned in and whispered harshly, "Does that saga end in a joke, with nothing more to be told… or is it just the beginning of something greater?  You are a man who has powerful friends.  Your sister is a queen.  You will be uncle to a king.  Even if it is just the desire to see the world and lay eyes on wonders that make you believe in God… find _something_ that drives you to be _more_ than you already are."  His lip curled into a sardonic smile.  "Or, you could continue with the flippant humor and amount to nothing more than a joke.  But if you do find something… tell me."

He patted Tuffnut on the shoulder and released him.  "You know where to find me.  And… Tuff?"

Tuffnut blinked, Einar's words still thundering through his head.  "Yeah?"

"I apologize for the harshness of my words… but to me, there is no greater waste than a man of potential who squanders it on trivialities.  And as one of the first dragon riders… your potential is perhaps unmatched.  And I would mourn that waste."  He gave Tuffnut one last, lingering smile, and then turned and trudged away.

Tuffnut continued to stand there, stunned, as Einar's words echoed in his head.

Snow started to settle in his hair in earnest. 

All jokes aside… who was he?

Did he even know?

Still staring at nothing, he eventually wandered back into the great hall, shivering, and got something to drink.  He sipped at it, not really tasting it, as he stared blankly into the fire.

What did he want?

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

Astrid walked into the chieftain's hut, fuming.  As soon as the door closed, she started swearing, at length and fit to curdle milk.

Glancing behind her, she saw Hiccup and Stoick share a look out of the corner of her eye.   Her father-in-law motioned to her husband, and, with a bit of hesitation, Hiccup stepped forward. 

"Well.  He's a jerk," Hiccup said, as Stoick went to get some ale from the barrel for all three of them. 

Her hands clenching and unclenching spasmodically, she grabbed the Damascus dagger from its sheath and flung it into one of the the wall posts. 

Hiccup just looked at the blade as it quivered in the wood, looked at her, wordlessly went over and pulled it out, and then handed it back to her. 

A moment later, it made another satisfying _thunk_ into the wood.  It was even more satisfying to imagine Eochaid's smarmy face centered under its point.  She was tempted to do what her mom did sometimes and have Hiccup made a crude sketch of him on old birchbark for her to use as a target.

Stoick handed her a tankard of ale.  Taking it, she downed a third of it in one pull as he took one of his own and downed half of it.  He set it down on the table and said, "He's more than just a jerk.  Although I'm wondering how much of it was genuine, and how much of it was there to make us angry."

"Why would he do that?" Hiccup asked. 

"To throw us off-balance for negotiating," Stoick said.

Astrid put her mug down as well.  "Does it matter?  He's still a pig that squeals when he sees a woman."

The door opened, and Gobber stuck his head in.  "Is it safe?  Has Astrid been disarmed?" he asked jovially.

"Ha ha, very funny, Gobber," she said sourly as the smith came in, Wulfhild following him.

"Can we put him up in Mildew's hut?" she asked.  "Please?"

"And then arrange for an avalanche?" Astrid asked with a smile.

Stoick snorted.  "Tempting… but we've given them the beds.  Now they can handle assignments on their own.  But if he or any of his men try anything on their hosts…"  An unfriendly smile grew on his face.  "Hiccup.  How hard would it be for you to deposit him in his father's fortress?"

Hiccup shrugged.  "Not that hard.  We have the net crews for it; we could get there in an afternoon, no problem."

"Good.  If I end up having to revoke hospitality, I want him home within the day—two, if the weather's bad," Stoick said.

Astrid gave a fist-pump of approval.  "Sounds good to me!"

There was a knock at the door.  They all looked, and Wulfhild turned and opened it.  Heather was standing there, the supplies for stocking the chief's hut in hand. 

She entered and looked around at all of them, and gave them a hesitant smile before heading for the sideboard and unloading the bread, meat, cheese, and ale.  Then she looked around.  "Chief…  can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Is it important, Heather?  We're a bit busy with the Eirish at the moment," Stoick said kindly. 

She nodded.  "Ohhh, it's _definitely_ important.  And relevant.  _Extremely_ relevant."

Stoick blinked.  "All right…" he said, as Astrid, Hiccup and Wulfhild all looked on curiously.  "What is it?"

Heather took a deep bracing breath, looked at all of them, and said in a rush, "The girl.  The Eirish concubine."

"Aye?" Stoick replied.

"I know her."

There was a pause as everyone's attention turned completely to Heather and sharpened.

Wulfhild was the first to manage to ask, "Know her… _how?"_

"You heard the king.  _I_ heard the king.  She was a gift…"  Heather paused and swallowed before saying in a tight voice, "from Adalwin ua Imair."

Astrid blinked.  "Oohhh…  She's a spy?"

Heather nodded.  "Her name is Toiréasa.  I never saw her trained… but she went through some of the same crap that I did."  She swallowed.  "And… and I think I know who her hostage was." 

###

**_The Vatican, Papal States, Italia_ **

 

Viggo looked over the stack of reports, having read them all and made his own notes since accepting the assignment. 

Well.  This would be very interesting indeed.  He, his brother and their squad of hunters had spent several years cleaning dragons out of the Alps, and had refined their techniques to the point where they now treated a hunt as a routine activity.  A dangerous activity, to be sure, but one whose risk was eminently manageable.  As a result, they had become quite wealthy, and his skills had come to the attention of the Church; he had spent a few years now as a lay brother of one of the more martial orders, which had also been useful for recruitment for his group. 

He had heard of the infestation in Northern Alba years ago, and had debated on ever going up that far north, but there had been enough work down in southern Europa to keep them occupied.  The entire reason that the Church had hired and recruited him and his people in the first place was because of the desire to keep the Italian Alps clear of the beasts that might prey on pilgrims. 

But now.  Well.  Unless he had misread things completely, apparently his distant cousins among the pagan Norse had managed to actually tame the beasts, beginning with a Night Fury. 

He had heard of Night Furies, one of the premier examples of the Strike-class that required special care and handling in slaying, and his squad had only succeeded at such a feat a relative handful of times.  Usually, the aggressive, intelligent and dangerous dragons flew off rather than engage, denying them the bounty.  The fact that this Hero—who was a boy named _Hiccup_ , a fact in which Viggo delighted for the sheer absurdity of it—had managed to catch and then tame one… well.  That was impressive, and Viggo gave a mental salute in appreciation of the boy's skills. 

He was looking forward to matching wits with the boy, that was for certain. 

Of the various reports, Harthacnut's personal notes were the most comprehensive on the boy, unsurprisingly; most of the remainder were simply scribbled messages from the fleet's clash with the dragons and riders, in varying degrees of hysteria and detail.  Viggo's personal favorite, in terms of the sheer hyperbole employed, was the nearly unhinged report by one officer aboard a ship that had been adjacent to the king's ship during the battle.  The man had clearly missed his own calling as a minstrel—and one of the particularly hysterical members of the breed, at that—given the overdone descriptions of the dragon attacks and the capture of the king in his report.  

Viggo did wonder what the weapon was which shattered on the decks, however, having noted the detail consistently across multiple reports.  No dragon that he knew of had such a weapon that dropped silently and invisibly to explode upon a ship's deck and engulf it in flames.  He considered, and set the point aside for later consideration, unwilling to come to premature conclusions.

He went back over the description of the young Hiccup, smiling slightly to himself.  Harthacnut had gone perhaps a touch heavy on the detail, which Viggo appreciated.  He felt a sympathetic pang when the boy's sinister nature was mentioned, and looked at his own left hand holding the quill, and smiled. 

Oh yes.  This was _exciting_.  It was a pity that he wasn't being given more leeway, but that was the Church bureaucracy for you.  His instructions were to scout, gather intelligence, and report back, and nothing more.  They didn't want to commit to anything, or, more precisely, they didn't want _him_ committing _them_ to anything. 

Ah, well.  There was always next trip.

What was more interesting was what _wasn't_ mentioned.  Information on the battle itself was plentiful.  But Viggo noted some _fascinating_ gaps in the information.  The value of the ransom that had been demanded was present—and hadn't _that_ been eye-opening—but there was no explanation of how it had been collected in less than a month, a discrepancy that was quite intriguing as to the possible explanations.  He knew that several of the deacon cardinalis suspected that the reported ransom was too much, and he knew that if he called their attention to that detail, they'd take it as support for their suspicions of exaggeration on Harthacnut's part. 

But he didn't think so. After all, it was reported that the Vikings had used dragon couriers for their negotiations with the English.  Using those to ferry the tax collectors around could explain a great deal about the speed of the collection… and doing so would get Harthacnut off of their hands that much faster.  And that would be a significant incentive, given his reputed personality. 

There were other points where there were gaps in the information given.  One of them had taken Viggo considerable effort to close, as it had been sparsely mentioned, but he'd found out _why_ Harthacnut had made his expedition in the autumn.  Only a handful of the reports included the detail of King Magnus of Norway being wed to one of the boon companions of this Hiccup Haddock, and there was no additional information on that point.  Simply the note that there was an alliance being forged between this _Berk_ and Norway.  And, he supposed, the specter of that sort of martial alliance—with berserkers mounted on dragons—would certainly be enough to give anyone reason to panic and do something stupid. 

But it was interesting that there was nothing more to it… and practically nothing from Harthacnut for the month of his imprisonment, either, beyond some descriptions of Hiccup and his father—and the details given for the father, this Stoick, were threadbare in comparison to the detailed description of the young man of whom Harthacnut had painted such a vivid word-portrait. 

Other gaps would present themselves, Viggo was sure; he'd only been at this analysis for a short while so far.  But, according to the summary letter from the king, he was sending along witnesses to be questioned as soon as he could.  Which meant that Viggo was going to go over every page that the courier had brought in…

He paused in consideration.

And then smiled.

The courier was still here in Rome.

Yes…

He would finish his analysis, so that he would know _what_ questions to ask, but as soon as he did that, he would have some questions for the man who had carried it.  And Viggo was certain that he wouldn't even have to get harsh with the man in questioning him, given that the man was fanatic enough to ride over twelve hundred miles in early winter in the space of a month.  Ah, it would be almost luxurious to have a cooperative interrogation for once!

###

**_Mildewed Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Toiréasa looked around the small isolated hut and cringed inside.  Eochaid had taken the hut as his own residence with a smile.  In here was herself, him, his manservant, his maid, and the two bodyguards.  Supposedly, they could only fit five people into the hut, not six… but it wasn't as if she would be sleeping alone. 

She shivered under her woolens, half from the cold… half knowing that Eochaid had chosen the hut partly for security, and partly for _privacy._ After the way that the Hooligans had reacted to her presence, he was unwilling to take any of the other beds that had been offered, given that they'd be in houses shared with their hosts.

Inside, her guts were writhing in agony.  She'd hoped against hope for news… but seeing Heather, damnable _Heather,_ here had shattered it.  Adalwin must still be out there, pulling strings, despite the conquest of his city.

But… that also meant… meant that _she_ was safe.  Otherwise, Heather would have been executed as a spy already.  So Adalwin was almost certainly still at large somewhere. 

But where, she had no idea.  Her last contact had been two months prior, and she'd been adrift ever since.  And now her position was in even greater danger.  If Heather was here, that meant that Berk was covered for Adalwin.  But if their freedman law was enacted on her, she was going to have to find some excuse to return with Eochaid. 

She didn't want to think of how Adalwin would react if he found out that she'd abandoned—however involuntarily—the assignment to which he'd set her.  So these well-meaning Norsemen—and wasn't _that_ a laughable concept?—were the greatest threat she had to deal with now. 

There was a knock at the door.  Eochaid wordlessly gestured to one of his guardsmen to open it.

When the man did so, Toiréasa stiffened.  Heather was standing there, a large basket in her hands.  "Hello.  I'm Heather, and I've been assigned by the chief to stock your household for the duration of your visit.  I have the household linens and such for you, sir," she said formally.  "May I enter?"

Eochaid's eyes swept hungrily over Heather's slender body, and Toiréasa felt a moment of angry satisfaction.  Into the lion's den walked the lamb…

But, no, behind her was the chief's son, his messy mop of russet hair visible above her shoulder, keeping watch on the actions of his guest.

And then Toiréasa's world shattered. 

"Hever, here!" called a young voice, and Toiréasa looked down—and only kept from gasping aloud by biting her tongue until she drew blood.

Mhairi, her beautiful daughter, her baby… was a baby no longer.  Now a toddler, she was walking behind Heather, a soapstone jug nearly the size of her torso clutched to her chest, proudly carrying it in as Heather busied herself with stocking the apparently-abandoned hut from the basket.  Toiréasa, trying to keep her breathing as silent as possible to keep anyone from noticing her reaction, helplessly tracked Mhairi as the little girl gamely deposited the jug on one of the tables, and then ran back out, only to return a moment later with a covered pot.  She brought that over to Cáit the maidservant, who took it, smiling.

"And who is this?" Eochaid asked with an indulgent smile, looking at the industrious little girl.  It was perhaps his one saving grace in Toiréasa's eyes, that he was extremely and genuinely fond of children. 

"This is Mhairi," Heather said with a nod. 

"Hever my sister!" Mhairi said proudly, carrying in a covered basket as big as she was.  "I helping!"

Eochaid grinned and gently patted the little girl on her head as Toiréasa tried to keep from vomiting from the sudden pain in her chest at her daughter's declaration.  She twitched as her owner picked up her daughter and gave her a whirl through the air, making her shriek with laughter, before placing her down by the door and mussing her hair with a fond pat on the head.

Mhairi giggled and ran off to get more supplies from the cart that Toiréasa could now see was sitting nearby.  As the hut was stocked, Toiréasa couldn't decide if she was upset or grateful that Mhairi hadn't approached her.  Because while she hadn't seen her child in over a year…

…if she'd come to Toiréasa, she would have shattered right then and there. 

She almost jumped when Heather came over and innocuously bumped into her as she placed more linens on the spare beds.  Toiréasa stiffened as she realized what had just happened, and only her training gave her the strength to keep from clawing at her clothes to find the passed message at that very instant. 

The rest of the hut stocking went quickly, and Toiréasa watched her daughter hungrily, drinking in every painful moment, taking heart in the glow of health and cheer that her child had.  She wondered why Mhairi was even here, on the island.  Did that mean Adalwin was nearby, keeping watch on his hostage to her good behavior?

She barely heard the platitudes that the chief's son spoke to Eochaid about the hospitality due to him as a guest for this hut, and pled the latrine almost as soon as he had left.

Her hands shaking, she found the finger-sized fragment of parchment slipped neatly under her belt almost the instant she had privacy.

_Mhairi safe.  I safe.  Talk soon.  Adalwin gone._

###

**_Boukoleon Palace, Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

In the barracks, the Varangians were singing Yule songs and passing around ale and beer. 

Snotlout sang along as best he could, a bit nasally thanks to the bandages, surrounded by his friends; he was up and about, and while he was confined to light duty while his face healed up, life was almost back to normal.  He'd taken each of his new cadre of… well, _bodyguards_ out for a flight on Hookfang already—even Gunnar and Gudmund, despite them having gotten flights on the trip from Uppsala.  Thorred had started composing some terrible poetry, and Snotlout had threatened to throw him off of Hookfang's back before he reached the end of the first stanza, which had made Thorred laugh until his face was red. 

Benjamin's reaction, though, had been everything he could have hoped for.  The lanky Dane had been dumbstruck at the sight, and had actually shed tears as he and Hookfang flew him above the heights of the hills.  The Sea of Propontis had stretched out before them, with the shimmer of the Eúxeinos Póntos visible as the horizon to the east. 

Ben had slotted into the group with ease; he was the senior Varangian of them, and enjoyed telling them all stories and giving them practical advice for how life was in the day-to-day goings-on of the Empire and the Army.  He hadn't been told about the specifics—just that there were people out there that didn't want the Empire to learn to ride dragons. 

But for now…

Snotlout was feeling homesick.

He was wondering who would get the Yule Goat this year; last year, before his cattle raid on the mainland, he'd managed to hide it in the rafters of the Ingermans' house, who had barely managed to get rid of it before the end of the holiday.  His mother would be cooking her traditional slow-simmered boar right now, tender to the point where the meat fell off the bone.  His sister would be throwing the wreaths around their brother's head.

Hrafn slapped him on the back, startling him out of his funk.  "Hey!  Smile!  It's Yule!  And we can walk outside without six layers of furs on!"

Sigurd nodded and grinned… which faltered when he saw Harald enter the room, Jorn at his side, and point at him.  Then he motioned towards the hall.

Sigurd handed his mug off to Hrafn and hopped to his feet, staggering only a little; the ale wasn't _that_ potent, even if he'd been drinking quite a bit. 

Gudmund followed him, and the four of them entered the corridor.  Jorn shut it behind them, and the sound of the singing quieted behind the thick wood.

"Yes, sir?" Sigurd asked, saluting.

"A point was just raised in discussion, Trondsson, and I realized that it would almost certainly become an issue," Harald said evenly.

"Yes, sir?"

"Training facilities," Harald said flatly.

Sigurd blinked.  "I… I don't understand."

"Infantry need training fields.  Cavalry need stables.  Archers need targets.  _What do dragon riders need?"_ Harald asked with hissed emphasis. 

Snotlout blinked.  _Oh, shit…_   "Uh…"

"Because, as was pointed out, before winter's end that capture fleet will hopefully be back here—and we'd better have a place not only to put the dragons, but to train them and their riders," Harald said.

Snotlout gulped.  "Point taken, sir."

"So… how did _you_ train, and how do we replicate that?" Harald asked.

Sn… Sigurd gave a smart salute, and said as charmingly as possible, "Get me some parchment and drafting materials, and I'll draw up a training facility like the…"  He trailed off as memories surfaced.

"Like what?"

Snotlout swallowed and said, "Like the one back home.  I'm… I'm sorry, sir, I'm just… remembering home.  It's Yule and all that."

Harald gave him an unreadable look.  "I see.  And can you still _go_ home?"

Sigurd stiffened.  "I'm not an exile, sir.  I'm just here to prove my worth, which I wasn't allowed to do back there," he said.

"Well, their loss," Harald said, and Snotlout felt a thrill spread through him at the offhanded recognition of his value.  "Jorn."

"Yes, sir?"

"Get Trondsson his drawing supplies, as soon as you can."

"Will do!"

Harald looked Snotlout over as Gudmund stood by silently like a dark shadow.  "And in the meantime… I hope that you weren't planning on enjoying too much of Yule."  He reached out and clapped Snotlout on the shoulder.  "You've got some drawing to do."

Snot… _Sigurd_ nodded.  "I won't let you down, sir."

Harald's lip curled slightly.  "Or yourself.  Remember who is first in line to get his own dragon?"

Sigurd swallowed, and managed to resist touching his broken nose. 

He'd had to take one other person out for a flight already—and Michael the Fifth had been a _terrible_ passenger, arrogant and demanding for the entirety of the time they'd been aloft.  But it had been thankfully uneventful otherwise, even though his shoulders had itched out of a fear of suddenly having a knife shoved between them.  But he couldn't turn down a direct order from his sworn liege, either.

The sooner that fleet returned, the better.

###

**_Village of Bun Ilidh, Alba_ **

 

Jarl Mildew put the bowl of fish in front of the beast, which twitched towards it before returning to the rigid position that he had beaten into it. 

Just like training dogs, really.  You had to show them who was boss.  The beast was nearly as big as he was now, but he had made it clear to it when it was smaller who was the master and who was the thrall, and he didn't hesitate to correct it when it showed any signs of disobedience.  He didn't flinch and he didn't show it fear.  He just showed _it_ why it should be afraid of _him._  

"Eat," he told it, and the beast moved towards the bowl and started swallowing the day-old fish as quickly as it could manage. 

"Stop." 

It froze, a fish half-out of its mouth, and looked up at him for a brief moment before hurriedly averting its gaze. 

"Spit it out."

Mournfully, it did so, and Mildew took the young Nightmare back to its cage before bringing out the next dragon.

Nearby, Mold sat, curled up on a warm stone, watching, occasionally blinking.  When the younger dragons broke their conditioning, which still happened occasionally, his dragon helped him control them.  Brutally and efficiently.  He still hated dragons, but he and Mold were cut from the same cloth, and they worked well together.  So, for his spiny friend, he was willing to make an exception. 

The dragons fed, he left the small underground stable where they were caged, and went to the village blacksmith.  The man was kept busy making and resizing collars and muzzles for the dragons as they grew.  Like a collared cormorant, while they wore the collars, the dragons couldn't eat—and he held the keys. 

Thus far, they'd all come back when they tried to escape, desperate for food.

Mac Bethad's soldiers fell in step behind him as he left the blacksmith.  Officially, they were his thanes, but he knew that they had orders to kill him if he showed signs of betraying the Alban king.  Certainly, he had his countermeasures in place, like his old friends on Mön and in Dubh Linn who would alert Stoick as to what he'd done if they didn't hear from Mildew after a certain period of time, but he was certain that his letters would be intercepted and tracked as he sent them. 

Well, no matter.  He had time.  And the spite to see him through it. 

So many scores to settle…

His chief…

The brat…

His brother…

His lips curled in a sneer.  The whole damned village, for that matter.  They could all go straight to Hel's tender mercies as far as he was concerned. 

He just hoped that he'd be able to enjoy the moment to the fullest when the time came and they, and all of their works, were destroyed.  He had no problems using the Alban king for that end.

And on that note…

Mildew entered _his_ hall, leaving the guards at the door, and paused inside the door with a smile.  While it was a small village, it was all his, every stick and person and sack of grain.  So long as he delivered results, Mac Bethad didn't care what happened here. 

After sixty years of being outcast, treated as one step above being banished, he was _finally_ being given the stature he _deserved_.

Inside the hall, seated at the table by the fire, was the king's spymaster, Taskill Thaddeusson.  The spymaster was a melancholy man about half Mildew's age, with dark red hair, almost the color of dried blood, with a few isolated streaks of gray at the temples, and was missing the top third of his left ear; judging by the scar, which left a streak of white hair through his scalp on that side, someone had once chopped him with a sword and probably laid open his flesh all the way to the bone. 

"Now, where were we before I had to handle that duty?" Mildew asked with a smile. 

"You were laying out advice on dragon-slaying for us to create a training regime around," Taskill offered helpfully, picking up a quill and being ready to take notes.

"Ah, yes.  Let's see… wings and tail are vulnerable if you wish to ground them," Mildew began, and continued on from there, detailing blind spots, shot limits and other vulnerabilities, giving what he knew about for specific types of dragons, all of which was eagerly written down by the spymaster—and all of it interspersed with details about Berk… that were subtly wrong.

Mildew had put a great deal of thought into this, and he was pleased to note that his reading of Taskill had been nearly perfect. 

"But what you have to understand about Stoick," he said, in the middle of a discussion on the best melee weapons to deal with dragons on the ground, "is that he's a greedy man."

"Truly?"  Taskill asked.  "I was getting a different impression."

Mildew shook his head.  "That just means that you're falling for his false front.  And perhaps _greedy_ is the wrong word.  He's… controlling.  I'm sure that you've heard of his comment that 'a chief protects his own,' yeah?"

Taskill nodded, eyes narrowed slightly.

"Well, I bet that you haven't heard the second half of that—'The chief's own follows the chief,'" he said.  "He was demanding and controlling over everyone, flaunting his wealth and power, browbeating anyone that didn't conform, like myself.  He loved to find people who were down on their luck from a dragon raid and offer them a loan from his own coffers, which made them beholden to him until they paid back the loan—which might take years!"  And that was the best kind of lie—the one that was the complete truth.  "You can just imagine how many enemies he had whose houses burned in the middle of the night during a raid, and who suddenly found themselves in debt to him."  Meaning that, by Viking honor, they could take no action against him—and were, in fact, required to help him—while they were in his debt.  "And he loved to flaunt his control over us, like threatening us with having to choose between life-threatening searches for the dragon nest, or being held responsible for the behavior of his useless heir."  At the look in Taskill's eyes, Mildew amended, "Formerly useless heir."

"I see," Taskill said.

"And that's how he operates," Mildew said.  "He wants control—but not at the point of a sword.  No, that's boring.  He'd rather have you give it up to him and let him dictate what you do.  So his takeover of Vedrarfjord?  Completely in character for him.  Put people in a terrible position—having their homes burned or having to starve… and then offering a way out… through loyalty to _him._ "

Taskill had a worried look on his face that he was doing his best to hide.  But Mildew had been reading people for longer than the younger man had been breathing, and picked up on the tightness around his eyes and the way that his lips whitened. 

"So, yes… a chief may protect his own… but he'll happily make everyone and everything around him _into_ 'his own'… and tell them all what to do."  He pointed a finger at Taskill.  "Don't forget that."  Then he shook his head.  "Anyway, where were we.  Ah, yes.  Now, while spears are good for ground-fighting, you do have to worry about puncturing the bladders inside the dragons and making them explode—which is why we used nets and bolas before, to ground them without risking that.  And," he smirked, "there are other advantages available to us, if you're willing to use them."

"Such as?" Taskill asked, his interest piqued.

Mildew leaned forward and clasped his hands together.  "There is a flower, down in the Mediterranean Sea… and it is deadly poisonous to dragons."

"How is a flower going to help us kill dragons?  Do we throw bouquets at them?" Taskill asked, deadpan.

Mildew snorted.  "You're welcome to try.  But I purchased the refined essential oils from an alchemist down in Al-Andalus and coated my weapons in it."  He mimed making a stab with his staff.  "One scratch, and the beast is weakened…"

Taskill asked excitedly, "Do you have any more?"

Mildew shook his head.  "Feh.  I wish.  I would have used it on that damned Night Fury and the rest—dosed a net's worth of fish and stood back.  No, that idiot merchant Johann couldn't get me my last shipment last year.  Said there was a problem with the alchemist."  He gave Taskill a lopsided grin.  "But I know the name of the alchemist… and where he lives.  I'm sure he'd be willing to sell more."

* * *

 

_**AN:** No, this chapter is not an April Fool’s joke… it’s a completely legit chapter. Cheers!_

_So, a few things. First… AHHHH!! I started posting this fic on AO3 one year ago (Sunday, April 2, 2017). In the 52 weeks since then, I have posted 43 chapters, averaging just under 10,500 words each. In that time, I’ve watched my fic go from my first chapter getting 60 hits to the fic as a whole now averaging 300 hits per chapter!_

_During this past year, I have also:_ _Moved from the USA to Germany. G_ _otten married._ _Started learning German._

_I hope that I can keep up the pace into the next year. I’m intending to go on a three-months-on, one-month-off cycle (roughly), to keep myself from burning out and give me time to keep writing, and we’ll see if I can manage to keep it up._

_Also, because I love to chat with people about story stuff and the like, I’ve started up a discord server for ATOV, and I’ll be posting an invite link to my tumblr shortly (which I hope will make it easy to find in the archives, if necessary—just look for early April 2018)_

_Finally, because I apparently massively overdid showing my research last chapter (for which I apologize), there’s now an addition to the Appendix as "chapter 4": a Glossary of Terms, that I hope will help make things clearer._

 


	44. …Than The Sword

**Chapter 44:** **…Than The Sword**

****

_Dragon eggs are laid in a single clutch of three to nine eggs between 24 and 32 days after fertilization.  Counting from the time of fertilization, gestation for all breeds is approximately 220 days until hatching._

_Laying eggs has numerous adaptational advantages for the mother, including allowing her to deal with the metabolic load during the time of year when food is the most plentiful, allowing her to fly without the additional weight of the eggs, and, perhaps most importantly, minimizing the risks associated with draconic embryonic development.  From the evolutionary perspective of the mother, it is far better to lose some potential offspring to malformed hydrocarbon organ systems than to risk her own life by internally gestating the offspring.  Indeed, while most eggs with malformed hydrocarbon systems are simply nonviable, a significant minority of the nonviable eggs will detonate in the course of the fourth and and fifth months of gestation.  For obvious reasons, this would have negative effects on the health of the mother if gestated internally…_

_—An Introduction To Dragon Biology, 17th Edition, Oxford University Press, 1793_

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

**_December, AD 1041_ **

"Hey, cheer up," Astrid said to Heather supportively.  The other woman was dry-washing her hands and pacing anxiously, as she had been since she'd come in a few minutes ago with the household supplies.  "You wrote 'Talk soon'.  We'll make it work."

Heather turned and gave Astrid a flat look.  "I know that if I were in her shoes—because I _was—_ getting taunted with a glimpse of my parents and then not being able to do anything for _a week_ would make me want to _kill_ somebody."

Astrid paused at the vehemence in Heather's voice, and then a question occurred to her.  "Have you?"

"Have I…?"

"Killed anybody?" Astrid asked.

Heather nodded.  "Yeah.  I had to.  Or I would have died."  She swallowed, the sound audible to Astrid.  "If I hadn't, she would have killed me."  She looked down, hanging her head.  "Adal… _Alvin's_ idea of a final exam."

Astrid shuddered.  Yes, she'd killed people too—her first kill had been Sutre Sverresson, back in Nidaros, when he and his brother had tried to kill her and Hiccup.  She still saw his face, sometimes, in her dreams.  But it was one thing to do that to protect herself and Hiccup in self-defense, like she had then, or when those pirates had tried to capture her and Hiccup, or when they'd rescued Heather's parents.  It was another to be forced to do so at the whim of a monster. 

She reached over and patted Heather on the shoulder.  "Hey.  She's strong.  She'll manage."  And she gave Heather a lopsided smirk.  "Besides, who is there for her to kill?  Eochaid?  How would that be a _bad_ thing?"

Heather snorted, and the mood lightened. 

"So, Mhairi's her, what, sister?"

Heather shrugged.  "Maybe… but my money's on daughter."

"What?" Astrid asked, surprised.

Heather turned and looked at her.  "Astrid… when you did start having your moon's blood?"

Astrid blinked.  "Uh…"  She cocked her head in recollection.  "When I was fourteen winters.  Why?"

"And starting your moon's blood means…?" Heather said leadingly.

"That you're a woman… and…  Oh."

"Exactly," Heather said.  "And while I could imagine a girl our age showing up in Vedrarfjord with a little sibling in tow…" she scowled, "it's a lot easier to imagine a girl kicked out of or running away from her household for being pregnant and ending up in Vedrarfjord."

"I… yeah," Astrid said in a little voice.  That image suddenly came to her mind as well, very vividly, and Heather was right.  It made a great deal more sense… and was much more terrifying to imagine what Toiréasa had gone through.  The Eirish spy was somewhere in age between Astrid and Wulfhild… and Heather's guess fit with Mhairi's age. 

"Yeah.  But it doesn't matter specifically.  With the way she was watching Mhairi walk around… yeah, I guessed right that she's Toiréasa's hostage.  And that's what matters.  And while I want to free her… and I know that Stoick does, too… being cynical about it, until we get through these negotiations and _get_ her freed, we have a trained spy in Eochaid's camp."

Astrid grimaced.  "That's… that's pretty cynical."

Toothless wandered into the main room of the house and rubbed himself against the rough stones of the _skorsteinn._  

Heather laughed.  "He's like a cat."

Toothless looked at her and cocked his head, and Astrid smirked.  "Yes, you big scaly prankster.  Like a big black cat."

Toothless looked affronted, and Astrid stood, walked over and started to give him a rubdown, which he blithely accepted as his due. 

The various odds and ends on the tables and shelves all jumped as he slumped to the floor, purring happily, as she gave him a scritch on that pressure point.

"I'm never going to get used to that," Heather said from her seat.  "Big, scaly, scary dragon…  and touch one spot and they're a happy lump on the floor."

"Yep!" Astrid said fondly.  "It's really adorable.  I remember the first time Hiccup did that to Stormfly in front of me.  We were in training, and dragons were still enemies.  I come screaming in with my ax… and then… _thud!_  The dragon slumps to the ground in front of me.  I gave him the most _befuddled_ look.  He still teases me about it."

Heather laughed, and Toothless rolled onto his back, clearly wanting more scritches on his belly, which Astrid happily provided. 

"So, where's Hiccup?" Heather asked as Toothless' tail lashed about in his enjoyment, knocking over minor bits of furniture. 

"Toothless, be careful," Astrid chastised him, and he murbled and stilled his tail's thrashing slightly. 

Heather chuckled.  "Big cat."

Astrid looked up with a fond smirk and continued with the rubdown.  "Yep.  As for Hiccup, he's off hiding the Yule Goat.  I offered to do it, but he gave me this epic pout and told me that _he_ wanted to do it."

"And Stormfly?"

"Currently?  Getting fitted for a fancy new saddle as my Yule gift to her," Astrid said with a laugh.  "I gave Una and Murchadh some silver and stuff from my morning gift for them to use as materials, and told them that the happier Stormfly was, the bigger a bonus I'd give them when it was done, in addition to their asking price."

Heather snorted.  "Oh, gods, Nadders."  She glanced up at Astrid.  "By the way, I've been meaning to ask—what's with that white-gray streak on Stormfly's flank?  It looks like a scar."

Astrid scowled.  "It _is_ a scar.  Mildew attacked her last Yule, and the scar stayed, even after she molted all of her scales last spring."

Heather grimaced.  "Urgh."

"Yeah.  And I'd really like to know where he went," Astrid said, narrowing her eyes.  "Because there's no way that he's off enjoying his last years in peace."  She scratched at Toothless's belly with more vigor.  "In fact, I'd wager that he's off with Harthacnut.  Maybe he smuggled himself aboard one of the flights when we returned the commoners to their homes, and is now teaching what's left of the Thingmen all he can about the fine art of dragon slaying."

Heather grimaced.  "Yuck."

"Yeah.  He was a cranky, vile old curmudgeon who liked to stir up trouble, and I wish I'd gotten a chance to punch him in the face a few times," Astrid said.

With a contemplative look, Heather asked, "What was his story anyway?  I met him a few times in the mead hall, and it was like drinking pickle juice.  Straight."

Astrid snorted, and then shrugged.  "No idea.  I know he was banished from one of the clans, but I have no idea which one—or if the clan even still exists.  But that happened before _Stoick_ was born, and he's been clanless ever since."

"Ouch," Heather said appreciatively.  "So… getting back on topic before Toothless distracted us.  Toiréasa.  It's been a _week,_ and I haven't had a chance to talk with her, because Eochaid has been keeping her constantly at his side."

"Just to taunt us," Astrid said with a scowl.  "It's whipping people up into a lather, seeing her with him."

"Oh, definitely.  And Yule gives him the perfect excuse, with the feasting, and the singing and the general carrying on…" Heather said, finishing off with a sigh.  "But while I've passed her new notes, she can't risk getting caught with writing anything back—she's supposed to be illiterate, as far as Eochaid knows!"

"And you can't just pull her aside?  At the latrine or something?" Astrid asked.

"Eochaid doesn't let her get that far.  If he could put her on a leash, he would," Heather said.  "And we need time and privacy to do this right!  Imagine how it would go if we got interrupted and I didn't explain everything?"

Astrid winced, imagining that.  And the Norns would ensure that any interruptions would happen at the worst possible moment, too—like when Heather was explaining that Mhairi wasn't being treated as a hostage, but as part of Heather's family.  _That_ wouldn't go over well _regardless,_ but interrupted…? 

The door suddenly flung open and Cami came running in, her cheeks ruddy from the cold and a massive grin on her face.  "Hide me!" she laughed.

"What did you _do!?"_ Astrid demanded as Cami made a beeline for cover behind the chairs.  Her cousin was carrying something clutched in her hands, and her mad grin and wild eyes made Astrid worried.

Cami didn't answer, and hopped behind one of the chairs, folding herself to try to be invisible from the doorway.

Heather sighed and went to close the door, only to have Wulfhild storm in.  "Where is she!?" she called, sounding like she was holding back laughter.

"Where is who?" Astrid asked, trying not to glance at Cami's hiding spot. 

"Cami!  She just stole Gobber's belt and pantsed him in front of me!  I'm scarred for life!" Wulfhild said with a laugh.  "I don't even want to know why he has dyed undergarments, but I'm grateful nevertheless!"

Astrid burst out laughing, as did Heather—but that wasn't enough to cover Cami's own chuckles, and Wulfhild barked, "Ha!  Found you!"

Cami popped out of her hiding spot and darted around the chair as Wulfhild circled.  "Give it back, Cami!"

"I will!  In a bit!  You'll have to catch me first!"

Astrid and Heather shared a glance and nodded.

A moment later, Cami was whining, "Why'd you help her?"

"Because keeping people from seeing Gobber's undies is a service to the tribe," Astrid said, holding Cami's right arm in a joint lock, while Heather had the left. 

With a cheerful smirk, Wulfhild sashayed back out the door, holding the reclaimed belt.  Then Toothless, who had watched the whole thing while lying on his back on one of the flagstones, grumbled at the lack of ongoing rubdown. 

With a laugh, Astrid released Cami and went back to Toothless.  "Bit bored, Cami?"  Heather released her as well, and went over to the _skorsteinn_ to toss another log on the fire.

"Eh, not really.  Yule is nice, and while me people have been behavin' themselves, enough of them have been naughty that I've had to spend a fair bit of time being not-bored in dealin' with them," Cami said.

"Oh?  Like Inga?" Astrid asked, scratching under the folds of Toothless' wing joints, which made him warble in ecstasy.

Cami shook her head, sending her cloud of blond hair swaying.  "Nah.  She's been well-behaved—so far.  But I _have_ had to remind Gulla that she's not allowed to tease the Svens."  Cami shook her head in exasperation and rolled her eyes. 

"What?"

Cami huffed.  "I'm still wonderin' why Great-Grandpa let one of his boys show so little imagination." 

Astrid snorted.  Her grand-uncle—full grand-uncle, as both he and her grandfather were Ingrid's sons—Sven the Old had seven children… five of them Sven Svensson, and they'd been given the ironic monikers 'Tall', 'Short', 'Wise', 'Fat' and 'Silent' to help differentiate them.  Then his daughter was named Svenja… and his youngest, only four years older than Astrid, was named Svan.  And his grandchildren continued the theme.

"I've heard that it was a compromise between the Hofferson tradition of normal names and the tribe tradition of absurd ones," Astrid offered.  "Don't know if it's true or not, because Aifric is a freedwoman, but it's what I've heard."

"Well, Gulla is teasin' Svend and Svein about pickin' one of them to go back with her to Deheubarth, so they're both tryin' to impress her," Cami said, rubbing at her eyes.  "And… well…"

"They're figuring that, since they're trying to impress a Bog Burglar, the best way to do that is with stealing?" Heather offered.

Cami nodded.  "Got it in one."  She snorted.  "And when I complained to Stoick about them not behavin', he just laughed and laughed…"

Astrid smirked.  "What's the matter, Cami?  This little taste of chiefing making you scared?"

"No!" she protested, and Astrid gave her a deadpan look.  Finally, Cami muttered petulantly, "… yes."  She huffed.  "I'm just glad the situation with Inga and Dogsbreath hasn't blown up… yet.  But I can tell that she's plottin' _somethin'._   She was so full of herself back on Sunni's Day when I cornered her and wanted to know what she was plannin'."

"Well, unless you plan on ordering her to break it off—"

"And get called a tyrant," Cami muttered.

"—we'll just have to wait and see what happens," Astrid said. 

"Point," Cami said.  She flopped into a chair.  "Well, in better news, that Eirish bastard is so busy flauntin' his girl-thrall—to piss off the whole tribe, I think—that he hasn't had a chance to chase after me."  She huffed.  "You realize he's gonna ask for a dragon in exchange, right?"

"Well, he's not going to get one," Astrid said firmly.  "Toss me that bottle of fish oil, would you?"

Heather handed it over, rather than toss it, and Astrid poured a little on a dry spot on Toothless' skin and started to rub it in.  He dramatically flopped back and made little noises of pure happy, his legs kicking in little helpless spasms. 

Astrid snorted, and looked up at Heather and Cami.  "Ladies, I give you the offspring of lightning and death itself.  The Night Fury, deadliest and most feared dragon known to man…"

Toothless burbled with joy as she worked him over; his tongue was hanging out while his eyes were half-lidded, and he was so relaxed that his back was bonelessly molded to the small step between the stone slab he was lying on and the floorboards below.

Cami and Heather laughed. 

Astrid continued to work him over for a bit; as she rubbed in more oil into her friend's scaly hide, she said, "From what you've said, Heather, what he's going to want is to have us help him and his father conquer back all of their old territory?"

Heather nodded.  "Yep.  I've been giving Wulfhild as much information as I can; she has the training to make sense of it all, and while she doesn't speak Gaoidhealg, I figure her being able to give advice would be a lot less suspicious than Stoick and Hiccup having to call over a kitchen scullion to consult."  She gestured to herself with a smirk. 

Astrid smiled.  "That's a _phenomenal_ idea," she said, and then saw Cami looking a bit queasy.  "What's wrong, Cami?"

"Ah… Heather?  You're teachin' her a bit more nicely than you got taught, right?" Cami asked after a moment. 

Heather nodded.  "Oh, yeah.  And information only.  And… and I'm sorry that I reacted the way I did—"

"Nah, you were right," Cami said with a drawl and a smile.  "I was an ass.  I was so excited to find another sister with skills I hadn't seen before that I didn't stop to think.  So I'm sorry."

There was a pause as Astrid glanced back and forth between the two of them, and then Heather smiled and said, "Accepted.  And… maybe I can give you some tips."

Cami smirked.  "Just not the ones that Fishlegs is givin' you?"

Astrid choked.  " _Wow,_ Cami, blunt much?"

Cami snorted and rolled her eyes.  "Coz, I've _heard_ you and Hiccup makin' the bed shake in the middle of the night—from _my_ house.  Your honeymonth might be over now, but—"

The door opened and Cami froze.

Astrid looked up… and felt the blood drain from her face. 

Rikard clanhead Hofferson, her great-grandfather, was at her door… and had Hiccup and Wulfhild clan Haddock in tow.  Both of her clanmates were tense and anxious, darting glances at the elder escorting them with an air of trepidation. 

"Astrid?  I think it's time for us all to have a talk," her great-grandfather said. 

###

**_Jomsborg, Estuary of the Oder River, South Baltic Sea_ **

 

Jonna Asgersdoittor, consecrated shieldmaiden of Thor, stood in the room full of Norse freemen and freewomen and spoke. 

"The rumors are true.  We are not the last great Norse stronghold of the All-Father.  Another, mightier one has arisen."

Appreciative whispers went through the great hall.  The room was packed with the wives and dependents of the Jomsvikings, the sometimes mercenaries, sometimes brigands, warrior band of stalwart Viking men.  All those present here were forbidden to enter their fortress, and the men could not leave for more than three days, but, despite such strictures, well, _someone_ had to do the laundry and the cooking. 

As a result, outside of their forbidding fortress, there was a lively little town on the island to the east of Denmark.  And Jonna, at thirty-four winters, was looked to by many as a leader—or chief irritant, depending on perspective.

But now, in the largest building of her town, nearly a hundred people had gathered to listen to the news she had.

"The stories are true.  To the north and west, in the islands off of Alba, at a place called _Berk,_ a true Hero of the All-Father has managed to tame _dragons,_ " she said with gusto, and there were even louder appreciative murmurs.  "And not only that, this Hero, the wise and strong son of the tribe's chief, he has shared his Odin-granted knowledge and taught the whole of his tribe the magics needed to achieve the feat!  Imagine!  Vikings—on the backs of dragons!"  The original tale had first arrived after the last spring thaw, and they had all scoffed at it—even Jonna.  But now she was determined to undo her mistake. 

"We dismissed it at first as a tale from a skald who had drunk of the wrong mead, but now I know it to be _truth!_ "  She pointed towards the harbor.  "Word has come of a great battle, nearly three months ago.  In that battle, they destroyed the fleet of Harthacnut the Dane as he came to attack them."  She clapped her hands in martial delight.  "Of the Dane's hundred and fifty ships, less than _half_ returned, all with their nerves shattered for having faced Thor's might in battle!  None of the Thingmen, the traitors who abandoned our ways for coin, were said to have survived."

People cheered. 

She waited for them to calm and then raised her hands.  "Wait!  It gets better!  Harthacnut himself was captured and _ransomed!_ By the Hero himself!  Our light is dimming, but theirs is growing!"  She hopped on the stool that she had kept nearby for exactly this moment, to give herself that much more stature and to let everyone see her.  "The Jomsvikings are dying!  I say that we stand on our feet and make sail to Berk, and offer our arms and axes to this newfound Hero of Thor!"

The room erupted, in cheers, protests and questions, but one voice cut through the tumult.  Gudbrand Karesson, one of the senior Jomvsikings, who had shown up, scowling, to sit in on the meeting just before it started, stood up and bellowed, "Jonna, stop this crazy Thing!"

She shouted back, "No!  We have been dying and bleeding for decades!  Our harbor once held three hundred longships, and now we barely have thirty!  The ways of the Viking are dying!  I will die for Odin with a smile, but I know that he will not smile upon a warrior wasting themselves in a hopeless fight when there is a way to _victory!"_   She pumped her fist into the air.  "We go!  We join ourselves with these Hooligans and their Chieftain Stoick the Vast and his son, the Hero and Tamer of Dragons, Capturer of Kings!  We will show the Christian lords that the ways of the All-Father and the hope of Valhalla will _not_ be plowed under and replaced with the Cross and and the Trinity!  When Ragnarok comes, the world will not forget what to do, because we _will. Still.  Be.  Here!"_

Her passion ignited the assembled crowd, and they leapt to their feet and cheered.  Jonna saw Gudbrand try to speak over them once more, but he was drowned by by the noise as the assembled Joms shouted—and overwhelmingly in approval. 

Others, though, were less than happy, and the jubilation ended as if cut with an ax as there was suddenly the sound of shattering wood.

Gudbrand looked up across the room from where he's just taken his battleax to a chair.  "Nobody is going _anywhere_ with our ships!"  He pointed his ax at Jonna.  "Especially not you!"

She freed her own ax from the strap holding it at her belt and held it up with a savage smile.  "I'd like to see you stop us!"

All around them, her fellows called out in support, with many of them coming to her side; swiftly, her stool was surrounded with dozens of her fellow Joms, all holding bared steel.

Gudbrand looked around at the much more scant crowd around him, and the realization that the odds were not in his favor spread across his scarred face.  "We shall speak of this later!"

And, with that and a swirl of his fur cloak, he left. 

Jonna looked out over the crowd and, clearing her throat, started to recite the saga that she had been told.  Her audience's attention was rapt as she spoke of a fleet coming with the intent of fire and slaughter… only to meet the full might of Odin and Thor at sea. 

 

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Astrid sat in the big chair, while Hiccup sat in the chair next to her, with Wulfhild next to him in a third chair.  Cami and Heather had been politely chased off by Rikard, with Cami promising to keep an eye on Heather.  So now the three of them—she and her new clanmates—were sitting, uncomfortable, under the gaze of her great-grandfather, her old clanhead.  And that was something of an odd feeling, being opposite him as he stood in seeming judgement over them.

The silence stretched for a long moment, and then Rikard tapped his cane on the floorboards.  "You know why I'm here, so let's not be disingenuous.  Let us begin.  Astrid.  You might not be part of my clan any longer, but you are still part of my family.  We let your honeymonth end without bringing this up, thinking that you could at least have that much, but when you didn't come to see us when it was over, it was time for me to come talk to you."

She swallowed.  "About what, sir?"

Rikard gave her a flat look.  "I told you not to be disingenuous, but I can be blunt about it, if you wish.  Therefore, I'd say about two-thirds of the village— _at least_ —knows that Hiccup has not touched Wulfhild since she became his concubine, and speculation—and _conclusions—_ are rampant as to _why."_

Astrid felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, but it was a much more terrifying feeling than when Stormfly dove out of the sky.  There, she was in control with her friend.  Now… she was anything but in control.

"Wh… whu… what makes you say that?" Hiccup got out. 

Rikard gave Hiccup a flat look, and ran her fingers through his long silver hair.  "Hiccup.  You're a clever boy.  So why didn't you think of staining Wulfhild's bedsheets with anything?  That might have helped.  But the laundresses weren't fooled, and neither was anybody else from the way that you act around her."

And _that_ was a punch to Astrid's gut—and Hiccup and Wulfhild's too, from the sounds that they made; all three of them sucked in air in shock. 

"Aye.  And I understand," Rikard said, starting to pace, his cane clicking on the floor as he stepped.  "It's not like it was with myself and Rhonda, where we agreed to bring in Ingrid and Dagn of our own choice.  For you three, the choice was imposed upon you by the Norse jarls."

Wulfhild made a pained noise… and Astrid found herself echoing it. 

Rikard nodded.  "So we also stayed back for the honeymonth to give your friendship some time to heal.  But…"  he sighed, "if you don't confront the fact that you're presenting a falsehood because it's easier, you'll never be able to move forward."

"What… what do you mean?  Sir?" Hiccup asked, sounding like his mouth was dry.

"I mean that, as much as I'd _like_ to let the three of you work this out in the fullness of time between yourselves, _time_ is a luxury that you do not have."  He paused in his pacing, looking at them, and pointed his staff at Wulfhild.  "Already, a large portion of the tribe is starting to conclude—with a wink and a nudge—that you have no intention of ever bedding Wulfhild here, Hiccup—that you fully plan on treating her as a temporary concubine."  He shrugged.  "I don't know if that's true or not.  But at the very least, I can't let things continue as they are, because if you do plan on bedding her…" he sighed, "then it had best be soon.  Or not at all."

"Why?" Astrid croaked; she darted a glance at Wulfhild, to see that the other woman was pale and breathing in short, sharp pants.

"Because people will soon get it into their heads that Hiccup is devoted to you in the most romantic fidelity possible—devoted beyond treaties and his own oaths and politics.  Wonderfully romantic, truly his father's son, stubborn in devotion and honor…" he trailed off significantly and sighed again, "and if he does ever sire a child on Wulfhild, there is no way that it will be seen as legitimate, because _everyone_ will have it fixed in their heads that 'Hiccup does not bed Wulfhild.'"  His eyes narrowed.  "And imagine the headache that would cause."

Astrid grimaced… and, despite herself, nodded. 

"So, your obfuscation has failed… and _you_ three need to figure out what you're going to do about it.  Before it becomes too late to do _anything._ "  He rubbed at his eyes with his free hand.  "But this can't go on as it has been."  He bowed.  "With that… I think that I shall take my leave.  But… if you want help, or advice… please.  Our door is open, and," he smirked slightly, "with more than sixty years with three women in my life, I dare say that the four of us have _some_ experience for you to draw on."

Astrid chuckled painfully, and Rikard bowed again and left.  She, Hiccup and Wulfhild shared stunned looks for a long moment. 

"Well… shit," Hiccup finally said.

"Seconded," Wulfhild said softly.

"So… now what?" Astrid asked.

"Umm…"

Before they could say anything, though, there was a sudden pounding at the door. 

Grateful for the distraction, Astrid lunged to her feet and, after three quick strides, flung it open.

Picknose was standing there.  "Come quick!  Fishlegs needs your help in the Broodery!"

###

**_London, England_ **

 

Harthacnut glowered at his spymaster.  " _How_ many?"  His realm was being betrayed, piece by piece. 

"At least a dozen, perhaps two, mostly in the western shires, sire.  Plus several merchants in the city are preparing to build the boy's aviaries for his dragons," the spymaster said, looking over his notes.  "Primarily one Eric Karlsson; he's currently soliciting partners to try to build the place."

"Arrest him, and confiscate his properties," Harthacnut said angrily.  "The same for his partners.  As for those reeves and ealdormen looking to curry favor with the dragon-riders, any that try, I want them arrested and their titles revoked for treason against the Crown."  The shire reeves and ealdormen were leftovers from the old Britain, from before his father had conquered the kingdom; his father had given out the title liberally to his companions, giving them appointments as magistrates over towns or whole shires, and now the lot of them were causing problems.  This gave him an excellent chance to clean house of his father's old cronies. 

"Aye, sire.  After the merchants are arrested, what should we do with them?"

"Execute them.  They're traitors."

"And their families?"

Harthacnut considered and then shrugged.  "The same.  No mercy for traitors."  A coughing fit, complete with bloody sputum, wracked his body.  Since his time in the damp tunnels under Berk, his consumption had grown worse.

His time was growing short, and his house was in disorder.

"Call for Sweyn.  I want him in London as soon as possible."  He scowled.

"Understood," his steward said.  "And the messenger has returned from the port; the witnesses managed to cross the Channel last week and should be on their way to Rome by now."

Harthacnut nodded.  "And on the ship to Denmark, I have one more message…"

"Yes, milord?"

"If any of those cowards that abandoned me on the field of battle were foolish enough to return… I want them arrested and executed as well." 

"It will be done, milord," the steward said.  "And their properties and families?" 

"Confiscate the properties after they're executed, and send their families to the headsman's block with them.  Wait, no," he said, holding up a hand.

The steward nodded politely, bowing slightly.  "Yes, sire?"

"Women, and children under fourteen, will be given to the Church.  Men under twenty-five are conscripted and are to be used for whatever duties are needed by the Thingmen.  Execute the rest."

"As you order, sire," the steward said, and Harthacnut dismissed him.

Then he turned to his half-brother, Edward, and their mother, Emma, and slumped into a chair by the roaring fire in the hearth, next to them.  "God, give me strength."

"You're doing well," his mother said supportively.  "These are dark times, but you are rooting out the weeds as best you can."

"But not well enough."  He slumped and put his head into his hands.  "At least a treaty with heathens cannot be valid in the eyes of God, and the same goes for an oath to a devil-rider.  But we will also need the support of Mother Church in order to resist Lucifer's get."  He looked over to his family.  "I signed that treaty to keep them from razing our kingdom, but I plan on never paying them another penny, nor hand over my crowns to a bastard boy."

Edward nodded.  "But how can we fight back, brother?  They already crushed your fleet casually."

"Well, first we must wait on aid from the Church, but I have some ideas.  The boy is canny and wily, yet he still came here with only a small retinue," he said.  "Perhaps a repeat of Earl Eadwulf's fate would work."

At the mention of the betrayed and murdered earl of Bernicia, Edward frowned.  "Given the outcry… and that you've used that once already, might that not raise their suspicions?"

"Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  He likes to project the persona of someone without guile.  If nothing else, refusing to pay the rest of the ransom to his blushing bride should be enough to bring him here."

He clenched his fists and gave another muted cough.  "And when he does… we strike."

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Having been politely thrown out of the chief's hut by the Hofferson clanhead, Heather and Cami retreated to the guest house where Cami was staying, and sat in silence for a short bit.

Then Cami cleared her throat, and asked, "So… what's eatin' you?"  She smirked.  "Aside from Fishlegs?"

Heather turned her head and looked at Cami, and quirked one eyebrow in a smirk.  "Jealous?  Unless you've got a lover here, I've gotten laid more recently than you."  She grinned.  "And he's attentive and wants me to enjoy myself."  Her grin deepened.  "And, oh, I _have."_

Cami scowled.  "Maybe I'm a bit jealous.  Because I have to set an example for everyone else to behave, which is drivin' me nuts."  She snorted and added sarcastically, "Unless I want to try my hand at Eochaid…" 

Heather shuddered despite her best efforts, and Cami noticed.  "What?"

"Don't.  Trust me and don't go there."

Cami snorted again and said, with narrowed eyes, "Do I look stupid?—don't answer that," she added in a hurry as Heather smirked and opened her mouth.  "I ran here right before winter arrived because I knew that stayin' in Ulaid would end with me violatin' hospitality and him dead on the end of me knife!"

Heather nodded grimly.

And then a thought occurred to her—a rather twisted thought, but a thought nonetheless.

"Hey… Cami?  You still want some spy training?"

Cami glanced at her.  "…Really?  You weren't kiddin' before?"

Heather shook her head.  "No, I'm serious."

Cami nodded with a smile.  "Sure!  More skills are always welcome!"

"First, I need your help with something," Heather said, getting up from her seat and starting to pace. 

"Name it and I'll do my—"

"Don't volunteer until I tell you what it is," Heather said, holding up a hand. 

Cami cocked her head, and then nodded.  "Okay.  What?"

Heather sighed.  How much did she trust Cami?  Well… she was Astrid's cousin, and Stoick trusted her not to violate hospitality…

She decided to toe the waters first.  "What do you think about Eochaid's pleasure thrall?"

Cami scowled, her shoulders hunched angrily, and her eyebrows drew together as she unconsciously made a fist.  "I dearly wish I'd taken her with us when we fled Ulaid.  But I didn't see much of her when I was there.  And now Eochaid is practically paradin' her in front of everyone to piss them off—and it's _workin'!"_

Heather nodded.  "So… if I asked you to distract Eochaid away from her for… say… an hour or so, and give me the chance to talk to her… would you be willing to help?"

Cami blinked and her head bounced back for a moment.  Then her brow furrowed again.  "Can I ask why?"  She looked down in her lap, her expression guilty and conflicted.  "I'm… I'm not against it… completely… but you're askin' a lot."

"A good spy wouldn't ask why, she'd figure it out herself," Heather said with a smile.  "But… well.  To give you a bit more motivation…" she lowered her voice and darkened her tone, "Remember when I yelled at you and assaulted you?"

Cami nodded, grimacing.

Heather paused, looked Cami straight in the eye and said, "I can say with almost complete certainty that _she_ went through those same things."  She swallowed.  "She was, after all… a gift from my old owner, just like I was."

Cami's jaw dropped open.  "Oh…"  She stared at Heather, her chest rising and falling in shocked breaths… and then she sobered and nodded.  "What's her name?" she asked, her tone completely serious.  "And you'll get your hour… sister."

###

Fishlegs met Hiccup and the others with Picknose at the door to the Broodery, wringing his hands and practically hopping from foot to foot in his anxiety.  He'd sent Picknose to get them, and then followed, unable to stay where he'd been.

"What is it, Fish?" Hiccup asked him.

"There's a problem, oh gods, Hiccup, there's a problem," he said, the memory of what he'd just seen flashing back before his eyes. 

"What is it?" Hiccup repeated.

"I… I have to show you.  Follow me," he said, and held up the lamp.  Turning, he practically ran into the depths of the Broodery tunnels, feeling like the warm stone walls were closing in.  Rack after rack of eggs—vulnerable, fragile, _dangerous_ eggs—blurred past as he led them down.

"What's wrong?" Astrid puffed as she and the others ran down after him.  She didn't come down here as much, and Fishlegs had noticed that people who weren't used to the heat tended to have some breathing problems after coming in. 

"Need to show you," he said, and made a turn down a side corridor—following his own footprints from a short while ago.

And then stopped.

The others came up to a halt behind him, and gasped.

"What happened?" Hiccup asked in a horrified whisper… as he stared, in the flickering lamplight, at the twisted wreckage that had once held over two hundred and fifty eggs along the walls of the corridor.  The Broodery workers— _his_ people—were combing through the broken planks, trying to find if any of the eggs had survived.  Wallnut looked up from where he was working… and shook his head, sadness etched deep on his face.

Hiccup clamped a hand on Fishlegs' shoulder.  "Fish.  What happened?"

"The eggs… they…"

There was a muffled boom from nearby, combined with a horrible squelching noise… and the sound of splintering wood.  Astrid screamed—and ran down another corridor, towards the source of the echoing noise.  They all turned and followed her.

Turning the corner, Fishlegs saw another wall rack teetering; the detonation had pushed the rack away from the wall, and now it was wobbling… and would tip over, just like the other one had. 

But Astrid had caught it in time to brace herself against it.

And they rushed to help her. 

They all joined in and, with a clatter of wood against stone, managed to push the heavy rack back into place against the wall.

Astrid, panting, leaning up against the rack, her face dripping with sweat, looked at him, incredulous.  "The eggs explode."

He nodded, also heaving for breath.

"The _eggs EXPLODE!"_ she repeated in a tone of shock, disbelief and dismay.

He continued to nod. "Almost seventy so far… that we've found.  And their explosions are growing more and more intense and destructive," he said.  "And… I don't know what to do… or how to save them."

* * *

**AN: _*hides under rock*_**

 


	45. Powder Keg

**Chapter 45: Powder Keg**

**_Gronckle:_ ** _Boulder-class dragon_

**_Overview:_ ** _Metaturnal logistical and aerial/ground support dragon.  Primarily useful as economic and logistical support, with significant applications in civilian use and minimal tactical use on the modern battlefield outside of congested zones.  One of the few dragon breeds capable of sustained precision flight in all three dimensions. Inadequate as bombing platforms due to lack of speed.  Primary military uses are undermining fixed fortifications, high-density urban combat, and logistical transport platforms (all Imperial heavy and light armor and crew-serviced artillery weapons have standard lifting hardpoints to facilitate this use)._

**_Breath Type:_ ** _Heptane/Oxygen-melted mineral projectiles.  Specific effects variable on mineral chemistry (see Gronckle Appendix C: Gronckle Lava Sub-types)_

**_Identification:_ ** _Medium size. Variable-coloured scales and hide, studded with bony nodules, typically but not universally with brown overtones and a secondary colouration for ventral surfaces and hide nodules; four legs with grasping paws capable of small degree of gross manual dexterity, small single wing-pair (high-speed wingbeats).  Large head with significant crunching and biting teeth capable of cracking silicate-based stone with ease, large blunt horn, yellow eyes of variable width based on lighting conditions and mood.  Conical bodyshape, with a blunt thagomizer._

**_Strategic Role:_ ** _Logistical support; ground support; urban combat supremacy and support; construction support; sapper strikes_

**_Known Weaknesses:_ ** _Slow speed.  Requires ingestion of metallic or mineral ingots in order to fire projectiles.  Minimal injury to wings will ground dragon.  Modern armour-piercing weapons are capable of penetrating armoured hide with ease._

**_Phenotype Cluster:_ ** _B7!F5-SØSØS1+MØTØT3+_

**_Populations:_ ** _Plentiful.  Quite possibly the single most common form of medium-size dragon, these dragons are common in nearly every nation, in rural, suburban, terraurban, and urban settings; used for personal and communal transport, logistics, construction, industry, and personal companionship, they are an omnipresent factor in everyday life._

_—North Sea Empire, Office of Draconic Intelligence, Dragon Breed Profiles (Declassified), 1822 Edition_

**_The Broodery, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

**_December, AD 1041_ **

 

"What do we do?"

The question seemed to echo through the Broodery's close tunnels.

Hiccup paused and looked over the rack; he found the egg that had exploded easily enough—the even lines of the planks were bowed out in that cubbyhole.  It was up near the top, and the four planks that made up the sides were cracked and warped—but the eggs around it were undamaged, although dangerously close to the front from when the case had nearly tipped over.  He pushed them back into their spots.

"You said the explosions are getting worse?" he asked Fishlegs. 

Fishlegs nodded.  "Yeah.  The first one—at least, I'm assuming that it was the first one—barely cracked its own shell.  Now…"  He waved vaguely at the cracked oak planks, which were over an inch thick. 

Hiccup examined them and nodded, trying not to think of the amount of force needed to crack that thickness of wood.  As he continued to look… he realized that everyone—Astrid, Wulfhild, Fishlegs and all of the Broodery workers…

…They were all staring at him. 

Watching.

Their faces were hopeful in the dim flickering light of the lamps and torches.

Hiccup took a deep breath and tried to keep the shaking that had suddenly appeared in his hands to a minimum. 

He climbed down from the case carefully, and clasped his hands behind his back in order to keep anyone from noticing how they were shaking.

Swallowing, he looked up and down the lengths of the racks.  This corridor had two racks, one for each wall.  Sure enough, the five or six eggs opposite the one that had exploded were damaged as well, to the point where it looked like bits of the eggshell had hit them and cracked theirs.  At least one had oily yolk slowly dribbling out.  He swallowed again and tried to think, but all of the eyes on him were making it hard.

A third painful swallow let him think enough to say, "Fishlegs, with me.  Everyone else… try to clean up the broken rack and see if any of the eggs can be rescued."

There was a sudden rush of motion as everyone cleared out.  A few moments later, he and Fishlegs were alone in the corridor, and Hiccup could breathe again.  He tried as subtly as he could to suck in air, but it was so hot that he just started to cough, and bent over from the force of it.  A moment later, he felt Fishlegs' hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?"

Hiccup shook his head.  "I… Fish.  I'm… I'm just me.  Remember?  The village screwup a year ago?  More dangerous than helpful?  Now… now everyone's looking at me like I'll solve it all with a wave of my hands."

"Oh."

"Okay.  Fish.  I need numbers.  How many racks do we have down here?"

"Eighty-thr—eighty-two," Fishlegs said, correcting himself mid-word with a crack in his voice.  "Average of two hundred and forty eggs per rack.  Our standard rack is about thirty feet long and eight feet high, but there are some smaller ones to make maximum use of the full space down here."  He motioned to the two racks on the opposing walls.  "All of the tunnels down here have racks on both sides."

Hiccup calculated quickly.  "That gives us about… twelve hundred feet of tunnel?"

Fishlegs nodded again.  "We've got a little more, but not much, and it's really crowded." 

Hiccup nodded, and climbed back up to the fractured cubbyhole.  The planks weren't perfectly even, he noted; the wood was warping in the moisture and the heat, and the wood had bowed, creating a vague funnel shape.  He was betting that had contained the explosion enough to push the rack off of the wall. 

He climbed back down.

"Okay.  First, get the carpenters and some Gronckle-tooth drills.  Drill into the walls and anchor the racks every yard or so to the rock.  Then, I'm getting every bit of scrap iron I can on this island, melting it down, and making metal plates to line each cubbyhole.  I doubt I'll have enough, but I can at least add some protection for them.  And maybe get the masons to cut stone boxes as well, that we can slide  into each wooden box as sleeves."  He started to pace.  "It was enough to crack the wood, so we need to add more armor to the surrounding box in order to protect them." 

Fishlegs nodded, obviously following. 

"Also, I'm going to try to expand the tunnels so that we can spread out the racks.  We have enough Whispering Deaths and Gronckles to dig out more tunnels in short order," Hiccup said. 

Fishlegs shook his head.

"What?"

"It's not just space that's the issue, it's _heat._   It's already suffocatingly hot up top, from the hot air collecting up there.  We're already venting as much as we can into the mead hall, but that's making the air too hot in there, with the heat from the hearthfire.  And we're going through a scary amount of wood just to heat this space.  Expanding it would make it worse," Fishlegs said reasonably. 

"More wood we can get, and there are tricks for making a fire hotter with the same amount of fuel," Hiccup said thoughtfully. "I can adapt a water-wheel to power a bellows and stoke the fire up hotter."  He paced, pausing every so often to examine the racks.  "And I've been thinking on ways of improving that sheet of metal we have down there—but those might have to wait until after the hatching.  As for the heat collecting up top…"  Hiccup waved his arms in thought for a moment.  "Right now, we're just opening the door and letting the heat out into the mead hall, right?  Plus that one vent for the smoke, right?"

Fishlegs nodded.  "That's right, and I've noticed that when we do open the door, the air in here gets fresher; we get a wind over the hot plate, and it's like the air in the whole place just surges to get out through the door, and more gets sucked in to replace it.  But we can never leave the door open for too long, or the mead hall overheats."

Hiccup nodded in agreement.  "Well… hmm…"  Hiccup paced again.  "Okay.  So we need to let the heat out somehow, to keep it from getting _too_ hot. Which means carving more vents.  But that means wasted heat, and ways for animals to get in.  So what if we didn't waste it?"

"Sounds like an idea, and I can think of a few ways to use it, but let's save that for later, right?" Fishlegs said.  "And for expanding the tunnels…"  He grimaced.  "We found cracks in the ceilings from last year.  I'm worried about having the village collapse on us if we dig too much."

Hiccup nodded.  "Then maybe we can brace the walls with wooden beams, post-and-lintel style?  And, as an advantage, we could anchor the racks between the posts."

Fishlegs' eyebrows drew together in thought.  "That should work…"

They continued to discuss, not noticing the various Broodery workers that were peeking in on them every so often and leaving with relieved expressions. 

###

Toiréasa tried to cultivate the sense of numbness in her gut, but it was hard, with Eochaid's hand lying possessively on her arm as they sat in the main hall—no, it was called the _mead hall_.  The Norse pagans were continuing with their Yule celebrations, and she watched with a vague sense of interest, although, as Christian outsiders, they weren't allowed to participate in the inner rites.  So mostly it was watching them feast, drink, sing, and set things on fire. 

If she weren't so numb and focused on keeping Eochaid pleased, she probably would have been amused at the sight of a fat Viking with a bucket on his head singing with a dragon, to mention just one of the many extraordinary things she'd seen here. 

But it was too dangerous to let herself feel.  She'd seen Heather almost every day since they'd arrived, as the other woman brought food and supplies to the hut on the outskirts of the village, and had seen… her daughter twice, in the company of a pair of adults that she recognized as the two thralls from Vedrarfjord that had been taking care of her.  It had taken her some time to recognize them, because their faces were less gaunt and their clothing was finer. 

And seeing the little redhead being carried around by the man in his arms with a smile on his face as the toddler giggled and cheered…

It had been agony.  But the sweetest agony possible, and Toiréasa had treasured each moment that her guts had twisted, seeing her child clapping and singing along with other children as they danced around the bonfire. 

Heather's messages had managed to confuse her, but in the end, it was fairly clear that she was in the new employ of the Hooligans, having switched sides and betrayed Adalwin.  But parading Mhairi in front of her was fairly obviously a… threat?  comment? offer? for her to do the same, as _they_ now held her leash.  The carrot was very tempting, and the thought of her daughter being subjected to the stick…

Well, that was why she'd gone to Eochaid in the first place willingly. 

At least… at least she seemed to be happy here.  And that was more than Adalwin had ever promised her. 

So—Eochaid stroking her arm, seeming to bask in the angry looks he was getting from the Norsemen—she resolved that she could be satisfied with that. 

Spying on Ulaid in exchange for her child's safety and happiness.

It was a bargain.

After all, Adalwin had sent her to Ulaid with the instructions to be ready to kill Eochaid and his father, and their heirs, on his signal.

The blond woman who had tried to run away from Eochaid before, only for him to find her again, sat down nearby with a mug of ale.  Her cheeks were flushed, as though she had either just been dancing or been outside in the chill wind.  Eochaid smiled charmingly at her… and then she smiled back, hesitantly. 

Toiréasa was taken aback by that.  The Norsewoman had made her disdain for Eochaid _extremely_ clear.  And while Eochaid wouldn't question it—he believed himself to be irresistible to women— _something_ was going on.

Eochaid, emboldened, continued to flirt in his usual hamfisted manner, and while the Norsewoman—Camilla, now she remembered her name—didn't actively encourage him, she wasn't _discouraging_ him either. 

All Toiréasa could do was watch, in numb dismay, as it continued.  Finally, Camilla finished her mug and got up to dance, and staggered slightly…  and Eochaid was there, steadying her, his hands in nearly inappropriate places.

With an admonishment to Toiréasa to stay put, he walked off with the Norsewoman to dance.

Then Heather appeared, carrying a tray of drinks—and as Eochaid's guardsmen grabbed at them, one of them upset the tray.  Or at least that's how it would look to anyone watching, but Toiréasa saw Heather's hands jostle the tray using the man's hand as the excuse.  But the end result was that three full tankards spilled…

All over Toiréasa.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Heather said earnestly as Toiréasa sat there, literally dripping in ale.  "Come, come, we'll get that cleaned up!"

One of the guardsmen said, "She's not supposed to leave—"

"She won't leave the hall!  But I imagine that your lord wouldn't be happy if he came back to a shivering cold woman who smells like an alehouse!" Heather replied tartly. 

The guardsmen shared a glance.  "She won't leave the hall?"

"She won't, and we'll get her cleaned up quick," Heather promised.

Another shared glance, and then a slow nod.  "Be quick about it."

Heather and Toiréasa didn't have to be told twice, and a minute later, the pair of them were back in the storage tunnels that apparently ran all through the back of the caverns here. 

The two of them looked at each other as the door closed and Heather locked it, and all of the questions that Toiréasa had running through her head all tried to leave at once, and she started gasping for breath, her pulse pounding and her hands shaking.

Heather reached out and gave her a steadying hand, before reaching over and pulling out a clean linen towel from a bag.  "Strip.  We need to get that dress cleaned.  Toss it into the tub," she said flatly.

Toiréasa nodded, still having a hard time breathing, but she started undoing her belt without question.  There were two steaming washtubs in here already, one with a washboard, and a folded dress on a table.  It seemed that Heather had planned the whole thing. 

"Cami should be able to keep him distracted, but I don't know how long she'll manage," Heather said, still in a businesslike tone.

"W-w-what…?" Toiréasa stammered out as she pulled her soaked tunic off.

"It'll be faster if I just explain," Heather said.  "Get yourself into that tub and start scrubbing.  And I'm sorry for the mess, but I needed to get you out of there."

Toiréasa nodded and practically jumped into the tub; it was steaming hot, and she almost yelped.  Heather wordlessly handed her a ball of soft soap and Toiréasa started to lather up.  The repetitive motion gave her something to calm herself with, and, after a moment, she was back in control of herself.   "Don't worry about it," she said earnestly.  "Hell, I'd be willing to swim in an ale vat.  Just…" her throat tightened and she managed to force out the words, " _Is Mhairi safe?"_

Heather nodded.  "Nobody knows who she is to you beyond the chief and his family and me.  My parents have adopted her, after Adalwin gave her to them to raise."

Toiréasa blinked—and then coughed as Heather dumped a bucket of steaming water over her. 

As they got her and the dress cleaned up, Heather explained the situation quickly and concisely, leaving Toiréasa reeling with revelation after revelation.  Adalwin wasn't an ua Imair, but a pretender… which made sense, given his skills.  The Hooligans were earnest about freeing her.  Vedrarfjord was under their control.  Adal… _Alvin_ had escaped, but unless she had another hostage—which she didn't—she was free of his control.  And they were going to do their best to free her of Eochaid and let her live here, as a freedwoman. 

There were more details than that, but those were the major points, as Heather told her of the last half-year since she'd arrived here on Berk. 

Finally, as Toiréasa was toweling her hair dry, Heather, squeezing out the water from her cleaned dress, said to her, "I know that you hate me, because of what that bastard did to us.  And I hated you."  She held out a hand.  "Peace?"

Toiréasa looked at the hand.  "You swear that my daughter is safe?"

Heather nodded seriously.  "She's my sister, even if not in blood."   She looked Toiréasa in the eye and said, "And Chief Stoick gives her rides on his shoulders and carves toy dragons for her.  I swear by Frigga, goddess of mothers and family."

It was a fight to keep the tears at bay, but for the sake of her cover, she managed.  Somehow.  Toiréasa shook the other woman's hand.

They finished getting her cleaned up, dressed in a borrowed dress and tunic, and left the tubs of water standing in the room—but as they returned to the main hall, there was the sounds of angry shouting. 

Including Eochaid's, which Toiréasa was intimately familiar with.

###

Wulfhild sucked on the splinters in her fingers.  Getting the racks cleaned up… had been heartbreaking.  Smashed eggs had squelched underfoot as they'd cleared the debris, and they'd found only a dozen eggs—out of _two hundred and fifty_ —that had still been intact, all of which had been on the bottom-most rows. 

Yes, she was a princess.  Yes she technically shouldn't have been doing this sort of manual labor…

But she wanted to be able to look into the eyes of her best friends—dragon and human alike—and be able to say that she had helped as best she could. 

At least Hiccup seemed to know what to do.  He and Fishlegs were discussing the details of how to deal with this, and their knowledge and confidence were inspiring and calming.

But the thought of Hiccup was another wrench to her gut, and not just because of the heart-wrenching news that they had to give him about the destroyed rack.  The whole village had seen through their stratagem.  She hadn't had time to think, hadn't had time to do more than realize that either she would have to tell them what the Father had tricked her into doing—but which she had still agreed to, of her own free will—or continue to lie.

She leaned against the warm rock of the tunnel wall and took a deep breath.

No.  She wouldn't continue to lie.  Not forever.  Jarl Yngvarr was researching for her, and he was a man of wisdom and integrity.  She trusted him.  The day she received what he had found, she would tell Hiccup and Astrid, for good or for ill.

But she also had an ill thought towards these too-observant Hooligans.  Things had been getting better between her and Hiccup and Astrid!  She had been willing to wait, or even go untouched if it turned out that the worst case was true, and let things continue as they had.  But now that option was no longer possible.  And she felt sick with fear at the coming talk that she had to have with the two people that she had come to care about so very much.

Her thought were interrupted by a coughing shout.  "Hiccup!  Are you down here!?" the shout echoed oddly in the close and hot tunnels.

Hiccup called from the neighboring tunnel, "Yes!"

"You're needed up in the mead hall!"

There was a pause, and she heard Hiccup mutter something sarcastic in tone—" _Of course,"_ she suspected—and the in a louder voice, he called, "Can it wait?"

"Not really!  Eochaid is about ready to call for a formal duel!  We're looking for Stoick, but…"

Hiccup groaned and then called, "On my way!"  A moment later, he came into view, heading towards the exit. 

Wulfhild followed, and was joined by Astrid, and as they emerged from the Broodery door into the mead hall's older complex of tunnels, Wulfhild almost gasped at how much cooler it was—and became aware of how her clothes were sticking to her skin from the sheer amount of sweat she'd been giving off, and how they quickly began to cool.  But she didn't pay that discomfort too much mind, given the shouting that she could hear coming from nearby.

Hiccup broke into a trot, and she and Astrid quickly followed him.  Entering the main hall from the side tunnel that led to the Broodery, Wulfhild immediately saw Eochaid yelling, and Cami yelling back, surrounded by a large crowd of mixed Eirish and Hooligans, all of them looking belligerent and agitated. 

And then Eochaid saw Hiccup and turned to bellow dramatically, "Your tribesman assaulted one of my men!"

Hiccup blinked—and then Wulfhild saw Dogsbreath being held by two burly Eirish, with Inga standing nearby, and had a terrible suspicion that she knew what had happened. 

Her suspicion was confirmed when Dogsbreath protested, "But he made a pass at Inga!"

"So you punched him hard enough to knock out a tooth and then made an attack on his manhood!" Eochaid bellowed, gesticulating almost wildly—but not so wildly as to hit someone in the crowded space, Wulfhild noticed.  "I demand satisfaction!"

Hiccup groaned and then pointed to Dogsbreath.  "First, release him.  Dog, you stay put and don't… don't…"

"Be yourself?" Wulfhild heard Astrid offer quietly from next to her. 

She snorted.

"…don't do anything else stupid or dishonorable!" Hiccup finished. 

Snitwit clan Jorgenson called out from the middle of the crowd, "It's Dogsbreath, coz!  That leaves him with breathing!  He can't even fart!"

Wulfhild snorted again, and felt Astrid leaning on her.  "She's not wrong!" Astrid cheerfully whispered.

Wulfhild looked around—and saw that most of the Hooligan women near their ages seemed to be spectating with glee as the two Eirishmen released Dogsbreath, who clenched his fists, but then, after a stare-down with Hiccup, crossed his arms belligerently and stood quietly. 

"Now, _what happened!?"_ Hiccup demanded with exasperation. 

"Your man there assaulted one of mine, striking him about the face and groin!" Eochaid said hotly.  He motioned to another Eirishman, his arms slung over the shoulders of two others.  He looked a bit battered and was staring at Dogsbreath in anger. 

Wulfhild watched for several moments as Hiccup tried to settle the belligerent Eirishmen—and she suspected that Eochaid's belligerence was at least partially affected, in order to push Hiccup into a corner for their future negotiations.  Once things calmed enough to reach the point where Hiccup started questioning the first Hooligan eyewitness—Snitwit, who gleefully recounted what she'd seen—Wulfhild heard Astrid huff out a breath by her ear as the story unwound.  Snitwit's report was pretty simple—the Eirishman had made a pass at Inga… and then Dogsbreath had decked him and then kicked him when he was down. 

"Gods, Dog is such an idiot.  I'm embarrassed to be related to him," Astrid said quietly, watching the drama. 

"You're related to him?  How?"

"Through my mother; we're second cousins, once removed.  Mom's an Ingerman by birth."

Wulfhild laughed softly.  "My sympathies."  They continued to watch, Wulfhild taking comfort in Astrid's strong presence at her side.  As Hiccup incredulously cross-examined Dogsbreath, finding out that, yes, he was indeed an idiot—he was trying to argue that he had been acting in defense of another guest's honor, which was so much crap, due to the excessiveness of his response—Wulfhild asked, "So… what did Inga's mother _do,_ exactly?"

Astrid shrugged.  "She was working to get her dowry from Clodgall while Rolf was getting his bride price together—they had to meet the legal minimums, you know—"

Wulfhild nodded.

"—and she was caught stealing and hoarding.  So Clodgall banished her before the concubine year was even up.  According to the story, you could hear her screaming on the longboat from our house."

Wulfhild blinked and whistled, but before she could ask for more details, her attention was drawn away by Hiccup yelling.  "It's your own fault, Dog!  I'm not going to pull your fat out of the fire for you!  You screwed up, and _you're_ on the hook for compensation!" he yelled, exasperated, and turned to Eochaid, who looked suddenly perturbed—probably because he was hoping to extort a few concessions out of Hiccup from this, and declaring Dogsbreath to be solely responsible took that option away from him.  "What sort of compensation would you consider fair, King Eochaid?" Hiccup asked in a formal tone. 

Eochaid visibly calmed himself, although his eyes were still narrowed in anger, and said, "In the interests of diplomacy and as a gesture of goodwill… I think that we can let this pass with only a nominal fee.  Say, ten silver pennies?"

Wulfhild snorted; still a week's pay for a skilled laborer. 

Hiccup nodded.  "That sounds fine.  Dogsbreath, you have until tomorrow to pay up."  He glanced at the Eirishman who'd been attacked.  "Oh, and you have to apologize to him, too."

Dogsbreath scowled, stood up, and said, "I'm sorry," in one of the most insincere tones that Wulfhild had ever heard, before walking over to Inga, taking her hand, and leaving.

With the entertainment over, the crowd started to break up.  Eochaid glanced around and quickly spotted Toiréasa, who had been loitering near the wall, watching the confrontation from a distance.

Wulfhild glanced at the redhead as Eochaid reclaimed her, and then did a double-take.  Toiréasa was smiling, and it was much more genuine than it had been previously. 

But then a question belatedly occurred to her. 

What did Astrid mean, when she'd said that Roswynn had been getting her dowry from Clodgall?  And that he'd banished her 'before the concubine year was up'?  What did that mean?

Aodh entered the hall, followed a moment later by Stoick and Gobber, all of them looking cold and windswept, their dragons close behind.  As Hiccup went up to his father and explained what had happened, Wulfhild went over to Gobber.

"Hey…" she said shyly to her mentor.  "Can I ask you something?"

He smirked.  "Yeh just did."

She rolled her eyes and his smirk deepened.  "Sure, lass.  What is it?"

"Astrid was telling me about Inga's mother… and she mentioned something about a 'concubine year.'  Can you explain?"

Gobber blinked.  "Whooo boy.  They didn't mention that?"

She shook her head.

"Well…"  He looked incredibly uncomfortable.  "I forgot that it isn't a thing away from Berk."  His eyes glanced away from her for a moment, but at someone or in reminiscence, she couldn't tell, and then he guided her over to a table.  "In short, the law says that if yeh and Hiccup don't want to be with each other in a year, yeh can separate from him, and he owes you a dowry for whoever yeh do want to marry."

Wulfhild sucked in a breath.  "Can… can you explain?  I'm confused."

"Aye.  It's to keep concubines from being taken advantage of.  So, every year, for example, Dagn and Ingrid and Rikard have to go up before Stoick and say that they want to stay together.  But… well, we ended up taking that law and mucking with it a bit."  He looked… pained for some reason.

"Go on…?" she pushed gently. 

"Well, getting a dowry is hard if you're a freedwoman, right?" Gobber said with a sigh.  "Especially around here, before last year.  More than a few dowries' worth of flocks ended up getting fed to big, scaly and hungry," he cocked his chin towards the tooth over the door, "which caused all sorts of problems."

She nodded.

"So, how it works… most of the time… is that, say, let's take Vigdis and Steinn for example," he said, glancing in the direction.  "Vigdis couldna afford the dowry when she got here, but it's the _law,_ right?  So Steinn talks to Rikard, and Vigdis spends a year as Rikard's 'concubine,'" Gobber made the quoting motion with his flesh-and-blood hand, "and then separates from Rikard, with him having never touched her.  But she's now in the clan, gotten a year to get to know everybody, and free to marry Steinn, dowry in hand.  What happened with Roswynn was that she got banished before the year was even up, while Rolf was courting her that way."

"Oh."  She swallowed and asked the obvious question.  "And what does this mean for me?"  _And is this what Rikard meant when he referred to me as a temporary concubine?_

Gobber shook his head.  "Thaaat yeh're going to have to talk to Hiccup and Astrid about.  I ain't getting meself into that talk, especially with the treaty and all that.  But yeh aren't stuck with him for any longer than if you want to be, if that helps any.  Not by law."

_Maybe.  Or maybe I am, depending on whether the Father did actually marry me to Hiccup or not._ She nodded, and hid a shudder.  _Well, if it comes down to it… I don't know.  I don't know if he even wants me.  Or if he'll be like everybody else in my life, who couldn't wait to get rid of me._

"Th-thank you, Gobber," she stammered out.  "In… in the meantime, I think Hiccup is going to need your help.  There's a problem in the Broodery."

She stood to leave, and Gobber reached out and gently put his hand on her wrist.  "Lass.  If there's a problem, yeh know yeh can talk to me, right?"

She nodded and withdrew her hand.  "And… and I will, if I need it.  Thank you, Gobber."

###

 

Hours later, the sun having long since set, Wulfhild, Hiccup and Astrid staggered into their home, leaning on each other's shoulders in fatigue.  Wulfhild wanted two things; a drink of water that was colder than her own lips, and her bed.  They'd spent hours down in the Broodery, anchoring the racks to the walls, adding wooden planks to reinforce the boxes, and, in Wulfhild's case, making sure that everybody got water, a job she'd given herself after two people passed out from the heat. 

They'd had no time to talk, and there was still work to be done.  And another three eggs had spontaneously exploded during the day—one of them exploding hard enough to knock over another rack. 

Wulfhild was glad that she'd worked herself to exhaustion.  Maybe that way, she wouldn't see that rack, filled with hundreds of eggs, ripple from the explosion.  It had happened near the bottom in a corner, and the explosion had tossed the end up into the air by almost a foot, ripping planks free of the rack as it bucked like a horse.  And it had come down unevenly… and then, in an undulating wave, it had tipped, sending another two hundred and sixteen eggs to shatter on the floor—and two of them then exploded as well.

She felt so incredibly guilty for not having done more, even as she had no idea what else she could have done.

Finding water, she drank, and shuddered at the chill, before staggering off to bed.

So much left to do…

###

**January, AD 1042**

###

As the sun finally appeared on the horizon at the late hour typical of the winter days, Astrid groaned and sighed, before rolling over in the furs.  She was _not_ a morning person.  Mornings were vile, horrible things that involved getting out of a warm bed into cold air and shivering.  And mornings were especially vile after having spent three nights running down in the Broodery, trying to save the eggs from themselves.

She paused at that thought.

The eggs exploded.  She was still in shock about it, despite having seen it for herself.  The explosions were coming faster now, nearly twenty a day now, and the force of their detonations was growing more intense.  They'd lost over a thousand eggs, and would probably lose more, but they had no idea what else to do beyond reinforcing the racks to try to contain the explosions. 

But that was done with, at least.  Hiccup had stripped the village of any and all scrap metal, melted it down, and made metal sheets to fit between the eggs and the wood of the racks.  And it had worked!  Three eggs had exploded within the metal inserts so far, and while they'd damaged the eggs opposite them on the other wall, they hadn't destroyed the rack—although the metal had been warped and needed repair. 

But they'd done all they could… and there was a feeling of fear in the village that all of the eggs would explode—that they'd lose every single baby dragon to some curse before they were even born.  But Hiccup had reassured people.  The dragons were saddened, not panicked, which seemed to indicate that this was normal.  And the reason that it hadn't happened last year…

Last year, most of the eggs had been dead.  Clearly any that might have exploded hadn't survived the trip from the old nest. 

And those points had placated the worries of the tribe… mostly.  But there was still an air of anxiety. 

Her stomach roiled; she was hungry, but her appetite had been very off for the last few days—no wonder, after slipping in oily dragon egg-yolk twice. 

She rolled, and felt the other side of the bed, but it was cold and empty—Hiccup must have already risen and left to start his day, and left her to continue to sleep.  They'd come home last night practically falling off their feet with exhaustion and collapsed into bed.  And now he was up and about already?  Yeah, no, she wasn't going to let him show her up.  It was time to get started with her day.

With a groan, she hauled herself up and rolled out of bed, and made unhappy noises as the cold air hit her skin, the fire in the _skorskeinn_ in their room having long since gone out in the night.  She dressed, and went in search of her husband, breakfast, and warmth—and not necessarily in that order.  Although Hiccup made for an _excellent_ replacement for the usual hearth-warmed rock under the furs.  How someone that skinny produced that much heat was beyond her, but it made cuddling with him on a cold night into a delightful treat, even if they weren't making love. 

She got downstairs and paused.  Hiccup and Wulfhild were sitting together, heads bowed over something on the table, discussing something intently. 

She felt a pang of jealousy… and quashed it, along with the fear that she wasn't _good_ enough.  And then she felt a pang of guilt, and embraced it.  Her great-grandfather was right.  They had to settle this.  And Wulfhild was feeling guilty about the whole situation and would never push for it… and Hiccup still tended to run away from confrontation unless cornered. 

So it was down to her to start this… or _everything_ they'd done would be for _nothing._  

She clenched her fist at the thought, remembering a town—the name escaped her—midway down the length of Norway's coast.  They'd stopped there on their way to Nidaros during the summer.  It had been a beautiful town, in the midst of a breathtaking fjord, and the people there had been kind and friendly.  The bathmaster had practically adopted their dragons when they'd helped with heating the water in the tubs, and she'd let two of his young daughters braid her hair while she'd relaxed in the steaming water.  That was just one of the places in Magnus' kingdom that came to mind that would be at risk if a civil war broke out. 

And… on top of that…

Wulfhild was still her friend.  She had offered to help her and shelter her in any way that she could. 

She wasn't going to go back on her word… or see it be done poorly.  

Taking a deep steeling breath, she walked over to the sideboard and got herself a loaf of bread and some butter, along with a tankard of steaming milk from a jug.  Then she joined them at the table. 

"Morning," she greeted them.  "What's that?" She motioned to the parchments between them as she took a bite from her bread.

Hiccup smiled warmly at her.  "Sleep well?  And it's a message from your parents.  They're having some difficulties organizing bed rights and food rights for everybody in Vedrarfjord and had some ideas that they wanted advice on, and, well, that falls under Wulfhild's purview these days."

Astrid nodded, and continued to eat.  And then… once she had finished, watched the two of them discuss the finer points of her parents' suggestion.  She was almost ready to get up and leave to let them continue…

_No.  No more stalling.  Do it right, or not at all._

So she cleared her throat when there was a pause. 

They both looked up at her.

"We need to talk.  About all three of us.  Because Grandpapa was right.  This can't go on like it was.  So…" she sighed and leaned towards them, "what do we do?"

###

Cami grunted as she hauled herself up the nearly sheer rock face.  Ever since she'd had to flirt with Eochaid to buy Heather time to talk to that other woman, she'd been doing her best to avoid him.  For the moment, she'd found her new favorite place on Berk—the Rookery. 

Hiccup and the dragons had hollowed out the spire near Berk that stood over the old training pit to create a place for the dragons to nest.  There was a central shaft that pierced the whole of the rock pillar, with various levels that led off from it for the dragons to nest in.  Taken as a whole, it was a bit chilly and dark inside by the standards of a normal dwelling, but it was warm enough compared to the winter chill outdoors, and, unlike most caves, it had various lamps scattered around to give enough light for a person to see by. 

But she wasn't here for the dragons.  No, that central shaft had caught her eye, and she'd been slowly climbing up the inside of it over the last few days as a personal challenge.  She'd go from level to level, free-climbing.  Once she felt that she was done, she'd duck into a convenient opening and head back down the conventional way, using the ramps and stairs that had been cut by the masons and dragons.  At the moment, she was about halfway up, over a hundred and fifty feet off the ground, and it was glorious. 

A dragon—she didn't know what kind, although it was quite pretty—was shadowing her at the moment, climbing along the wall near her on all four limbs.  As she reached up to a new handhold, it chittered, and she gave it a glare.  "Hey!  Don't distract me!"

It made a sarcastic chitter and moved off a few feet, still watching her.  She could swear that it was smirking at her.  She made an obscene gesture at it, and it chortled. 

She continued to climb, still shadowed by the dragon, but ignoring it.  Relishing the burn in her shoulders and legs, she smiled as she made her steady way up the wall.  This was great.  The walls were rough from the teeth marks of dragons, and they gave wonderful grip to her hands and feet as she went along.

###

"So… what do we do?" Astrid asked, and Wulfhild sucked in a breath.  She glanced at her two friends; Astrid looked intent, while Hiccup had frozen. 

She'd been thinking  at every spare moment over the last few days; she'd even gotten out the book of law that Gobber had given her and found the relevant passages for her concubinage.  And… well, she wasn't _married_ to Hiccup in the eyes of the Hooligans… but any children with him would be automatically legitimate, and she did have a great many of the rights and privileges of a wife.  For the next eleven months, she was, effectively, almost his wife in many ways.  Not his illicit toy or his acknowledged but technically illegal mistress to get pleasure from in the face of an unloved wife, but a legal part of his household—and would remain so, even if they separated.

If Magnus's mother had been a Hooligan concubine to their father… her brother would be legitimate, but his kingship would still have had that issue of skipping over her in precedence.

If she'd known all that before Father Henriksson had dangled sin and absolution in front of her that day, she would have smiled and declined—or, at least, that's what she told herself now.  But at least, it would have been much harder for him to push her into fear of sin.  Because… from what she'd seen, it was a sanctioned, accepted, and legitimate relationship.  She wasn't Hiccup's kept woman, dependent on him for support and status.  And what a difference that made.  Even if it did nothing to quiet the little voice in her head that she wasn't needed…

Honestly, if not for that increasingly _cursed_ marriage vow hanging over her head, she would have been hard-pressed to avoid asking if she _could_ take Hiccup up to her bed now.  While certainly the last few nights had been quieter, due to the Broodery work, she would certainly admit to a great deal of pent up… _curiosity._

But it was there, right next to her fear that she was unneeded, an awkward addition that complicated matters. 

So she took her own deep breath and said, "I, I don't know.  I found out from Gobber and this," she patted the lawbook, "that my status… is very different from what I originally thought."

"How so?" Astrid asked, cocking her head slightly. 

"A lord's concubine is usually little better than a pleasure thrall, although it's not unheard of for jarls and kings to have a noble-born concubine specifically for peaceweaving… or as a hostage.  But their children are never legitimate.  But now…" she motioned around the house, "I'm _legally_ a member of the Haddock clan.  If Hiccup and I… heh…" she chuckled weakly, "my children would be legitimate, without the stain of bastardry on them."

Astrid looked enlightened—and then incensed.  "Wait, you thought that we were going to… and you… aargh!"

Hiccup looked ill, but asked, "So… what do you want, Wulf?"

_You._

She swallowed that lustful voice and banished it to the back of her mind.  She'd long since realized this past month that if he hadn't been courting Astrid when he'd arrived in Norway, she would have happily asked her brother and Einar for permission to marry him.  Even now, with all of the discomforts that their present situation inflicted on them, she realized that the idea of bedding Hiccup, bearing him children, and spending a life with her two best friends at her sides was a cherished thought.  She'd caught herself fantasizing about it repeatedly over the last week and more, after she'd seen other families in the tribe that had concubines as _part_ of their family, like Astrid's aunt Dingleberry.  As being a wanted, _desired_ part of a _family_ , instead of a superfluous firstborn daughter.

But rather than voice her desire, she instead said, "I… I have one question that I need to ask first.  Of both of you."

They both nodded.  "Go ahead," Hiccup said.

"Do… do you _want_ me?  Forget the treaty, forget all of that—"

"Kinda hard, Wulf," Astrid interrupted.  "You know, with the jarls having declared their joint opposition to your brother and everything."

She grimaced.  "I know.  And I hate that, and I know that you do as well.  But, leaving aside the political considerations… do you want me?"  _Because I could wait out the next eleven months, send a letter to the Pope saying that the marriage was never fulfilled due to not being consummated, and ask for an annulment.  Even if it means that… I'm not good enough for you.  That I'm not good enough for anybody._

Astrid looked down.  "I… I don't know.  And I think that we need to talk to Grandpapa and his wives—"  She paused and swallowed.  "His wives.  You know, I have to remind myself that my great-grandmother is technically a concubine?"

Hiccup nodded in sardonic agreement.  "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Wulfhild sighed softly.  "And you, Hiccup?"

"And me… what?" he asked.

"Do you want me?  Aside from the politics, do you actually want me in your life?" _And in your bed?_

Hiccup swallowed visibly.  "I… You're my friend, Wulf.  But I don't know.  I mean, it's not like I want to get rid of you… but I, I, I just don't know _what_ I want with you."  Wulfhild felt her guts twist inside at the pain and uncertainty in his voice, and she knew that some of it showed on her face.  He winced and looked away.  "I think that, yeah, talking with Clanhead Rikard and his wives can only be a good idea, though," he finished slightly more firmly.

"So… so let's go talk to them.  Because we're fumbling here, and have no idea on what to do," Astrid said. 

Wulfhild raised a hand.  "There's one other issue, though, that occurred to me."

"Yes?" Hiccup asked, looking concerned. 

Wulfhild took a deep breath… and dissembled.  "You… you've heard stories about how corrupt Pope Benedict is, yes?"

They both nodded.  "But what does that have to do with anything?" Astrid asked.

"Well… well, he could try to claim that, as you're not Christian, your marriage to Hiccup is-is not valid, and he might try to use me to push Astrid out of the way…" she said, trailing off, hoping that she hadn't given too much away.  It was nerve-racking to have given that much of a confession to them, even framed as a 'what-if?'… but she had to know.

Astrid snorted.  "Honestly?"  She rolled her eyes.  "Typical.  Well, if that Pope—and what is that, exactly?"

"High priest," Hiccup supplied. 

"Ah, that makes sense—well, if that high priest wants to try to claim that my marriage isn't valid, he's _welcome_ to come and present his arguments in person."  She smirked.  "I'd like to see him argue with Bladewit."

Wulfhild gave a small smile at that, but Hiccup was frowning.  "What?" she asked.

His brow furrowed, Hiccup said, "I've heard lots of stories of Christians breaking oaths to pagans over the years.  Is there any chance that he might try to get Ruffnut's marriage invalidated?"

"I… I don't know," she answered honestly, and her stomach roiled at the thought.  It would be a sick jest if that were to happen.

"Well, it's not a problem here," Hiccup said.  He took his own deep breath, and then said, "While I appreciate the thought, any… any of _our_ children would be the children of a concubine, and thus out of the succession barring unusual circumstances."  He shrugged.  "There's no way that a message like that from someone living that far away, leading a faith that is not ours, would be seen as anything other than an ignorable insult by the tribe."

Wulfhild blinked.  And then nodded.  That made sense.  And he didn't know about the Father's little trick either.  Why would he?  She'd seen the marriage laws; there were four parts to a Hooligan marriage, and she'd only fulfilled one of them.  The _mundr_ , an oath before witnesses, the presentation of the mead and associated blessings, and the consummation.  There was no bride price or dowry between him and her (and certainly no morning gift yet), no mead, and no consummation.  The Hooligans didn't consider her married to him.  They wouldn't.  Not by their laws. 

She wouldn't be shoving Astrid aside, even if the Pope himself got behind her and pushed.

A coil of tension in her gut that she hadn't even realized was there relaxed.  She nodded.  "Let's go."

###

Hand in hand with Astrid, Hiccup walked up to the Hofferson clanhome.  His palms felt clammy and his heart was pounding.  He glanced at Wulfhild, walking alongside them.  This had to be done, but it was… stressful.

Astrid knocked, and a few moments later, Dagn opened the door.  "Aha."  She turned and called into the house.  "Rhonda, you won the bet!"

Hiccup made a strangled noise of protest, while Wulfhild burst out into incredulous laughter—and inside, he heard his great-aunt start chortling.  "Told you!"

Dagn waved them in, and the three of them stiffly walked inside. 

Rikard and Ingrid were in the main room, Rikard carving a pattern into a plank of wood with a carving knife that Hiccup remembered making for him two years ago, while Ingrid was weaving at a loom.  His great-aunt Rhonda came down the stairs a moment later, holding a basket of loose wool and a spindle. 

"So, you're here!"  She turned to her husband and her two sister-wives.  "Pay up!" 

With cheerful muttering, the three elders did so, and there was much good-natured amusement among them all.  As he, Astrid and Wulfhild stiffly sat, Hiccup felt his gut clench in… envy? 

Yeah… he was envious.  They were comfortable with one another. 

Dagn sat down by her own basket of wool and spindle, and returned to spinning yarn, and Rhonda joined her.  Under any other circumstance, Hiccup would have been watching, fascinated by a crafting skill that he didn't have, but at the moment, he was a bit too anxious. 

"So," Rikard said, not looking up from the plank he was carving with a dragon motif, "I'm guessing that you're here to take my advice?"

Hiccup made an affirmative grunt.

"Cat got your tongue, lad?" Dagn teased. 

Hiccup whimpered.

"Don't tease them, Dagn," Ingrid said with a roll of her eyes.  "They're stressed enough."

"But it's such fun!  And it brings back such memories!" Dagn protested.

Rikard snorted and looked up at Dagn.  " _We_ didn't have anyone prying their noses into our business other than Hiccup." Hiccup twitched, and Rikard saw it.  "Your great-grandfather, not you.  He was… worried, and Rhonda was his daughter, after all."

Hiccup nodded weakly, and then Astrid spoke up.  "So… here we are."

"Yes, you are.  And what have you decided among yourselves?" Ingrid asked from her spot by the loom.

Hiccup took a deep breath.  "We haven't decided on anything yet."

"Well, here's my thought," Rhonda said.  "I think I'd mourn if the Haddock clan went extinct—"

"For obvious reasons," Dagn interjected.

"Well, yes.  But the point stands."  Rhonda nodded at the three of them.  "You three are in the same position that we were, sixty-some years ago.  Back then, suddenly Rikard and I were the last two remaining Hoffersons, after the clanhouse burned down with the rest of the clan in it."

Hiccup winced, and felt Astrid and Wulfhild twitch on either side of him. 

"Now, Clan Haddock is the three of you, Stoick, and my sister," Rhonda said.  "That's it.  But… unless we miss our guess, Astrid is feeling anxious at the thought of Hiccup sleeping with Wulfhild, Hiccup is being romantically devoted to Astrid, and Wulfhild is working herself into a romantic tizzy at the _idea_ of coming between you two."

Hiccup made a noise, which overlapped with the ones from the other two young people in the room. 

"Pretty on target, it sounds like," Dagn commented.  "So, I guess we'll work from the bottom up."  She looked at Wulfhild.  "Well, young princess, I bet this wasn't how you saw your life going, was it?"

Wulfhild stiffly shook her head.  "Not really, elder."

"Dagn.  'Elder' makes me feel old, and I'm still spry enough!"  She laughed. 

Wulfhild smiled slightly and said, "In some ways, yes.  In others…"  She shrugged. 

"Aye, that much was fairly clear.  So, now, Astrid," Dagn said, turning to her.  "Why are you anxious?"

"I…" Astrid stammered.  "I…"  She fell into choked silence after a moment.

"Is it the thought of him being with Wulfhild at all?" Ingrid prompted.  "Or the fear that he might leave you for her?"

"I… I don't know.  Both?"

"Well, if it's the first, then you should never had made that agreement in the first place," Rhonda observed.  "But it's not, is it?  I remember the clan discussion we had before Hiccup proposed—and this talk is part of our way of making up for it."

Hiccup blinked.  "What clan discussion?"

Rikard fixed him with that steely blue gaze.  "While you were taking your sweet time getting your bride price in order, lad, we assumed that Stoick wasn't letting you decide.  That there would be too many grand offers from foreign kings for him to let you marry Astrid for love.  Not when she brought nothing to the strength of your clan.  So, rather than ask Stoick… we convened a clan Thing… and agreed that, despite the irregularities of it all, we would accept Astrid being given to you as a concubine.  Partly for love, partly so that we would be able to have an ear in your councils."

Hiccup didn't remember standing, but he suddenly was, and yelled, "Is _that_ why Astrid spent all those weeks moping?!  Because you _told_ her that!?"

Rikard looked at him, unaffected.  "Aye.  It is.  Now sit, and let's try to work past it.  Or, if it makes you feel better, you can yell at me some more and then we'll talk."

Wulfhild was staring at Astrid, stunned.  Hiccup couldn't tell if she was jealous, upset, or about to burst into laughter or tears.  So he sat… and extended a hand to each of them.  Astrid clutched at his left, while Wulfhild tentatively took his right. 

"So.  Back then, Astrid, you accepted the idea of sharing him as a possibility, didn't you?" Rikard asked her.

Pained, Astrid nodded slowly.

"But now that you're married… you're suddenly less willing," Ingrid observed.  She cocked her head.  "So… why are you hoarding him—"

Hiccup leapt to his feet again and roared in protest, even as Astrid did the same, but Wulfhild made confused noises.

"She's not hoarding me!" Hiccup protested.  "How could you even _say_ that!?  Why would you _do_ that!?"

Ingrid crossed her arms and looked to Rhonda, who picked up the cue with no effort.  "How is she _not_ hoarding you, Hiccup?  Despite earlier saying that she was willing to share, now she's not, and she want to keep you all to herself, even though it _will harm your clan."_   She gave him a flat look.  "Now sit."

Reluctantly and stiffly, they sat, even as his blood boiled at the insult to Astrid.  Hoarding was a banishing offense.  "How does it harm my clan, for you to make that kind of accusation?" he asked tightly. 

Ingrid chuckled humorlessly.  "Hiccup.  _Think_ who you're asking that question to for at least a moment."

He looked around the room at the four elders, all of whom looked back at him expectantly.  His grand-aunt nodded as he looked at her.  "Aye, Hiccup.  If _I'd_ made that choice when I was but a little older than Astrid…" she narrowed her eyes, "not only would the Hofferson clan likely be gone by now, _your beloved wife would never have been born."_

Hiccup whuffed out his breath like he'd been slugged in the gut.

"Aye.  Like that."

They sat in silence for a moment as he and Astrid tried to think on that… and then Wulfhild made a curious noise.  "Um… why is hoarding such an insult?"

Rikard shrugged.  "Stoickpiling is one thing.  It's wise to do when the food is plentiful, weighed against a day when it is not.  And when that day arrives, the extra food having been, say, stolen by dragons to feed a monster… saying to your hungry fellow tribesmen that you have yours and you're unwilling to share… well.  We cast out and banish such people from the tribe.  If they're unwilling to be part of the whole of the tribe, but instead wish to use the rest of us to build themselves up, we have no patience for such behavior.  Let them stand on their own without aid and see how much of a stockpile they can accumulate.  We danced on the edge of mass starvation too many times to accept that sort of behavior."

"Oh."

Hiccup looked at Astrid.  She looked pained… and then nodded.  "I guess…  I see your point," she said.

"And it's a hard thing, I know," Rhonda said.  "But if you're insisting that all of Hiccup's children have to be yours, then you're limiting how many he can have.  Does that seem _fair_ to your new clan?  For the good of my new clan, I had to make the same choice.  I had to share my husband.  And now, sixty years later… can you tell me that I was wrong to do so?"

Astrid took a deep breath and then sighed.  "If I do that, I argue against my own birth."

"Aye.  You do.  And there's more to it than that.  A household is a lot of work.  The chief's, even more so.  Having someone else to shoulder the burden… rock the babies to sleep…"

"Feed them," Dagn commented.

"Clean them," Ingrid offered. 

"And raise them," Rikard said, "it all makes a difference.  And if you're suggesting that Hiccup would stop loving you…"  He affixed Hiccup with a look.  "Lad, just how absurd a fear is that?"

Hiccup wordlessly wrapped both arms around Astrid and held her protectively. 

"Aye.  That's what I thought.  Astrid, you owe Hiccup an apology," Rikard said pointedly.

She blinked.  "Why?"

"Because you have insulted him, granddaughter.  You're afraid, but in that fear, you are believing that this man, who you have praised as loving, and devoted, and brave, and kind, will be none of those things to you.  That he will withdraw his love and abandon you.  And when you have said that those are the qualities of his that you find the most attractive, how can you believe that he will abandon you and still be the man that you love?"

Astrid stiffened under Hiccup's arms, and then said, in a breathy, pained voice, "Hiccup… babe, I'm sorry."

As Hiccup patted her reassuringly on the back—because what could he say to that?—Rikard looked to Wulfhild.  "And that brings us to you, princess.  And while I apologize for my familiar tone, I'd say that the familial issue at hand excuses it?"

Wulfhild nodded. 

"And now that we've browbeaten my granddaughter enough, I feel," Rikard said, "it's all rather moot if you say that you don't wish to.  You were pushed into this for a treaty.  You don't love them.  They're your friends, but you have no heights of passion with them, not like they share with each other."

Ingrid laughed and shared a smile with Rhonda. 

Hiccup flushed slightly.  Yes, they _tried_ to be quiet… but didn't always succeed.  And inside, he was coming to grips with the sudden knowledge that _she_ was afraid of _him_ leaving _her_ , when it was a recurring fear of his that _she_ would get fed up with him and leave _him._   That, despite it all, he was still Hiccup the Useless… unwanted and unneeded.

Unknowing of his inner turmoil, Wulfhild smiled softly.  "I never expected to have any feelings for my future spouse.  I expected to bear him a child who would be his heir, and then spend my life living a separate existence from him while he dallied with mistresses."  She looked down.  "As my father did with my mother.  I could have hoped for love developing between us, as the sagas sing about, but that would have been a hope."  She looked at him and Astrid.  "But now… they are my friends.  So I am already blessed beyond what I could have hoped for."  She shrugged stiffly next to Hiccup.  "And… in another eleven months, or two years if we need the time to deal with the jarls back home, if things do not work out, if friends are all we shall ever be…" she looked Hiccup in the eye, and he could see the worry and fear and hope in them, "I'll say that my concubinage is at an end, and enjoy helping raise Astrid's children as a treasured aunt, and laugh and love and smile."

Hiccup gave her a weak smile back, even as a pang of what Wulfhild was willing to give up hit him, combined with Astrid's fears, and a wave of protectiveness for both of the women on either side of him washed through him.

Rikard grinned.  "Well, that sounds like a fine place to start.  And if you want advice…"  He looked at the three of them.  "Talk.  Tell each other what you think and feel."  He smiled and looked to Astrid.  "And I'd like to meet my great-great-grandchildren, mind you.  And I'm not getting any younger!"

They all laughed, the tension suddenly broken. 

And then there was a frantic knocking at the door.  Dagn, cocking her head curiously, went and answered it. 

"Is Hiccup in here!?" Duckquack clan Ingerman asked, panting and panicked.

"I'm here.  What is it?"

"Come quick!  It's Cami!"

###

The dragon was still following her, a few feet down and behind her on the wall, and Cami started climbing faster, before looking down and blowing a raspberry at it.  The dragon made another amused noise and continued to follow her, clearly entertained.

And then…

She slipped.

The handhold she had been going for turned out to be a shadow in the flicking dim lamplight, and she'd already taken her counterbalancing foot off of the other hold.

She tried to recover, scrambling for a hold—and for a moment, she caught ahold of the rock. 

But not well enough.

And with a scream, she fell—

Only to stop short with a wrench, pain blossoming in both arms.

She looked up, and saw that the dragon had grabbed her with both of its hind legs, its front claws trying to hold onto the stone. 

But it was a small dragon, only a bit bigger than she was… and her weight pulled both of them free of the wall…

Screaming together, they fell.  The dragon's wings flapped aimlessly for a moment as she saw the stone floor of the shaft rising up towards them—and several people below looked up in alarm at her scream.

But then, with a bone-wrenching jolt, the dragon's wings snapped open and began flapping furiously.  Both of them screaming in terror, they came in for a landing—at speed.  And that _hurt_ as she hit the rock and felt something go _pop!_ in her ankle, but she wasn't going to complain, given that she'd almost gone splat instead. 

A moment later, the two of them were lying together, panting, on the cold stone.  Then the dragon crooned and pressed its nose into her hand with concern before slumping down to lay its head on her stomach and continuing to pant.

"Hey."  The dragon raised its head incrementally to look her in the eye.  "Thanks."

It nodded, and slumped back down. 

"So…" she panted a bit more.  "How does the name Skuggi sound?"

It cocked its head and then nodded.

"Swell."

Well, it wasn't her intention… but it seemed that she now had a dragon of her own.

She was going to owe Hiccup _such_ an apology…


	46. Light Fuse…

**Chapter 46: Light Fuse** **…**

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_**Chapter Trigger Warnings:** Explicit Depiction of early first trimester miscarriage_

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 **_Saint Olaf's Hospital,_ ** _also known colloquially as **Olaf's Home** and later more formally as **The Royal Hospital of St Olaf** , is a 493-bed teaching hospital located in Trondheim, Norway.  Founded in January 1042 as a charitable bequest from Ruffnut Fairhair I and Magnus Fairhair I, it is among the oldest continuously operating hospitals in the world.  It is home to the first medical library in Northern Europe and the oldest still-extant physic garden, both of which were started by Queen Ruffnut in the first few years of its existence, as well as to the second oldest Buffalord milking barn in the world._

_—Saint Olaf's Hospital. (n.d.). In Wikikenna.  Retrieved February 1, 1896._

**_January, AD 1042_ **

**_Boukoleon Palace, Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

Sigurd, his eyes gritty from lack of sleep, looked over the drafted designs for the dragon training ring.  It looked good, as far as he could recall from the design back on Berk… but Kristoffer had made it explicitly clear that any mistakes with the design would be on _his_ head, so he was racking his brains to try to remember as much as he could about the specifics. 

Racking his brains was much better than getting racked himself.  Kristoffer had told him of the various tortures that the Romans had developed, and some of the images that the man had described were giving him nightmares.

At least he was able to get away with drawing in broad strokes, giving them the layout and basic design for the architects to then refine into something workable.  So he didn't have to come up with the mechanisms for the cage doors, or the gate.  But he did remember that the chain net hung down from a high point over the pit, and was at a loss for how to replicate that.  Maybe make it like tent poles…?

_Hiccup would know how.  And his drawings would be better than yours._

Snotlout batted away the annoying thought, which had become more and more persistent over the last week as he'd made sketch after sketch for the architects and fielded question after question. 

He could do this. 

He _would_ do this. 

He narrowed his eyes, ignoring the grit in them, and remembered seeing the Emperor sitting on Hookfang's back after Sigurd had dismounted, when he'd first taken the Emperor flying the other week.  He had taken Sigurd's spot in the saddle, his hands on Hookfang's horns, clearly imagining himself as the rider flying through the air.  Hookfang had eyed him curiously, but had paid him no mind beyond that.

But the Emperor had still been looking covetously at Hookfang since then, and it didn't take much imagination to picture his friend being taken away and treated like a horse.

Feeling the surge of motivation that went with the memory, he set back to work. 

As the sun broke over the horizon, he finished his last part of the sketch, adding in the vertical posts for the fence that ran around the rim of the pit.  That was how it worked back in Berk, he remembered now.  The net was just kept from _sagging_ by the hook from above, not supported by it.  So a couple of long tree trunks to serve as 'tent poles' around the outside of the circle and meeting in the middle would probably be enough to copy that feature. 

Unable to think of anything else, he took his drawings and brought them over to the architects' desks for them to look over.  He had to get breakfast… and then report for duty. 

Urgh.

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Flying above the village, Hiccup called out, "How's it going?"

"I think I got it!" Cami called back from Skuggi's back.  The Changewing chortled, and then did a barrel roll that made Cami scream.  As she cheerfully scolded him a moment later, the dragon laughed evilly.

Hiccup shared a look with Toothless.  "Do you get the feeling that those two are going to be terrifying together?"

Toothless snorted and rolled his head before making a sarcastic-sounding chuffing noise. 

"'Terrifying' isn't good enough?"

Toothless seemed to consider that and then nodded.  Then he burbled and looked up.

Hiccup looked up as well, to see Cami apparently dangling upside-down in mid-air from nothing—it took Hiccup several seconds to pick out the Changewing's form against the gray skies.  Her legs were wrapped around his neck, and her temporary training saddle was taut against Skuggi's skin.  Hiccup was hoping that the permanent saddle would be done sooner rather than later, given the way that the two of them were acting.  Cami would need the proper restraints—in more than one meaning.

"Enjoying yourselves?"

Skuggi chortled, and Cami cackled.  "Immensely!"

"How's the ankle?"

"Still busted, but it's not like I'm walkin' on it!" she replied with a grin.

They flew on for a bit, with Hiccup instructing her in more techniques—and then Wulfhild flew up on Mistletoe.  "Hiccup, they need you back in the mead hall."

He nodded.  "Take over?  She needs some practice with keeping her seat during heavy maneuvers."

Wulfhild nodded, and Hiccup and Toothless flew away from training Cami and towards a meeting on whether she should be allowed to keep her dragon at all.

Landing on the steps, Hiccup smoothly dismounted and looked around.  The morning sun had turned the day into a sheet of drab gray behind the overcast clouds down here at ground level; above the clouds, it was sunny and they'd basked in the light and warmth for a bit a little while ago, and now, down here, he missed it… and the freedom that had come with it. 

He entered the mead hall with Toothless at his side, and was quickly pointed towards the ongoing meeting in one of the side chambers.  Urging Toothless towards the hearthfire and the pile of slumbering dragons heaped up nearby, Hiccup parted from his friend and went for the indicated room.  Hearing the sounds of argument within, he sighed and pushed open the door.

Clodgall was pounding on the table for emphasis as Hiccup entered and saw the assembled clanheads.  "Granddaughter, great-granddaughter, sister, niece, whatever!" he half-bellowed at Rikard and Stoick.  "She is not of the tribe, and she should not be able to just dance in here and take a dragon for herself!"

Stoick drummed his fingers on the table as Hiccup came over and quietly took a seat.  "Clodgall, the wild flock belongs to my clan by claim—and by effect, as they listen to Hiccup and Toothless.  And Astrid, Hiccup and I have all approved of her keeping the dragon."

"But think of the precedent it sets!" Clodgall argued.  "A guest comes in with a tenuous connection to the tribe, and they can simply claim a dragon!  And you might have claimed the flock," he said, pointing a finger at Stoick accusingly, "but that was with the understanding that it would be like any other village resource, where you have stewardship of it for the good of the tribe!  I do _not_ see good for the tribe with this decision, and must protest against it!  All I see is a precedent that will widen!  Right now, we have a near-monopoly on the control of tamed dragons that can be ridden, and the only other group with them is a close ally linked by marriage and treaty, and—!"

"And the Bog Burglars haven't been good allies for over a century!?" Rikard interrupted.

Clodgall yelled back, "She's still not of the tribe!" and the two clanheads started to bellow over each other.

Hiccup shared a look with Stoick, and then his father leaned in and asked quietly as the two clanheads yelled at each other, "How is she doing?"

"I would use the phrase 'thick as thieves', but it feels a little _too_ on the nose," Hiccup deadpanned. 

Stoick chuckled and then, glancing at the two bellowing old men, sighed.  He pounded on the table and said, "That's enough!"  They paused and looked at him.  "Clodgall, your objection is noted, but it is _one_ dragon!  Not a flock of her own!  And she is related to the tribe by blood and treaty as well!"

"Then let that be the minimum!" Clodgall insisted.  "Swear that, no matter what the Eirish king demands, he will _not_ get a dragon!"

Hiccup scowled.  "I don't see why that requires an oath," he said.  "We're not going to give him dragons of his own.  Cami I trust to treat her dragon well.  Eochaid?"  He shuddered dramatically. 

"And what if he manages to sneak in and bond with one?" Clodgall insisted. 

Hiccup gave him a flat look and then scoffed.  "Eochaid?  Trust a dragon enough to make friends and bond with one?  _Really?_   He walks around everywhere with those two bodyguards of his!" He folded his arms across his chest.  "If, in the unlikely event it actually happens, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Or set it on fire," Bladewit said sardonically, speaking up for the first time.  "By the way, this could _easily_ be solved if we had grouped the dragons as members of the tribe instead of property animals last year."  Everyone turned and looked at her, stunned.  She met all of their gazes with equanimity.  "I've been pondering since he arrived, and, as property, they're potential goods for barter.  But as members of the tribe—"

Hardnut clanhead Thorston snorted and interrupted.  "That's insane.  They might be smart animals, but they're _still_ animals!  What, are my dogs going to be considered my children next?  Do I owe a bride price to the breeder—"

"I believe we call that a 'stud fee'," Bladewit said dryly. 

Everyone burst out laughing—even Hardnut after a moment.  As they calmed, Bladewit shrugged.  "And why not?  They've become part of our families.  We care for them, they care for us.  Defining the wild flock as the legal children of the Haddock clan and part of the Hooligan tribe, and each person's own dragon as part of their family, instead of their property, would solve a great many legal issues."

"And start a great many more," Clodgall said tartly.

"Such as?" Hiccup asked, still reeling from Bladewit's suggestion. Why hadn't he thought of that before?

Clodgall snorted and held out a fist, and then extended a finger.  "If we're adopting dragons from your flock, Hiccup, do we owe you a _mundr_ for taking a member of your clan into ours?"  He extended a second finger.  "Where do they fall on bed rights and food rights?  There are dragons that need to sleep in the water; we'd have to rewrite that entire section of the laws to accommodate them."  A third finger.  "Are they adults or children?  If they're adults, do they get a vote in Things?  If not, who speaks for them before the Thing?"  A fourth finger.  "What's the status of their eggs? If they're members of our clans, do the eggs belong to us?  Or to Clan Haddock, as part of the wild flock, which is how we're doing things now, as the Broodery belongs to you?  Or does you taking the eggs count as kidnapping members of our clan, or as fostering?  What about eggs sired from a cross between two clans?"  He extended his last finger and _slammed_ the table.  "While it's all well and good to speculate such things, right now, speculation like this _does not solve the question of the moment."_   He pointed to the door.  "And if we _did_ change the laws _right now,_ there is no way that it would be seen by the Eirish as anything other than a blatant maneuver to block him from negotiating for a dragon— _and he'd be right!"_

Hiccup blinked.  He didn't think much of Clodgall—not after what he'd pieced together about what the man had done to Gobber years ago—but the elder had a sharp mind… and his points were good.

Stoick cleared his throat.  "Thank you, Clodgall," he said, and turned to Bladewit.  "While I like the idea—and it does solve some problems—you know why we didn't do it that way last year."

"Oh, aye.  It was enough to claim them as property of your clan.  We would have rioted if you tried to give them status as members of the tribe," Bladewit said with equanimity.  "But I think that it's something to consider now."

Stoick nodded.  "Agreed.  After we're done dealing with these negotiations, we'll sit down and figure that out."  He smirked.  "I foresee many arguments in our future."

"Oh, aye.  That's how law is made," Bladewit agreed with a smile.  "As for the moment…" she looked at Hiccup, "I think we all agree that, until we do reach that point, there needs to be a rule that we do not give dragons to those who do not belong to the tribe."

"And what about Camilla?" Rikard asked emphatically.

"She is a useful test case," Bladewit said levelly.  "She's the daughter of a Hooligan, even if she is not one of us.  So, for now, let us say that she gets to keep her dragon, simply as a matter of what's done is done.  But does her own future daughter get one?  Her husband, should she choose to take one?  Clearly her tribesmates are too distant… so where is the line drawn?"

Hiccup groaned.  The idea of sitting down and having that sort of discussion was about as enjoyable as the idea of having Nanna pull one of his teeth.  "Is that something we have to discuss now?  As you said, done is done.  We're going to have enough arguing with Eochaid to deal with."  He looked around the table.  "So, Cami gets to keep Skuggi and Eochaid doesn't get a dragon, and we'll figure out the rest later?"

Bladewit shrugged.  "If you insist.  You are right that we'll have enough to discuss."  She looked to Stoick.  "Shall we adjourn for now?"

Stoick nodded.  "Aye.  It's still Yule; there's no need to waste more of the holy days on something like this if we've come to a workable agreement.  Everyone, thank you for coming, and we'll discuss this all in detail later."

As they stepped back from the table, Clodgall turned and looked at Hiccup.  "I'm glad to hear you state so definitively that the Eirishman won't get a dragon, boy."  He crossed his arms.  "Given what's already happened, if we're to survive, we need to remain in control of them."

"I don't think it's really that big a deal—!" Hiccup started to protest.

"I _do_.  What if those longships had just a handful of dragon-riders flying overhead as guards?  We never would have been able to drop rocks on them without being harried, and those firecock attacks could have been intercepted or blocked."  He scowled.  "It was an impressive victory, Hiccup, but it showed that our future—our _survival_ —depends on remaining in uncontested control of the skies."

Hiccup scowled back.  "You done?"

"Aye.  Thanks for listening, lad.  Now, please, think on what I said.  For the good of us all."  Clodgall turned and left.

Hiccup glanced around, and saw that Bladewit was nodding—and then she caught him looking. 

"I don't normally agree with him, but he's making sense to me," she said.  "But that's a talk for another time.  By your leave, I'll work on a drafted proposal for a change to the laws for dragons?"

Hiccup nodded at her, and said, "You'd know them better than I do.  Please."

"Splendid," she said, and gave him a warm, genuine smile that made him feel… off.  Bladewit wasn't supposed to be so cheerful.  It was like finding Ruffnut or Tuffnut being all serious. 

###

**_Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Standing in the street, Ruffnut looked up at her new hospital with pride, her hands on her hips.  The sound of hammering and the cheerful chatter of workmen reminded her that it was still technically under construction, but with the main rooms finished, it was done enough to let her start working. 

Her brother and another thane flanking her, she dramatically opened the doorway and strode through, beaming—and it wasn't just at the new hospital.  Her belly was just starting to grow, and the little bump was something that she had spent every night and morning for the last week looking at with glee.  Of course, from the way that people were treating her, you'd have thought that she was the size of a Gronckle already. 

She breathed in deep as she stood in the center of the room, smelling fresh pine and oak, plus the tar used to seal up the cracks and the wax of the candles and the woodsmoke from the hearth, and then ran a possessive hand across one of the support beams.  

After a great deal of argument and debate—the former with assholes like Henriksson and the latter with her own newfound subordinates—she had managed to nail down down this place's purpose.  It would be a hospital, open to anyone that needed care, which went without saying.  _But_ it would also be a place for the recruitment and training of physicians.  And, as a sop to the Christian priesthood, it would be a place for the distribution of charity. 

And that wouldn't have been possible without Yngvarr's help; he'd managed to help her whack some sense into some of Magnus's court with some quotations from their holy book.  Apparently their god was very strict on matters of giving charity and helping the sick.  She'd been impressed to learn that apparently he had managed to raise a man from the dead.

Of course, she'd had to give ground as well; there had been a great deal of grousing and the like at the thought of her helping with the sick directly—and not just from Henriksson.  The whiners found it to be "too much of a risk to her 'royal person'".  She still rolled her eyes at that.  The only 'royal person' currently contained within her skin was a lump in her belly at this point.  At most, she was a shieldmaiden and woman-thane who was the consort of the king.  But she'd worn them down through sheer stubborn persistence and Magnus's support, and they had come to a compromise—she wouldn't be helping with any patients who carried the pox or leprosy, and would mostly stick to the dispensary, helping making medicines. 

But now, she had a hospital to run in Magnus's name.  He'd named it after his father, King Olaf, who had apparently been recognized as god-touched in some way in the aftermath of his death—or at least that was what her understanding of what this whole 'sainthood' business was.  That was pretty cool; her husband was the son of an alfar.  She wondered if his father was a full ljósálfar, or just something similar. 

Not that she was terribly interested in converting, that was for sure.  Not after Henriksson's campaign of constant harassment.  No, her patron was Loki, as was her brother's; crafty and clever and witty and sometimes too smart by half, and she wasn't going to give up on her patron god, not now, not ever. 

With a clap, she assembled her people and they breached a fresh cask of ale to formally mark opening the place.  And, with that, King Olaf's Hospital was open for business—and there was a line already at the doors. 

 

###

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

The door to the chief's hut swung closed with a wind-assisted _bang,_ and Astrid woke with a start.  And then, as her belly seemed to twist in pain, she moaned and heaped curses on whoever it was that had just entered.  Then she moved, and felt a warm stickiness between her thighs, and froze. 

And then she sobbed.  No wonder her stomach had felt pained last night.

Her moon's blood had returned. 

At least it had given her the courtesy of waiting until after her honeymonth; her last bleeding had been a week before her wedding.  Seven weeks ago and more now.

She had hoped… hoped…

She thrust the pillow onto her face and let herself cry for a moment, at the cramping pain, the aches… the disappointment.  It wasn't to be, apparently.  And coming the day after they'd talked with Rikard and his wives…

Pulling the pillow off of her face, she stared at the ceiling.  "Frigga, Freyja, I get the message.  Thank you for letting me have what I had."

With a sigh, she rolled out of bed and went to find some wool balls to soak up the mess, shivering as the chill air hit her skin. 

Cami and Wulfhild were downstairs, their dragons snoozing in a pile by the _skorskeinn,_ both of them looking ruddy-cheeked and windswept. Cami did a doubletake on seeing Astrid, which didn't bode well.  "What happened to you?"

Astrid gave her a narrow-eyed look.  "I need wool balls and a warm stone," she said, and Cami and Wulf shared a glance of understanding. 

"I'll get the rock?" Wulfhild said to Cami.

"Sure.  I'll get the wool," Cami said, and glanced at Astrid.  "Sit tight, coz.  We'll take care of you."

Astrid nodded and settled into the chair as Cami got to her feet and picked up her crutches.

"Wait, no, I can get the wool pads—" Wulfhild protested, and Cami waved her off.  "It's fine.  Besides, I need to get used to these damn things."  She limped off on her crutches before Wulfhild could say anything more.

As the door closed behind her, Astrid slumped deeper into her chair.  "It's worse than normal," she said.  "I feel like I got kicked in the gut."

Wulfhild paused where she sat in front of the hearthfire, the loaf-sized rock held in her hands.  "When was your last bleed?" she asked, frowning in thought as she finished placing it in the fire.  "You haven't since I moved in."

Astrid gave her a thin smile.  "Right before that letter arrived."

Wulfhild blanched.  "Oh.  Um… I'm, I'm sorry, Astrid."

Astrid nodded.  "It's not your fault, Wulf.  But… well…"  She shrugged.  "I've been thinking about what my great-grandparents said yesterday."  She glanced down at her belly.  "And now the gods themselves are reminding me."

Wulfhild seemed to be holding very, very still.  "Yes…?"

"Yesterday, you never said what you wanted before we got interrupted.  So what _do_ you want _,_ Wulf?" Astrid asked pointedly.

With a sigh, Wulfhild turned around to face Astrid.  "I… I don't know.  Well, not entirely.  I, I want what you have… but I don't want to take it from you.  Even if I wanted to, I _can't_.  I know that he doesn't love me like he loves you.  I'm his friend, nothing more.  But… well, if you two hadn't been courting when you came to Nidaros…"  Wulf gave her a pained smile, "I'd have asked—probably begged—Einar and Magnus to consider him for me."

Astrid shrugged with a small smile.  "That just goes to show that you've got good taste.  But… I guess the question is, if you know that what I have isn't what you'll have… what do you _want_ , Wulf?  Do you want to wait out the year and see if you _do_ find somebody that can love you like that?  Or… or…" Astrid swallowed.  "Because I'm realizing one thing that my greats were right about."  She pointed her chin towards Wulfhild.  "Unless Hiccup decides to adopt… any future Haddocks are going to be descended from us.  And… well…"  She sighed.  "I don't think that I can do it alone."

There was a pause.

"Did… did you just ask me to help bear some of Hiccup's children?" Wulfhild asked very carefully.

Astrid nodded incrementally.  "I'd rather it be you than anybody else.  And it'll be _hard._   We don't have a clan to lean on, just each other.  But I remembered how much work it takes to help raise anybody… and, well… that's what happens to hoarders.  They have to go it alone."  She sniffed.  "I don't want to go alone into this."

Wulfhild moved over slightly and put a hand onto Astrid's.  "We need to talk to Hiccup.  But… well…"  She blushed.  "I've… I'm already oath-sworn to him.  And I want to help.  Maybe I'll find my great love someday.  But he isn't here now… and I'm already in my twenties, and I'm not getting any younger."

Astrid nodded, feeling suddenly relieved.  "No… I guess you're not.  So… where is Hiccup?"

"He got called for a meeting with the clanheads about Cami's dragon," Wulfhild said, nodding towards the sleepy Changewing in the pile of snuggling reptiles by the fire.  "But I'm sure he'll be back soon."

Astrid nodded and sighed. 

"What?" Wulfhild asked.

"What… what did you think about the comment that I was hoarding Hiccup?" Astrid asked plaintively.  It had hurt.  A lot.  And she'd been thinking about that comment nearly non-stop since yesterday, along with the comment that she'd insulted Hiccup by her lack of trust.  And it had made her realize that, even if the accusation was false… unless she accepted Wulfhild as a member of the clan—and the manner in which she _was_ a member of the clan—Astrid was effectively the only woman of Clan Haddock (save the elderly Gothi, who was busy with her spiritual leadership duties).  She had no sisters or aunts or cousins to ask for help that would be granted without hesitation or obligation.

Save one.

So unless she wanted the lonely and isolated fate of a hoarder, she had to stop acting like one.

In response to her question, Wulfhild tensed and said nothing.

"Wulf.  You can tell me.  I won't be offended.  You won't— _can't_ —have a nastier opinion than that little voice in my head, telling me how I'm being a possessive troll," Astrid said, irritated at herself.  Because her great-grandparents were right—she _did_ trust him, implicitly.  They'd had talks about talking, and while they needed to get better about it, as the last few months had shown… she trusted him with her heart and her love, and he had never, ever betrayed that trust, even when it would have been practical—even _advisable_ —to do so.

In short, after he put his love to her above the tribe's own welfare, it _was_ an insult to think that he'd suddenly change on a whim.

Wulfhild looked at her, sighed, relaxed, and said softly, "While I can see their point, I disagree with it.  But…" she grimaced and said apologetically, "I know that if our positions were reversed… I'd be hurt, but at the same time, I'd understand."  She sat back and looked into the fire.  "It's not like my father loved my mother.  He was more interested in Magnus' mother, who was my mother's thrall.  So my mother freed her and let them be together… leading to Magnus."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Wulfhild said softly, tucking her legs up underneath her skirt and rolling the rock out of the fire, and then looked at Astrid.  "I'd rather have the sort of family that your great-grandparents showed us yesterday—where everyone was happy together."

Astrid smiled, but before she could respond, Cami reentered, her arms awkwardly full of supplies.

###

 

**_Saint Olaf's Hospital, Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Ruffnut was basking in the confused looks that everyone was giving her as they realized that the healer treating their wounds, cleaning up their blood, and admonishing them to keep their wounds clean, was the queen.  It was this glorious slow awakening.  Usually they were so focused on their own pain that they didn't notice at first, and then perhaps picked up on the thin circlet in her hair, or the thanes standing nearby, or just her foreign accent, and then she could _see_ the pieces fall into place behind their eyes.  So she relished it as best she could, knowing that it wouldn't last.  Word would spread quickly, and the shock value would quickly vanish, but for now, it was such fun. 

It had been a busy morning so far.  Three busted ankles from falling on ice; a man who had felt dizzy and collapsed right there in the entryway, sweating profusely, and was now under the brusque care of Svanhildr; a young man with a broken foot from a horse stepping on it; a young shepherd about Ruffnut's age who had three cracked ribs from a disagreement with an ornery ram; a baker's apprentice who had somehow managed to set her hair on fire; a fisherman who had crushed his hand between the boat and the dock…

She treated them all, with a smile and a feeling of glee at their confusion.

Towards lunchtime, she told a happy little story to a young boy with a broken arm.  According to his mother, who had hesitantly introduced herself as Marte, it had been broken when the boy, Isak, had managed to fall down a staircase.  Ruffnut shrugged at the simplicity of the problem and called over the bonesetter.  As he worked, she helped straighten the bone, as she had been taught.  Then the setter strapped it down firmly to the splint so that it would heal straight and put it in a sling hanging around Isak's neck.

Marte was staring at her, wide-eyed.  "Thank you, milady, thank you!" she said, as Isak grinned at her and shyly offered her the other hand to shake. 

Gravely, she took the offered hand and shook it.  He giggled, which suggested a much better mood than he'd been in when they'd walked in, his forearm at an angle that it shouldn't have been.  Turning to his mother, she said, "It'll take about a month or two to fully heal; it was a bad break, but he'll keep the arm.  The bandages should be kept clean and dry.  If they start to smell, come back and we'll put on fresh ones; we want to avoid wound rot."

The mother nodded, her eyes wide, and then curtsied, which made Ruffnut want to huff.  Instead, she crouched, ignoring the aches in her own joints, and said to the eight-year-old boy, "It's important that you keep it clean and don't use it, okay?"

"We need his help with the chores, though…" the mother said worriedly, with the air of someone that had just discovered another problem.  "He can't do it with one arm."

Ruffnut looked up at her and then back down at the boy.  It was his left arm that was broken and a plan hatched in her mind.  "What sorts of things does he need to do?"

"Milk and feed the cows, help bring in water from the well…" 

Ruffnut shook her head.  "He won't be able to help with those without hurting himself more."  The plan molted, matured and crowed, and she turned to her brother and said sweetly, "Tuffnut?"

"Yeah?"

"I've got a job for you."

"What?"

"You get to relive our childhood.  Remember how to milk a cow?"

"Yeah…?" he said suspiciously.

"Well, you get to help her with that," she said, nodding her head at the woman, who just stared at Ruffnut, eyes wide and round. 

Tuffnut gave a sound of resigned complaint, but that was all.  He'd been pretty quiet lately, and she was wondering what his problem was. 

Turning back to the mother, she said, "My brother here will help until your boy's arm heals up enough that he can do his chores again."

"Milady… I can't… no, it's too much…"

"Yes, you can, and he's my brother _and_ my thane, so I can give him orders like that." 

Tuffnut just sighed.  At length.

"But how will we repay you!?"

Ruffnut shrugged and looked at the boy as her brother demonstrated how long he could stretch out a single sigh.  "I could use an assistant in the dispensary."  According to the workmen, it would be finished tomorrow or the day after, and Svanhildr and the other senior healers and midwives were already stocking the various shelves lining the walls, and arguing over proper placement of the equipment and furniture.  "So long as he can stir a pot or get a jar off the shelf one-handed, he won't be a bother."

Tuffnut finished sighing and turned to the mother.  "Ma'am?  Shall we?"

The woman was just looking at the two of them, eyes wide and jaw hanging.  "…You're… you're serious, aren't you?"

"Yep.  Would it help if I made it an order?  I'm still getting used to this whole 'queen' business, but I think I can manage that."

The woman shook her head.  "No… no… that's alright.  Uh, well, his chores are done for the day, so I don't need your thane right now…"

"That's okay.  Tuffnut can escort you home and see where he needs to go tomorrow morning," Ruffnut said sweetly, and nudged her brother forward. 

As the three of them left, the other thane said, deadpan, "Milady, pardon me for being too forward, but you really don't understand this whole 'queen' business, do you?"

"Nope!" she said with a grin.  "And I'm enjoying the chaos and confusion I'm leaving behind me."

He snorted. 

Another patient was brought over to her, and Ruffnut went back to work, sowing chaos, confusion and good health with a smile on her face.

###

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

Wulfhild looked up as the door to the chief's hut opened, and Hiccup and Toothless entered; Hiccup paused as soon as he saw Astrid sitting in the chair, with the warm stone wrapped in cloth against her belly.  "Astrid, what's wrong?"

"Remember how I complained that my belly was hurting last night, and you suggested that it might have been something that I ate?" she said.

He nodded.

"It wasn't."

"What's wrong?  Are you sick?  Do I need to go get Nanna?" Hiccup asked, concerned.

Cami snorted.  "She's not sick, Hic.  Just don't expect to get laid tonight."

"Cami!" Astrid and Wulfhild chided her together. 

"What?" Cami protested, and then looked at Hiccup, who was standing there, looking stunned and embarrassed.  "Ast is goin' to be cranky for the next few days.  I don't know if this is your first time dealin' with this, but you need to respect it."

Hiccup blinked, and then the light dawned.  "Oh, this is the same… problem that you had the week before the wedding?"

Astrid made an affirmative noise, and then Cami gave her a sidelong look.  "So, that's what, seven, eight weeks?"  She whistled.  "Yeah, this is goin' to be a bad one." She sighed.  "Need anythin' else, Ast?"

"Yeah, Cami.  A little privacy, please?" Astrid asked in a pained voice, and Wulfhild reached over and patted her supportively on the hand. 

Cami shrugged.  "All right."  She awkwardly got to her feet, picked up her crutch and hobbled out, followed by Skuggi after a few moments. 

Wulfhild watched her go and felt her belly twist in anxiety as Hiccup looked at the two of them.  "What is it?" he asked.  "Is there something the matter?"

Astrid sighed, and the expression of adoration on her face as she looked at Hiccup was so profound that it made Wulfhild's heart hurt to look at it.  Then Astrid took a deep breath, closed her eyes, exhaled in a way that made it clear she was marshaling her thoughts, and said, "Hiccup.  I… I was thinking about my great-grandparents said and… they're right."

Hiccup froze… and then moving with exquisite care, said cautiously, "Right… how?"

Astrid sighed again, this time in a tone of slightly strained patience, and Wulfhild carefully patted her hand supportingly.  "Hiccup, do you know what this means?" she asked, motioning to her belly.

Hiccup shook his head.  "I don't.  I just remember that… that you were cranky, and there was blood, and you told me not to worry when I woke up and you had blood all over your legs…"

Astrid looked him in the eye and said, "Hiccup… it means that I'm not pregnant."

"Uh…" Hiccup stammered, staring at her—and then his eyes briefly darted to Wulfhild. 

"And so they're right, love," Astrid said, opening her eyes slightly.  "As much as I would love to have you all to myself… as I said in the forge, you're _mine,_ Hiccup Haddock, but I can't say the same for the Hero of Berk…"  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and said, "And I can't say the same for Hiccup _clanheir_ Haddock, last of his male line.  Not if I want my _new_ clan to be prosperous and numerous and strong."

Hiccup audibly swallowed and glanced at Wulfhild again.  She met his gaze briefly, and saw the panic in there. 

"I… I… do you really… I…  Gah!"  He turned and went for the door.  Toothless went after him, and then there was a rush of wings. 

Astrid cursed and started to haul herself out of her seat, but Wulfhild held her back. 

"Let go, Wulf!  He's—"

"We spooked him.  Right now, he's going to dig in his heels if you chase after him—and you're not feeling well," Wulfhild said sternly.  "Let him cool off a bit and think.  He'll be back."  She gave a wan smile.  "He loves you, after all."

Astrid looked at the door and sighed in exasperation, but nodded and slumped back into the chair.  "I love him, but he's as stubborn as they come."

"I've noticed," Wulfhild said dryly.  "Great for some things, terrible for others."  She took a deep breath.  "And I'm trying not to take the repeated rejections personally."

Astrid winced.  "Ouch.  I hadn't even thought of that."

Wulfhild sighed.  "It's all complicated."

"A giant mess," Astrid agreed.  "So, what are we going to do about it?"

"What else is there to do, but talk?" Wulfhild said.  "If he says no… then that's that.  And I won't ask again."  She sighed. 

Astrid nodded and patted her on the shoulder.  "That's fair.  I'm starting to get irked with him."

"Well, he _is_ sixteen," Wulfhild pointed out. 

"So am I," Astrid said tartly.  "I'm barely two months older than him.  And he's an adult and the heir and has been trained for the responsibility for most of his life.  But that's Hiccup for you—he runs away from responsibility."  She scowled slightly and went on with an air of fatigue.  "The only times he runs towards responsibility is when someone he cares about might get hurt.  He helped Toothless, the tribe…"

"But I'm not in danger of getting hurt," Wulfhild pointed out.  "Unless you count my pride."  _I've already come to the realization that the Church can throw all of the tantrums it wants, and the Hooligans will never accept it—and it's not like the Church has a navy to push the issue.  And if God takes the_ stupid _vows I made with Hiccup over yours, then I'll happily exchange places with you in Heaven.  Of course, that would require Hiccup to actually accept me… but he doesn't want me, and can I really blame him?_   She sighed.  "I'm safe from Einar.  And while my reputation and honor might get battered, isn't it standard practice to adopt a concubine for a year anyway, for courting couples?  So it's not like I'm being singled out."

Astrid slumped—and then grimaced, holding a hand to her belly.

Wulfhild shifted uncomfortably.  "So… how are you feeling?"

"Like I got kicked in the gut.  The cramps are _terrible,_ " Astrid whined.  "The stone is helping, but only so much.  Honestly, if not for them, I would have chased after him, giving him space or not."

Wulfhild nodded, remembering some rough weeks of her own over the last several years.  And then pulled herself up into the neighboring chair.  "So… um… Astrid?"

"Yeah?"

"Assuming that Hiccup actually agrees and consents to this…," she made a vague motion to encompass them all, "um… uh… or if I end up finding someone else later on…" she gave her friend a painful grin and asked shyly, "could you tell me what to expect?  I haven't read that book of yours…"

Astrid looked at her and barked a laugh.  "Sure.  And… no offense, but I think I should be there."  She shrugged.  "It might be awkward… but I think that it'll help all around."

Wulfhild shrugged.  "It can't _possibly_ be any more awkward than the old tradition of having a full array of formal witnesses to the marriage consummation," she said, and both she and Astrid gave dramatic shudders.  She reached over and laid a hand on Astrid's arm.  "So…"

Astrid smiled and lay back in the chair, closing her eyes.  "You're lucky, in some ways," she said contemplatively.  "From what I've been told from the other women, Hiccup is one of the most considerate men out there, and we've managed to get past the awkward stage."  Her lips curled up and her eyelids crinkled in a fond smile.  "So… what _do_ you know?"

Wulfhild felt her cheeks flush.  "Uh…  Not much."

Astrid opened one eye and gave her a deadpan look.

Somehow, Wulfhild felt herself blush harder.  "I wouldn't have asked if I knew!  But I'm still a virgin, and beyond whispers with some of the other ladies back in my uncle's court and overhearing the men discuss their conquests, I'm not exactly well-versed!"

Astrid laughed, and started to explain.  At times during the ensuing discussion, Wulfhild felt like her face was going to melt from her friend's gentle teasing, but it was still one of the most companionable moments the pair of them had shared in the last month and a half. 

###

Hiccup flew off on Toothless, away from the Chief's hut.  Not in any particular direction, but just to get away.  He felt trapped by everybody's expectations—including, now, the person he loved most in the world.  And her expectation was for him to…

Gah!

He and Toothless flew over the village aimlessly, and then up into the interior of the island.  Large swathes of the forest below had been cut down and small saplings now bristled all over the hillsides, and other pathways had been cut and paved on the way to the mills that he'd helped to build by the streams elsewhere on the island. 

Then there was a short, sharp whistle below, and he looked down, to see King Eochaid waving up at him and motioning for him to come down. 

With a groan he nudged Toothless into a shallow dive and landed nearby.  "What?" he asked tiredly and a bit crankily.  They were near Mildew's—now Eochaid's—hut, which was being expanded, and another one being built nearby, in order to house their guests and deal with the crowding in the village.  Given the events of the last year, Hiccup expected that the number of visitors that they'd be having was about to increase dramatically, so Mildew's old cabbage field was getting turned into the commons for what would probably end up becoming a second village. 

Eochaid glanced him over and then focused on his face.  "Well.  Trouble with the lady wife, I take it?  She catch you in bed with your beautiful concubine?"

Hiccup tried to sass back, but the comment died on his tongue.  Something must have shown on his face, though, because the other man smiled.  "Hit a bit close to the mark there, did I?"  He waved Hiccup towards the hut.  "Come.  Let's talk."

With a scowl, Hiccup dismounted.  It would be horribly rude to just blow off the man's invitation… even if he desperately wanted to. 

He and Toothless entered the hut after Eochaid, and Hiccup blinked when he saw Vigdis and a few of the other Eirish freedmen talking with one of the Eirish guardsmen.  She saw him in return and nodded, before getting back to her discussion in rapid Gaoidhealg; she was asking questions about Ulaid—and her accent was nearly identical to the Eirish already present.

Oh.  Right.

Before he could think further on some of his tribesmates reconnecting with their old people, though, Eochaid thumped down a tankard onto the table in front of him, sending a small spray of ale over the tabletop, and said cheerfully, "Here, you look like you could use this!"

With a sigh, Hiccup took a drink of the ale.  As he drank, Eochaid smiled at him and hoisted another tankard of his own.  "So, did you wife throw anything at you?"

Hiccup bit his tongue.  _Just a sudden change to our relationship, no big deal,_ said a sardonic voice in his head, but he made sure it stayed there.  He didn't want to tell Eochaid anything about his personal life. 

"That bad, eh?" Eochaid said sympathetically, shaking his head ruefully.  "Ah, women troubles, women troubles.  Even kings and chieftains have to suffer them, am I right?  But that's why the kind heavens gave us the two great consolations  Ale—drink up, friend, you still look as miserable as a wet cat!"

Humoring him, Hiccup lifted his mug.  "What's the other great consolation?"

Eochaid winked at him, with a grin that was very nearly a leer.  "That there's always a younger, prettier woman for when you get sick of the last one!"

Hiccup choked on his swallow of ale, and spent the next few seconds coughing and spluttering.

Eochaid laughed and leaned across the little table to clap him hard on the back.  "Breathe, man, breathe!  Ah, don't fret yourself over the women and their starts.  You just need to be firm with them, make sure they know who's lord and master in his own house, and they'll fall right in line.  And if they don't… well," and that laughing leer came back, "that's what serving girls are for, isn't it?"

"… _what?_ " Hiccup found himself close to choking again.  "No!  That's not—I'm not that kind of person!"

Eochaid snorted.  "What, are you a churchman?  A eunuch?  Come, you might be young, but you're a _man,_ aren't you?  Man enough to wed that pretty little spitfire _and_ take a royal concubine on top of it, if you can manage them both—and if you _do_ ever manage to get them both in harness and pulling in the same direction," and his voice dropped to a sly, insinuating purr, "I could give you a few pointers on what to with two women at once."

There were entirely too many things Hiccup wanted to say to that; they formed a logjam behind his mouth, and nothing came out but a faint sputtering.

Eochaid studied him for a moment, and chuckled.  "Though maybe you're a wee bit young for that, still.  Ah, lad, not to worry; you've made a brave start, and you'll grow into it.  Look, two rare beauties in your household, you've already surpassed your father in that much—even if he does succeed in buying that lovely girl of mine."  He tilted his head back towards Toiréasa, sitting in the far corner being him and working on some embroidery; she didn't look up.  "And who could blame him, eh?  Even if he doesn't want to be bothered with a wife, a healthy man needs something warm and pretty in his bed now and again."

Hiccup stared at the older man, his jaw hanging open in stunned shock.  It took him several breaths to recover, and he blinked and inhaled sharply.  "I thought," he said with iron control, "you weren't interested in selling her.  And believe me, my father isn't even a little bit interested in _owning_ her."

Eochaid rolled his eyes.  "Of course, of course.  He wants to _free_ her.  But if I give her up, she'll be a kept woman, dependent on your father, and I know how that story ends.  But it's not an ending I object to, I suppose."  He shrugged and smiled.  "I hope that makes my position clear, at least?  So we can avoid confusion when it comes down to actually negotiating."

"What do you mean?" Hiccup asked, fighting down a roiling in his stomach. 

Eochaid spread his hands.  "What's to mean?  It's how these things go.  I swear, more gets solved and sorted out in these sorts of negotiations over a mug of beer than at the formal negotiation table."  He smirked, half mockingly and half condescendingly-kind.  "But you're young.  You'll learn."  The smirk deepened.  "Just as you'll learn how to manage your women.  Remember, my offer's open so long as I'm your guest."

Look, I _don't—_ " Hiccup heard his own voice rising angrily, and forcibly reined it in; the word _guest_ reminded him of his responsibilities.  "I, uh, I appreciate the offer, but I _really_ don't want pointers on how to—" He choked the words out.  "How to please two women at once."

Eochaid's eyebrows went up, and he smiled indulgently.  "See, there'd your first mistake, lad.  So here's one free lesson for you: it's the woman's job to please _you,_ not the other way around.  Once you know that, and once you make sure _they_ know that, everybody's happy."

Over the king's shoulder, Hiccup saw Toiréasa in her corner, bending her head lower over her embroidery to hide a bitter twist to her mouth.

Hiccup stood up from his chair, trying not to let that smile get to him.  "I'd better go."

"Ayep.  Patch things up with the wife.  You need her at least until you have an heir," Eochaid said agreeably.  "But think on what I said."

Hiccup managed to keep from glaring at him.  "Don't worry, every word you said will be in my thoughts constantly," he said, and thought, _despite my fondest wishes otherwise.  I wonder if getting drunk_ right now _would be enough to could keep them from permanently joining the rest of my memories?_   Instead of sticking his head in the ale barrel, though, he quickly went outside, followed by Toothless, who was looking at him worriedly, and mounted up. 

As they flew off, Hiccup grimaced.  The thought of finding some isolated mountain peak and sulking didn't have any appeal at the moment—not with Eochaid's smug assumptions and insinuations caroming around his skull like hyper Nadder hatchlings.  But going back home and talking with Astrid and Wulfhild… well… no.

Toothless crooned at him, and he shook his head to clear it.  "Bud… what do I do?"

"Blurrrgh?"

"The stuff with Astrid… and Wulfhild…"  He sighed.  "Bud… do you like Wulfhild?"

Toothless snorted and nodded. 

"Astrid wants me to mate with her too."

Toothless paused in mid-flap and they coasted through the air for a moment. 

"My thoughts exactly.  It's turning into a whole big argument," Hiccup said, relieved that his best friend at least understood his issues.

Then Toothless cocked his head from side to side for a moment, seemingly in consideration, and then gave a querying bark.

"Why?  Because… because…" Hiccup flailed his hands through the air.  "I don't know!"

Toothless turned his head to look at him and gave him a sardonic half-lidded look.

"What?"

Toothless rolled his eyes and pointed his head forward again before sighing.

"Oh, not you too!"

Toothless gave a sarcastic _hurble_ and banked towards the village. 

"What?  Hey, bud, come on!" Hiccup protested, even as he worked the tailfin to keep them in the air.

Toothless snorted—and a moment later, they were landing in front of the chief's hut.  Hiccup looked down at Toothless, who shrugged.

"You're joking."

Toothless rolled his eyes and tried to nudge him towards the door.

"Toothless!"

Another warble—and then Toothless stood up on his hind legs and shook himself.  Hiccup clung to the saddle with difficulty and the aid of his belaying lines—

"Aaah!"

—and then Toothless bucked him off, the belaying lines slipping neatly off their hooks. 

Hiccup hit the nearby snowbank with a muted thud.  A moment later, he stretched his hand up and made an obscene gesture at Toothless, who laughed. 

Then Hiccup's blood seemed to freeze as he heard the door open, and Wulfhild's voice came out.  "Toothless?  Where's Hiccup?"

A moment later, Toothless's snout and front paws came and plucked Hiccup free of the snowbank, hauling him to his feet, and setting down in front of Wulfhild. 

She looked him up and down and tried to hide a smile.  "You're _covered_ in snow."

"Yeah, well, that's this big baby's fault," Hiccup said, poking at Toothless, who chuffed and turned around—and his tail swept Hiccup's feet out from underneath him, knocking him to the snowy ground with another thud.

Wulfhild laughed, and then tried to hide it, which made it turn into snickers. 

Hiccup looked up at her from where he was lying on the ground and slumped.  "You see what I have to deal with here?"

She continued to snicker, and knelt down to help him up.  As they clasped hands, Hiccup looked up at her and smiled.  It felt horribly awkward… but…

 _…I can't say the same for Hiccup_ clanheir _Haddock, last of his male line…_

He sighed, and stepped inside, still holding hands with her.  Toothless, making curious noises, followed them. 

As the door shut, he heard Astrid's voice call out from the main room, "Oh, good, you're back.  Did you have a nice sulk?"

"Not especially, no…" Hiccup replied, releasing Wulfhild's hand.  "So… um…"  He walked into the main room, where Astrid was still in her seat, a warm rock sitting on her belly.  "So…"  He looked at both of them helplessly, the words refusing to come from his throat.  "So…"

Astrid smiled at him and motioned for him to come to her.  Noting the pain that was tightening the skin around her eyes, he did so without question, kneeling at the foot of the chair.  She took his hands in hers and looked down at him.  "Hiccup.  You love me."

"With all my heart," he confirmed.

"And beyond reason.  And that's… a problem," she said slowly.  "Because while it makes for an excellent romantic tale… it'll cause us problems."  She pulled him into a gentle hug.  "But given this is how you're acting now…  I'm… not worried about the devotion of your heart.  I trust you.  You'd never hurt me on purpose.  Accident, yes, but you own up to it and apologize."

Hiccup grinned painfully and awkwardly, chuckling through clenched teeth as he ran his hands through his hair, dislodging what snow was still there.  "I know I goofed, and goofed big, with the marriage proposal and not talking—"

"You did.  And then you apologized.  But the problem was 'not talking'.  And my greats said to make something like this work, we need to talk," she said pointedly.  "So… let's talk."

He swallowed hard against a lump in his throat and glanced at Wulfhild.  She was likewise giving him an awkward look, her face flushed.

Astrid snorted.  "Gods, you're so honorable and stubborn that it practically hurts.  Hiccup.  Look, I've been thinking. About all of this."

"And…?"

"We've come a long way from that talk on the docks, watching the whole tribe sail away," she said softly, and then kissed him gently on the cheek.  "And this mess can be even worse.  So… why won't you?"

Hiccup moaned and went to pull back, but her grip on his wrist tightened. 

"I… I don't know!  It just feels wrong!  I know what Rikard and his wives said, but, but, but we're not them!"

Astrid gave him a flat look.  "No, we're not.  Grandpapa, for all of his strengths, is a hidebound crusty old stick who has a controlling streak a mile wide."  Wulfhild snorted at that, and Astrid shrugged and glanced at her.  "That's a quote from my father, mind you!  He'd know!"  She looked back to Hiccup.  "But if _he_ can open his heart and share it, why can't you find a place in yours for Wulfhild?"

"I don't know!  I don't!  Astrid, there's no fleet sailing to doom right now, why do you have to know now!?"

She gave him a narrow-eyed stare and said, "Because it needs to be done.  And done properly.  And with every day that we ignore it, it gets worse."  She pointed to Wulfhild with her chin.  " _And_ because she's our friend, and she deserves an answer!  She'll remember what you say right now, and so will I!"

He blinked… and then slowly bowed his head. 

"Let me ask you this.  If I wasn't here, if we weren't together, what would you have said to Magnus last summer when he offered you Wulfhild's hand in marriage?"

He blinked, and then looked at Wulfhild… who looked at him with her lips pursed, which then shifted to a painful smile. 

"Would you have rejected me then, Hiccup?" Wulfhild asked, a bit of tension in her voice.  "Given your flair for the dramatic, would you really have passed up the chance to save a friend and at the same time rescue the beautiful princess from the evil adviser and bring her to safety?"

"Uh…" he sheepishly ran his hands through his hair.  "No… I wouldn't have.  But that's not what happened.  If not for Astrid, I would have run away from the village before the exam."

"That's a deflection, and you know it," Wulfhild said tartly.  "She could still have been your friend but not your intended.  Or are you saying that she's only important to you because you're lovers?"

"No!" he blurted.  "And you're important to me too!  And you're my friend, and… and…"

"And what?" Astrid asked pointedly.  "And that's all she'll ever be?  How can you say that, when I know you love people almost by reflex."  She snorted.  "You gave a _freaking dragon_ your friendship and love, like that between brothers or best friends, when we'd been killing each other for three hundred years!  You love your father as a parent, you love the village as an exasperated member of it, you love Toothless, you love every dragon like it was family, you even love the Anglos and Danes enough to rescue them from the sea, despite them coming to kill us all!  But when it comes to love between a husband and a wife, you suddenly don't have any room for _more_ than one in that big heart of yours?!"

"I… I don't know!" he protested.  He didn't dare ask why this was so important again.  Not with Wulfhild standing right there, looking increasingly pained, and he wanted to kick himself for what he'd said before.  Because she _was_ his friend, and he'd hurt her with his words. 

"Well, I think you do know, but that's almost besides the point."  She pulled back and held him by his bicep with her right hand, while her left touched her belly, "See, the gods are listening too.  So, while I appreciate the stubborn romantic devotion… you're the chief's heir and the clan's heir.  You need to act like it, and act for the good of both."

He slumped and then burst out in a moment of anger, "Can't I have one thing of my own that isn't tainted by how I was born!?"

"No," said Wulfhild simply, her voice sober.  "No, you can't."

He turned to stare at her as she crouched down next to him.

" _We_ can't."  She gestured from herself to him and back again.  "Noble born.  That's what it means.  We get protected, we get served, we get to eat well and sleep warm without ever worrying about it.  If we're lucky we get power, or the favor of the powerful.  But we don't _ever_ get to stop being what we were born, and that means it touches everything we touch."  A faint somber smile touched her face.  "Even each other."

Hiccup blinked, his usual reflexive sarcasm stunned into silence.

"She's right," Astrid said softly.  "It's what you were born to be, Hiccup.  You can't change that."

Hiccup looked at her, and sighed.  "'Our parents' war is about to become ours.  Figure out which side you're on,'" he quoted.  She blinked in surprise, and he said, "I know we didn't _ask_ to get born into that war, but I asked why there had to _be_ sides.  And I _could_ change that, it turns out."

Astrid nodded.  "But we tried doing a third way with this… with _us_ , Hiccup, and it didn't work.  And I know your reflex when you feel like you're trapped in something is to either try to run away or look for a clever way out, but…"  She flopped her hands helplessly. 

And then Wulfhild asked quietly, "But do you really feel trapped by me?  Am I _that_ hideous?"

Hiccup grunted painfully.  "No… you're not, but it's not really my choice, is it?"

"Hiccup, for nobles like us, it's _never_ by choice," Wulfhild said, and then glanced at Astrid and gave a mollifying shrug. "Well, almost never.  But while you got one choice out of it, you can't escape who you are and what you were born to be.  Not entirely, not even with the power that you have.  I got _my_ one choice by asking to stay… and even then, I didn't have a lot of options."  She stepped back a bit.  "But tell me that you don't want me—that you'll never want me, that the idea of taking me to bed is unacceptable to you—and I'll accept it, and we'll continue on as we have with the deception, and have my concubinage be a polite lie that the village will whisper about and speak of how romantic and devoted Hiccup is, and in eleven months, we'll legally separate and I'll be part of clan Haddock for the treaty."  She looked at him, biting her lip, and swallowed audibly.  "Choose, Hiccup.  I can give you that choice."

Hiccup looked at her, looked into her blue eyes, which were welling with unshed tears.  They were different than Astrid's, darker, more of a sea blue than a sky blue… and he realized that if he told her no, his friendship with her was probably gone forever.  She was kind, and decent, and valued many of the same things that he did… but she had her pride too, and he'd been rejecting her again and again.  He'd been _hurting_ her, again and again. 

He saw the scar on her cheek, and his stump gave a twinge of sympathy.  They were both flawed and damaged, and both beholden to their families.  And, like it or not… she was part of his family now.

He remembered looking into a pair of slitted green eyes… almost a year and a half ago now.  And seeing himself reflected in them, in so many ways.  And it was the same choice now.

Unable to find the words, he reached forward and pulled Wulfhild into an awkward embrace as they crouched on the floor.

"I'm sorry," he said, choked.  "Stay?"

She nodded into his chest, and sniffed. 

He heard Astrid give a grunt, and there was a _thump_ that he felt in his foot as she pushed the stone off her belly and onto the seat of the chair.  There was a creak of wood and a huff of effort from her.  He felt Astrid's arms wrap around both of them, and her forehead came to rest against his temple.  The three of them knelt there for a silent moment, holding each other.  His shirt was getting damp from Wulfhild's eyes leaking tears, but he didn't say anything; he could feel Wulfhild's heart pounding underneath his hands.

Finally, they broke apart… and, separated by an arm's length, they awkwardly looked at each other, all three of them smiling shyly.

Then Astrid broke the silence with a pained groan, and Hiccup and Wulfhild stood and, together, each of them holding one of Astrid's arms, gently put her back into the chair. 

She sighed painfully as Wulfhild handed her back the warm stone.  "I've never had one this bad before," she said with a grunt as she placed the stone on her gut. 

"Uh… how often does this happen?" Hiccup asked plaintively, looking on with worry. 

Astrid and Wulfhild shared a look, and then Wulfhild said, "About once a month, Hiccup, and it lasts for five days or so."  She sighed.  "It'll be my turn next week or so."

Astrid smirked.  "And by that time, I should be fine.  So, hey, maybe Cami was wrong, babe.  You _can_ get laid tonight."  She glanced significantly at Wulfhild, who flushed, her scar standing out vividly on her cheek.

Hiccup gave her a weak smile.  "Well… this is awkward.  Um… Astrid?"

"Yes?"

"Look… when… when I was out before, I got waved down by Eochaid.  And he, he said some pretty vile things about… us," he said, motioning to the three of them.  "So…"  He took a deep breath and said, "I'm not here to 'get laid'.  Not after _that_ talk, where I can tell you that all Eochaid thinks that you two are good for to me is _that._ "

Wulfhild and Astrid shared scowls—and then, in a sudden surge, Wulfhild hugged him, making him give a sudden _oof!_

"What did I say?" he asked, playing up the strangled aspect of his voice and making Wulfhild smile against his chest.

"You're not someone like Eochaid—and neither of us is worried about that," Astrid said, smiling warmly at him.

"But it is still good to hear it," Wulfhild said, sounding slightly muffled.

"Exactly," Astrid said with a grin.  And then she shifted to a questioning look.  "What did he say, exactly?"

Hiccup shook his head.  "I'm not _nearly_ drunk enough to tell you _that._ "  He scowled.  "I just now _really_ want to get Heather's friend freed from him, even more than I did an hour ago, which is saying something."  He ran his hands through his hair, Wulfhild still not having released him.  "But you understand why I'm uncomfortable with the idea of just… just…"  He motioned to Wulfhild, who was smiling against his chest.

Astrid sighed at him.  "I'm not telling you to drag her off to bed right this moment, Hiccup.  But you will take her to bed, sooner or later… and she and I already talked and we agreed that I should be there to help with the awkwardness."  She shrugged and gave a lopsided smile.  "If I can't join in, I might as well watch you enjoy yourself."

He looked at her and quirked an eyebrow.  "And here I thought the bad old days of watching the marriage get consummated were over."

"You know, we said pretty much the same thing?"  Astrid grinned at him and Wulfhild chuckled weakly. 

Hiccup looked down and sighed.  "It just feels a little… invasive."

Astrid glanced at Wulfhild and then deadpanned, "What, it's not like she hasn't heard _everything_ for weeks now."

Hiccup felt his ears turn red.  "Oh.  Right.  Um…"  He ran his hand through his hair.  "Um… hadn't thought of that."

Wulfhild, also blushing, took a deep breath and said, "And… well, given what I've been hearing every night and what Astrid told me… I'm curious."

Hiccup blinked, and his eyes tracked towards Astrid as he otherwise held still.  She replied with a wordless smile, and then he looked back to Wulfhild.  "Oh?" he said with a confidence he didn't feel at _all._   "About… all of that?  And you don't have any problems with Astrid being there?"

"Well, uh, shall we say that being on the other side of that wall every night for the last month… I have questions… and I'd appreciate a guide who understands."  She smiled shyly. 

He looked to Astrid.  "What did you _tell_ her?"

"Women's mysteries, mostly.  What to expect, how it'll feel… what to do…" she said. 

Hiccup, embarrassed, scratched at the back of his head again.  "So… what do we do?"

###

Wulfhild's heart was racing like she had just made a run to the top of the Rookery. The last few minutes had been full of emotional turmoil… and then…

Then he'd shown himself to be a good man, one who listened… and someone who actually wanted her, and her heart had done little jumps when he'd pulled her into that embrace.

"So… what do we do?" Hiccup asked sheepishly.

Astrid shared another look with her, and then they both looked to Hiccup. "Maybe, oh, I don't know… kiss Wulf?"

"Now?" Hiccup asked, surprised.

"Well, she _has_ been awfully patient with you," Astrid said cheerfully. Now that Hiccup had _finally_ agreed, a lot of their earlier tension seemed to have transmuted into awkwardness for Wulfhild and Hiccup, and a degree of humor for Astrid. Then Astrid smirked. "So, what are you going to do about it?"

There was a moment that passed between the two of them that Wulfhild didn't get, and then Hiccup seemed to relax. "Something stupid, I guess."

"Good, but you've already done that," Astrid said with a meaningful waggle of her eyebrows.

"Then something crazy?" he asked, smiling back at Astrid before turning to Wulfhild.

"Now that's more like it," Astrid said, and then reached out and took both Wulfhild and Hiccup by the hand. "Come on."

"What?" Wulfhild asked, surprised.

"Well, if you want to stay down here where anyone looking for Stoick or Hiccup can wander in and see us, you're welcome to, but I think privacy might not be a bad idea. Even if nothing happens," Astrid said with a smile.

Wulfhild shared a look with Hiccup, and, shyly, extended her hand to him.

He flushed, but gently took it; the three of them stood in a ring for a moment, before releasing each other and, as a group, they went upstairs.

Astrid gently lowered herself into the new chair by the _skorskeinn,_ propped her elbow on the armrest, and leaned her chin on her fist with a smirk.

Hiccup and Wulfhild stood awkwardly together, both of them flushed and taking darting glances at the other.

"So… now what?" Wulfhild asked shyly.

"Well… um… awkward's back. Uh… look… what do you want me to do?" Hiccup asked, feeling the heat in his cheeks.

"I…" she awkwardly ran her hands over each other. "Well, first… I want to say… yes. I do want this. With you."

Hiccup gave a sheepish shrug and laugh, running his hands awkwardly through his hair as he looked away from her. "Uh… I'm sorry, but Hiccup the Useless just squeaked in the back of my head and fell over."

Astrid snorted. "Is he still around? I thought I managed to shove him in a box and wrap it in chains."

"It thumped," Hiccup deadpanned, and reached out and took Wulfhild's hand gently.

They all laughed and smiled at each other, and Astrid made a sigh that might have been ' _finally'_.

But then Hiccup backed up a pace. "So… um, like I said, I did have an uncomfortable talk with Eochaid right before coming back here. And he had… ' _advice.'_ "

"What sort of advice?" Wulfhild asked hesitantly.

He scowled. "About how I needed to stop being concerned for Astrid's pleasure in bed… but how it was her… _your_ jobs to care for my pleasure." His voice took on a sarcastic, mocking edge. "And that way, 'everyone's happy.'"

Astrid snorted. "Hiccup."

"Yeah, love?" he asked.

"Are you going to _take_ his advice?" Astrid asked sardonically.

"No, of course not!" he protested.

"Then there's not a problem," she said.

Hiccup paused, and then nodded curtly. "I… I guess not." He turned and looked at Wulfhild. "And if you _do_ ever feel uncomfortable or want me to stop, tell me, and I will."

She smiled at him and quietly nodded. Then she said, "And while this is all horribly awkward, that really can't be helped."

"So why not wait for later?" Hiccup asked. "If it's all awkward—"

"And give you more time to tie yourself up into tangled second thoughts?" Astrid asked pointedly. "No, I don't think so. And maybe _something_ happens, and maybe it doesn't, but at the very least, we need to have this _talk,_ babe." She leaned forward and put her chin on her hands. "Like how we promised each other to not avoid these talks."

Hiccup groaned. "Point."

Wulfhild smiled at their interactions… and hoped that, one day, she wouldn't be a witness, but would instead be a participant.

She wondered if she should say something, but she didn't want to scare Hiccup off again. This new part of their relationship was so tenuous and fragile…

Hiccup was looking around at both her and Astrid, and then seemed to come to a decision. He turned to her and smiled. "Um… Wulf?"

"Yes, Hiccup?"

"Close your eyes for a moment?" he asked, his smile turning hesitant.

Wulfhild shared a look with Astrid, who returned it with a lopsided smile and a nod. So, shrugging, she closed her eyes. Listening carefully, she heard Hiccup moving around in the room; a latch was opened and a she heard wood on wood clattering. A lid was closed, followed by more footsteps, and then a piece of rawhide-wrapped wood was placed in her right hand, and a leather strap in her left.

"Open," Hiccup's gentle voice came, and she obeyed.

And gasped.

"Happy Yule?" he said tentatively, as she stared at the recurved shortbow and ornamented leather quiver filled with arrows. The bow was sized perfectly for her, with a waxed and coiled bowstring dangling from the top, and the whole bow was made of what looked like inter-layered wood and dragon horn.

"It's gorgeous," she breathed.

"And it has a good pull," Astrid said with a smile. "I helped him test it."

"I was planning on giving it to you when we burned the Yule Goat," Hiccup admitted, "but… I thought now seemed like a good time."

She looked up and grinned at him and Astrid. "Thank you! Thank you both!"

And then, caught up in the moment, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, right on those beautiful lips of his.

And then her mind caught up with where she was and she almost panicked. What if she'd gone too far—

Then Hiccup was gently holding her, and continuing the kiss. It was chaste and gentle, with none of the fire that she saw between him and Astrid… but it was still a kiss.

Off to the side, she distinctly heard Astrid give an approving huff and a quietly muttered, " _Finally."_

They broke the kiss after a few moments, Wulfhild's heart racing. Her hands were empty, and she vaguely realized that Astrid had taken the bow and quiver from her while she'd been… _distracted._

"Hi…" Hiccup breathed, looking at her.

She looked away shyly, as Astrid commented with a smile, "Hey, Wulf, I'd say that Hiccup knows how to treat a girl out of bed, as well as in it."

"Huh?" Hiccup asked, as Wulfhild blinked in surprise. "What?"

"Remember Thawfest?" Astrid asked. "One thing you can count on Hiccup for, is he knows how to treat a girl who likes weapons."

Hiccup blinked and then laughed and pulled Wulfhild into a gentle hug.

She laid her head against his upper arm and smiled peacefully. "So, what else would you like, Wulf? Astrid got that awesome knife for Thawfest as well as a bow, after all."

An irrepressible sense of whimsy filled Wulfhild at that mention, and she said, "I would like to know what you do that makes Astrid make that noise…"

There was a sound like a Terrible Terror getting stepped on from Astrid, and Hiccup gave an awkward little laugh. "Uh…"

Wulfhild, grinning very slightly at that reaction, took her courage in both hands and said as lightly as she could, "No… not that sound… more of a…" she gave an imitation of the breathy pant-moan that she had heard _frequently_ over the last few weeks.

Astrid squeaked indignantly, and then gave a little self-conscious chuckle. Hiccup blushed furiously, looking away from her, and somehow managed to crack a smile.

Wulfhild, her grin growing a little bit as they all relaxed, said, "Or maybe…" and imitated Astrid's rapid pant of _yesyesyesyes therethereyesyes…_

Astrid was laughing indignantly from her seat. Then Wulfhild moved on to her best imitation of the sounds of the ecstatic moans that usually heralded the end of one of their bouts of lovemaking, which made Astrid stuff her free armwarmer and forearm into her mouth to try to muffle her laughter, her chin still balanced on her other arm.

Hiccup looked like he was being slowly filled with hot water as his blush rose, and he was trying so hard not to laugh. "T-that… that took a bit of work," he said wryly—or at least he tried. The cracking squeak at the beginning drained it of the wryness and made it farcical instead.

"Umph!" came from the chair, and both Wulfhild and Hiccup turned to look. Astrid had turned bright red—and her chin had slipped off her hand, making her squeak.

As both Wulfhild and Hiccup looked at her, Astrid tried to keep herself composed and failed miserably.

Hiccup couldn't help it and he just started laughing. Slowly at first, it turned into a full belly-deep guffaw, and Wulfhild started to snicker as well, and then giggled. Soon, all three of them were leaning on various bits of furniture, their faces red with laughter, tears streaming from their eyes, each glance between them sending them into fresh gales of laughter—especially as, when they first seemed to be coming to an end of their glee, Astrid's sudden pants sounded almost _exactly_ like she did some nights, which set them all off again. And then again, when Wulfhild imitated her.

Eventually, they all calmed, Astrid half-sprawled on the floor in the front of the _skorskeinn_ , her face bright red and her chest heaving with laughter, Wulfhild half-seated, half-flopped on the top of a chest, leaning against the wall desperately for support, and Hiccup stretched across the bed, his gangly limbs sprawled out like a drunken spider's, craning his head up to look at the two of them. Wulfhild looked at both of them, and saw fond smiles in reply.

"I think we needed that," Hiccup said, and slumped back onto the bed.

"Agreed," Astrid said.

"Mmhhmm," Wulfhild said, her cheeks aching from having laughed so hard. She glanced at Astrid—and then saw that the other woman was looking directly at her and dipping her head pointedly towards Hiccup—and the bed.

Wulfhild's heart started to race again, and she mouthed, _What, now?_

Astrid rolled her eyes and nodded once.

Taking a hold of her courage and that sense of whimsy from before, Wulfhild got to her feet and walked over to the bed—as did Astrid.

Hiccup blinked—and then Astrid, with a smile and a shrug, took Wulfhild's hands in her own, and toppled into the bed, pulling Wulfhild with her.

Wulfhild landed squarely atop Hiccup, and there was a moment of awkward yelps and laughter as she tried to keep her elbows and knees out of his squishy spots. Astrid helped a bit, but she was mostly laughing and making airy commentary. "No, not there, Wulf, he needs that…"

At the end of that, she was laid out on top of Hiccup, who was looking a bit nonplussed, but was going along with it. Astrid was lying next to both of them, her head propped up on the palm of her hand.

"So… now what?" Wulfhild asked.

Astrid smirked and said something in Eirish to Hiccup, who smirked in reply—and then kissed Wulfhild.

And if his previous kiss had been chaste and calm, this one _wasn't._

Hands roamed, and while they stayed on top of her clothes, Hiccup was clearly paying close attention to how she reacted to his touch.

Eventually, he ended the kiss, and she looked down at him. He looked smug, because she _had_ made some sounds of her own that were close relations to the ones that Astrid had made.

With a growl that she wouldn't have credited herself with a month before, she kissed _him,_ and ignored Astrid's cheer of "Attagirl!" as she tried to copy some of the things that he'd just done to her mouth. She was clumsy, to be sure, but it was still enjoyable.

Then she felt his hands on her dress, and a slight tug at the stays.

She froze—and the hands retreated.

Hiccup broke the kiss and said quietly, "If you want to stop here, it's okay."

She blinked, and then narrowed her eyes before reaching back and awkwardly putting his hands right back where they'd been, and then resumed the kiss, her head swimming with lust and joy and a ripple of fear.

Hiccup made short work of her dress with Astrid's help—and gave his wife several kisses along the way. And then she found out exactly _why_ Astrid made some of those noises in the night.

Yes, Hiccup was _very_ good with his mouth.

As the last aftershocks faded and she slumped to the bed, Hiccup moved up to nestle in next to her; he was still mostly clothed, but she could feel his warmth underneath the thin linen shirt and undergarments as he pulled her into an embrace.

"If you want to stop here and maybe continue on later, that's fine," he said.

"What about you?" she asked. It had taken some time, but she had elicited a reaction from him that, as Astrid had commented wryly, showed that he obviously didn't think she was hideous.

"I'll live," he said with a smile.

She thought, and then said, "Just promise me that we _don't_ stop there in the future."

Hiccup's arms tightened, and she could feel Astrid's own arms holding him from behind. "Promise."

###

With a sigh and a groan, Heather popped the key into her new door lock and gave it a twist.  The door obligingly clicked and opened, letting her into her room. 

At least Woodnut's fine had been put to good use, and Gobber had cheerfully made the lock for her last week.  Not that she was here that often; she spent most of her nights at Fishlegs' house since the Eirish had arrived—to the point that Wulfhild had cheerfully and innocently observed the other day that Heather was _strictly_ following Stoick's instructions to always remain in the company of other people.  In fact, now that she'd delivered dinner to Eochaid's hut, her day was finally at an end, and she and Fishlegs had no other plans aside from going back to his room and making happy noises together after she dropped off her pay in her coffer. 

She froze as the door swung open.

Something was wrong.

Carefully peering inside, she instantly saw that the window shutters were open slightly, letting in some of the pale moonlight from the nearly-full moon. 

" _Shit_ ," she swore. 

"What?" her boyfriend whispered from behind her.

"Someone broke in again," she said.  She sniffed.  "No gifts from the tannery this time, though."

"Can I help you look?"

She nodded.  "Just step carefully.  I don't know what traps they might have left behind."

He made an affirmative noise and, together, they stepped cautiously into the room, Fishlegs holding the lamp up high.

She looked around; nothing seemed amiss.  All of her furniture was in place, and her spare garments were undisturbed. 

But when she went to look at her coffer, bolted to the floor under her bed, gold glittered back at her. 

She stared.  A gold necklace of Eirish make was lying next to her coffer.  She must have made some noise, because Fishlegs asked urgently, "What is it?"

"Shit, shit, shit!"  She convulsively grabbed the shiny bit of jewelry and held it up.  "This is from one of Eochaid's guards.  _And it was planted in my room."_  

Fishlegs blinked and inhaled sharply.  "We need to go.  Right now!  Tell Stoick!"

She quickly followed his train of thought and the two of them bolted for the door, their earlier fatigue forgotten. 

"Where to first?" he asked.

"I last saw him in the mead hall," she said, and they ran there—but Stoick wasn't present.  Nor was he in the chief's hut, but given the sounds they were hearing from upstairs, Heather wasn't going to ask Hiccup or Astrid if they'd seen him.

They ran to the smithy next, and Heather almost slipped and stumbled on the ice before Fishlegs caught her and hauled her back upright.  They ran the rest of the way to the smithy, and burst in, panting. 

"Lad?  Lass?" Gobber's tone was curious.

Heather looked up, and saw Stoick.  She held out the necklace. 

"What's this?" he asked, taking it.

"Someone…" she panted, "someone planted that in my room.  It, it belongs to one of Eochaid's men."

Stoick didn't hesitate.  "Come with me."

She nodded, and followed in his wake.  He whistled, and Thornado bounded up from within the smithy.  Stoick mounted onto his saddle and looked to Heather.

"Hop on and hold on tight," he said curtly, and she did so without question. 

The chief looked to Fishlegs.  "Go back and guard her room, and see if there was anything else left there."

Fishlegs nodded, and started his way back up the hillside. 

Thornado jumped off the cliff with a rush of wings, and they were airborne. 

Stoick guided his dragon towards Eochaid's hut—and then she gasped and pointed.  Visible in the growing darkness against the snow was Eochaid and his guards, marching angrily towards the village.

 

* * *

 **A/N:** _Welp, there we go. ***hides under rock***_

_Humorous hiding aside, I have two things I need to note:_

_First, because there's been a lot of confusion on this plot point: The eggs are_ not _hatching; instead, as noted by the chapter 44 epigraph, essentially, here they are miscarrying, and miscarrying catastrophically, due to malformed hydrocarbon organ systems.  They won't hatch until late April, and when they hatch, it is not with explosions (or I would have noted as much for the hatchlings back around chapter 8).  This was my attempt to riff on the "The Eggs Explode!" plot point from GOTNF, but apparently I was too subtle to be able to override people's expectations from that source material, so my bad there._

_Second, I need to make the note that I do not take fic requests (including requests to insert ideas into ATOV), or give out spoilers._

_While I appreciate the great interest everyone has in_ A Thing Of Vikings _, my standard reply to any spoiler requests will be **RAFO** : 'Read And Find Out'. I'd rather not spoil the story, or leak spoilers that others could potentially post elsewhere to ruin other people's enjoyment. I'm not pointing fingers, merely noting that in every fandom there are always a few people who like to ruin it for everyone. Rather than take that risk, I won't be giving out spoilers at all._

_Similarly, because I have ATOV plotted out in detail, while I do deeply appreciate the enthusiastic suggestions I get for plot ideas/dragons/characters/etc that I get, I almost certainly won't be able to use them (and even if I could use some of them, I would then be faced with resentment from those individuals whose ideas I was not able to include). So while I appreciate the thought, I'm going to say to people hoping that I'll include their idea(s), please, use them to write your own stories, rather than asking me to include them in mine._

_I hope that everyone enjoyed the chapter, and I have good news as well--I finally took my German TELC A1 exam and will get my results sometime before June.  So I have the next 4-6 weeks to do little more than write and keep house for my spouse.  So onwards!_


	47. Do You Hear Something?

**Chapter 47: Do You Hear Something?**

* * *

 

 **_Chapter Trigger Warnings:_ ** _Explicit Attempted Assault, Implied Act of Domestic Violence_

* * *

 

****

_Pre-Viking Eirish society was, in technical terms, a sophisticated primitive society; it had formalized law, culture and social structures, but also lacked several elements associated with complex societies, specifically a written language, urban centers, and currency.  The social structure of the Eirish, in particular, was based on three axes, and where the individual Eirish person fell on them._

_The primary axis was familial; an Eirish family was all of the related members living under one roof (a_ fine _), and then extending out to one-degree extended family (_ sept _), and there to blood-tied clan.  Related clans would come together to form a tribe (a_ tuath _), related tribes would form a kingdom (_ dál _), and geographically proximate kingdoms would form a province (_ coiced _), of which there were classically five._

 _The second axis was occupational, and consisted of three groups: the warriors (_ láech _/_ láecheanna _), the craftsmen (_ cerd _/_ cerdí _), and the laborer farmers (_ aithech _/_ aithecheanna _).  The farmers produced the food required to survive, and were protected by the warriors.  The warriors protected the other two groups, but also ruled over them.  And the craftsmen produced the goods and services needed to keep the society running; this group included not only smiths, carpenters, masons and others, but also the lawkeepers, priests, musicians, scholars, monks, physicians and other such individuals._

_The third axis was social class, consisting of five ranks._

_At the top were the rulers, the kings (_ ríthe) _, ranging from clan chief (_ rí) _to tribal chief (_ rí tuaithe) _to king of the kingdom (_ rí ruirí), _to province king (_ rí ruírech), _and then to High King (_ ard rí).

 _Second in rank were the privileged (_ flaith) _, essentially the aristocracy.  These individuals were the designated managers of the land, and controlled who settled where and did what.  While legally the land was held by the tribe as a whole and the privileged class merely managed it on their behalf, they still historically received the bulk of of the arable land, controlled who worked it, and worked the public resources for their private benefit._

 _Third in rank were the non-noble freemen with property (_ aire), _usually land or flocks_.  _There were two subclasses, both related to the occupations in the second axis—warriors and professionals_ , _who engaged in privileged, trained crafts and skills, such as priest, law-keeper, physician, fili or other such skill_.

 _Fourth in rank were the freemen without property (_ aithech _); they were not privileged themselves and did not hold property, and worked the land or flocks granted by the upper ranks as tenants._

 _Fifth in rank were the non-free.  There were three subdivisions of this category:_ sen-cleith, bothach & fuidir _.  Bothach were essentially clanless individuals allowed to squat on tribal lands at the sufferance of the tribe.  Sen-Cleith were the personal servants and laborers of the Flaith classes, and the flaith members treated them as little better than the daer-fuidiri.  The fuidir was the lowest of the low, bound to the land and desires of their owning Flaith.  The daer-fuidiri being composed of debt-thralls, war-captives, and other human chattel, The daer-fuidiri were little more than property—indeed, female thralls, referred to as bondsmaids (_ cumhal), _were a standard unit of currency against which other valuable items were measured in Eirish law. Finally, there were rare exceptions in the form of tribeless individuals, saer-fuidir, who were allowed to squat on unsettled land at the sufferance of the local Flaith, but otherwise had no rights before the law to speak of._

_—A History Of The Isles, Oxford, England, 1591_

**_January, AD 1042_ **

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

With a nudge of his knees, Stoick guided Thornado to land on the bridge, right in front of Eochaid.  The Eirish petty king scowled at him.  "My man here has had something of his stolen.  Is _this_ your vaunted hospitality?"

Stoick didn't hesitate.  "Here," he said, and held out the necklace.

Eochaid blinked, the anger suddenly leaking out of him like air from an inflated bladder.  "What…?"

"Someone seems to have a taste for cruel pranks," Stoick said flatly.  "It was found in Heather's room, and she immediately came and found me to return it to you."

Eochaid peered up at Stoick.  Then he mutely handed the jewelry back to the guardsman to whom it belonged.  "I see.  I appreciate the return of the stolen item, and will agree that no harm has come to pass.  Do you know who stole it in the first place?"

"No, I do not," Stoick said simply as the guardsman placed the gold back around his neck.  "But it is late and cold.  Why don't you return to your lodgings, and I will do the same?"  Behind him, he could hear Heather's teeth chattering. 

Eochaid glanced around him to look at Heather, and then nodded.  "Aye, I suppose I will.  Good night, and thank you for the swiftness of your solution here.  If you find the thief, give them a good drubbing from me, will you?"

"Aye," Stoick said.  "Sleep well, honored guest."  Eochaid gave a polite nod of the head and turned to walk back up the path to his hut.

Stoick turned as well, to see Heather shivering, her arms huddled around herself, her cloak missing.  "Let's get you back where you belong, eh, lass?"

Wordlessly, she nodded, her teeth still chattering. 

With a slightly exasperated sigh, Stoick whipped off his fur cloak and wrapped it around her. 

She sighed as well, but it was one of appreciation as she tightly held the cloak around herself and practically burrowed into it.  They hopped back onto Thornado and he made a quick jump back to the village.  Dropping Heather off at her home, Stoick reclaimed his cloak and placed it back around his shoulders.

Returning to the smithy, he found Gobber still working at the anvil.  His friend looked up as he entered.  "Did anything happen?"

Stoick shook his head.  "We managed to intercept Eochaid at the bridge and hand off the stolen item in short order."  He ran his hand through his beard.  "But I dearly wanted to know who is responsible for these 'pranks'.  Someone in this tribe was attempting to murder one of our own, or make Heather look like a thief and hospitality breaker."

"Aye," Gobber said tartly.  "If that necklace had been found in her room, she might have ended up banished to appease the offended guest, and you might not have been able to stop it, Stoick.  Not if enough voices were baying for her blood."

Stoick scowled.  "I know.  And I dislike this skulking.  It's dishonorable and vile.  If they have a grievance against her, air it and let it be brought before a court or a _holmgang._   But these, these little cuts in the dark…"  He grimaced.  "It bothers me that one of our own is capable of acting with such malice and dishonor."

Gobber shrugged.  "You're a good man, Stoick.  Not everyone is.  So, what will you do if you catch them?"

Stoick snorted.  " _When,_ not if, Gobber.  And I'll want an explanation first, but I don't see a way that it ends with anything less than banishment.  Attempted murder— _twice—_ and breaching hospitality?  No, if I catch them, they're gone."

Gobber shrugged again and continued to work the hammer at the anvil.  "Ayep."

There was a muffled thud underneath their feet, and Stoick winced.  Another egg had just blown itself to Valhalla. 

They both looked down.  Then Gobber asked in a rueful tone, "Remember you said back when they were laying all of those eggs, how you couldn't understand how few dragons there were when they were laying such large clutches?"

Stoick nodded and sighed.  "I think we've got our explanation now."

Gobber gave a sad smile and turned back to the anvil.  "So… Stoick.  At this point, there's one other issue."

"What now?" Stoick said, exasperated. 

"Heather and Fishlegs.  You _know_ they're sleeping together now, but they're still not betrothed," Gobber said seriously.  "And while a little bit of Hiccup's protection from the rules has rubbed off on them, they should get a move on, before someone decides to lay charges against them before the Thing."

Stoick gave him a narrow-eyed look.  "Why do _I_ have to?"

"Because you're the one who gave them the cover story in the first place, that let Burl and Twiglet harass the poor lass," Gobber said, still serious.  "And as I understand it, since everybody believed that they already did it, despite you saying otherwise, they went ahead and did it.  So if someone brings up charges, it's your word on the line."

Stoick groaned.  "I'll talk to the lad tomorrow and see what he's doing for the _mundr."_

"Aye.  And give him a month to get it together," Gobber said.  "That should give him the time… and if Heather gets caught with child before they're wed, at least they're betrothed… even if she has the healthiest eight-month babe the village has ever…"  Stoick suddenly found himself shaking at those words.  "Oh."  Gobber looked down and away.  "Sorry, Stoick."

Stoick pulled himself free of the memory of Hiccup's premature birth, and how he'd mewled like a kitten instead of crying like a healthy child.  If he hadn't been born at midsummer, he might not have lived…

"It's okay, Gobber.  Hiccup… he might not be the Viking I tried to make him into, but there's no question that he can 'crush mountains, level forests, tame seas.'"  He chuckled slightly.  "And with more panache than his father ever could."

Gobber snorted.  "Aye, that's for sure.  You always were something of a blunt instrument, Stoick."

"Is that a crack about my weight?" Stoick joked, and they were past the vulnerable moment and laughing again. 

They discussed things for a while longer, and then Stoick returned to his home.  Shutting the door behind him, he heard noises coming from Hiccup and Astrid's room and rolled his eyes while smiling.  He remembered being that age and—

"Oh God!" came a _different_ wailing voice from up the stairs, and Stoick froze.  Then he slowly turned in the direction of the stairs and listened carefully. 

Over the last two months, he'd unwillingly gained an extensive familiarity with Astrid's cries in the night. 

But that wasn't Astrid.

That was Wulfhild.

Whoo boy. 

And then he heard Astrid's voice, indistinct but cheerful, saying something, and he cautiously made his way to his own bedroom as the noises continued. 

He considered for a moment before shaking his head with a bemused smile on his face.  Well.  It certainly didn't _sound_ like things were going badly. 

He'd been at a loss about that whole arrangement; he _was_ fond of Wulfhild in her own right, but dictating to Hiccup that he should or shouldn't sleep with her was about as attractive a thought as eating a live crab.  After the damage he'd done to Hiccup's upbringing, there was no way that he was going to stick his oar in on this one.  Not when he'd ever only loved one woman in his life. 

Maybe Hiccup didn't love Wulfhild.  But he was certainly fond of her… and judging by the sounds, Wulfhild certain had no complaints at the moment. 

He snorted—and eventually got up and went to the chopping block to chop some firewood.  Hopefully by the time he'd returned they'd be finished.

And, if nothing else… if they did make it work—and he suspected that Rikard and Dingleberry and several others in the handful of happy group marriages in the village were standing by to give advice and an ear—it could only be good for his clan. 

As the first log was reduced to cordwood, Stoick glanced up at the closed shutters to his son's room.  For the good of his family, and for the good of his clan, he promised himself that, whatever Hiccup, Astrid and Wulfhild settled on, he'd support it. 

###

 **_Boukoleon_ ** **_Palace, Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

His belly heavy with fish—including some of his new favorite, what the walkers called 'bluefish'—Hookfang settled in on his perch's stone nest; while the sun had already set, the stones and his hide were still warm.  It had been a lazy day; his walker had been occupied for most of it, doing whatever weird tasks his new nest made him do, and a few of the other walkers that he was friends with had come by with his food and to give him some grooming.  He'd gone flying for a bit to stretch his wings, but had mostly enjoyed sitting on the roof in the sun, plus filling the fired-clay jar that his walker had given him to drool into. 

He still wasn't sure why his walker had changed his name and left his nest, but Hookfang wasn't complaining.  Oh, sure, he missed some of the other flyers from their old nest, like Toothless, and it was a bit lonely at times, but his walker's friends among the nest's walkers here had kept him company.  He'd learned their walker names as best he could, although it was confusing at times, since they seemed to have two, at least. 

His best guess was that his friend was looking for a mate.  It would explain why he kept showing Hookfang off to the other walkers.  It was what flyers did when they got old enough and left their nest—they wandered from nest to nest, looking for suitable mates. 

He settled into a doze on the stone slab, and didn't even twitch when the door to the walker nest opened.  That was normal. 

But then ropes were slung around his snout, and he jerked awake and tried to roar.  As the ropes wrapped around his snout tightened, holding his mouth shut, he flailed his head, trying to get them off of him.  One of the walkers was yanked off his feet with a scream and collided with Hookfang's head.  There was suddenly the taste of walker blood in his mouth; one of his exposed teeth had stabbed the walker in the gut and the walker had fallen to the floor, screaming and bleeding. 

Another, though, tried to fasten on something that Hookfang recognized, a thing that the old walker nest had once used before Hiccup and Toothless had killed the old nest lord.

A muzzle.

Panicked, he blazed, and the walker still holding onto his snout screamed as the fire danced on Hookfang's skin.  He let go, and, still in the grip of panic, Hookfang batted him and the muzzle-holder off of the balcony. 

Their screams were cut short by the ground, half his body length below.  

###

Dressed only in his trousers—on backwards—Sigurd ran out towards Hookfang's balcony, where his friend was screaming bloody murder.  Other Varangians were standing by, weapons drawn, and he barked out, " _Put those away, you idiots!"_ and didn't even notice the speed with which he was obeyed. 

Bursting out through the door, he saw Hookfang ablaze and ran towards him, not even registering the whispers of awe from behind him.  Reaching out, he patted out part of Hookfang's flaming hide and calmed his friend.  Within a few moments, Hookfang was curled around him protectively, his fire out.

"What happened here!?" an authoritative voice called out, drawing Sigurd's attention to the rest of the balcony.

Sigurd turned and saw Harald, barely more dressed than Sigurd was, standing by the door.

"I don't know sir!" he said, throwing a salute.

Gudmund, dressed in an armored tunic over linen trousers, the ties for the tunic undone and flapping, spoke up from an odd shape near the wall.  "Sir."

Harald looked and grimaced—and Sigurd looked closely and gagged.  It was the charred remains of a man.  He was suddenly extremely grateful for the bandages on his nose that kept him from smelling it. 

"Sir!" Gunnar's voice called out from nearby—and from what sounded like the ground below.

Stepping carefully, Sigurd emerged from behind Hookfang's coils, and went to the edge, as Harald joined him. 

Gunnar and Thorred were standing there—and there was a pair of bodies on the ground.  Gunnar was holding up a bent mass of leather and metal that, even in the dim light and distance, Sigurd could see was a muzzle sized for Hookfang. 

Harald hissed, and turned and bellowed, "INTRUDERS IN THE BARRACKS!"

As the Varangians proceeded to scurry about like a kicked-over anthill, searching the barracks for anyone that didn't belong there, Harald spoke quietly to Sigurd.  "Hopefully we'll catch them… but I doubt it.  You realize that there's only one way for them to have gotten in, yes?"

Sigurd nodded and looked to Hookfang, and then protectively stepped over to him and started to stroke his head.  "Yeah.  I realize."  And it was for them to have been _let_ in. 

"Well, they didn't succeed, and the barracks will be on high alert for the foreseeable future.  So I doubt that there will be another attempt.  But I find this… worrisome."

Sigurd nodded, running his hands along Hookfang's scales and making him purr.  "Yes sir.  And thank you sir."

Harald crossed his arms.  "You take care of him.  I'm going to go supervise locking down the barracks."

"Aye, sir," Sigurd said, and patted Hookfang's head.  "Hear that, Hookie?  They aren't going to try that again." 

He pictured Hookfang wearing a muzzle and unconsciously balled his fists.  "I promise."

###

 **_A Farm Near_ ** **_Faaborg_ ** **_, Denmark_ **

****

Markus woke with a start at the sound of splintering wood.

Men were shouting, and his daughters were screaming—and then rough hands were hauling him out of bed, along with his wife.

He was dragged out of the house between two thanes.  "What is going on!?  Where are you taking… me…"

He trailed off at the sight of the local jarl, who was looking stern in the torchlight.

"Markus Ulversson, you are charged with cowardice on the field of battle, and abandoning your king to the enemy. The sentence is death."

Markus babbled, "I deny the charges!  A retreat was sounded!  I'm innocent!"  The men holding him started to wrestle him towards the stump he used to chop firewood.  A man with an ax stood ready. 

"I'm innocent!  I have the right to a trial!" 

"Hold," the jarl said flatly, and the thanes paused.  "Why draw this out, Markus?  We both know that you're guilty."

"I'm innocent," Markus insisted, even as a little voice in his head agreed with the jarl.  While a retreat _had_ been sounded… it had been _after_ his ship had fled, he knew that much. 

The jarl looked at him and sighed.  "Very well.  You will be jailed pending trial."  His expression said that he thought that Markus was being a fool.  "You and the rest."

"What about my family?" Markus demanded. 

"Oh, they're coming too.  You're to be executed, and your daughters given to the Church to be nuns."  He looked up to the thanes.  "Take them back to Faaborg and throw them into the gaol with the rest.  I'll send word to the king to ask how he wants the trials handled."

Markus watched in horror as he was led away.  His home was being looted behind him, and it was clear that they did not expect him or his family to ever return…

###

 **_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

 

Wulfhild woke slowly, feeling a pleasant lassitude in her limbs, and then froze. 

She wasn't alone in the bed.

And it wasn't her bed, either.

Next to her arm, her skin touching his, was Hiccup's slender back, as he presumably spooned with Astrid.

All of the memories of last night flooded back, and for a moment, she felt incredible guilt as the worries she'd had before flooded back from where she'd suppressed them.

For the sake of her soul, she had best hope that the honeymonth had been enough time for her friends' marriage to be cemented in the eyes of God…

Because if the Father's rites had been legitimate…

Then the marriage had been consummated last night.

It had been a slow mutual exploration, with awkward pauses and candid talks and languid moments spent in mutual peace and a few moments of embarrassed hilarity when Hiccup or herself had instants of difficulty, all in between stretches of pleasures that Wulfhild had never before imagined.  Now she _knew_ why Astrid made some of those noises in the night.  Wulfhild had made a few of them herself. 

Astrid had also joined in as best she could, given her own situation.  While it had been patently obvious that Hiccup had used her presence to bestir himself, Wulfhild had no complaints—and even if she did, there was no way in which she would have ever allowed herself to voice them.  It would be the _height_ of ingratitude and selfishness. 

…even beyond potentially stealing her friend's husband in the eyes of God.

She groaned, wracked by guilt at the thought.  All of her rationalizations from the last month—and the last few days especially—seemed to mock her, and she frantically reminded herself that, no, it wouldn't matter what the Church said, the Hooligans would never accept it, and they had been married _first,_ after all! 

…now she just had to hope that whatever Jarl Yngvarr found would agree with that assertion. 

She lay there for a moment, stewing in her guilt, until Hiccup shifted next to her. 

"Wulf?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep.  "You all right?"  He rolled slightly, and she saw that, yes, one of his arms was trapped under Astrid's sleeping form.  The other woman was _not_ a morning person, and was still sleeping soundly. 

Taking a deep breath, she told herself _What's done is done,_ and smiled at him.  "A bit sore in places, but I'm all right."  And that was mostly the truth. 

He gave her a lopsided smile that made her heart melt, then awkwardly leaned over and gave her a gentle, chaste kiss to the temple.  "Good.  I'm glad." 

Next to him, Astrid muttered something in her sleep, and Hiccup rolled his eyes fondly.  "Um… is there anything she'll need when she wakes up?"

Wulfhild nodded. 

Hiccup tried to get up, but paused.  "Well… uh… could I ask a favor?"

Wulfhild snorted.  "I'll get them, don't worry."  She slid out of the bed, wrapped a fur around herself and retrieved her undertunic from the floor.  As she made her way to the door, she saw that Astrid was clutching onto Hiccup's hand in both of her own. 

Closing the door behind her, Wulfhild thought to herself, _I promise to not take him from you, my friend._

As she walked down the hall to the stairs, she shook her head.  _No.  I don't promise._

_I swear it._

###

 **_The Great Steppe, North of the_ ** **_Khazar_ ** **_Sea, Near the Itil River, Pecheneg Khanates_ **

 

The tired man walked towards the collection of yurts huddled together in the vastness of the seemingly endless snow-covered grasslands, exhaustion in his bones.  His most recent hunt had been… less than successful.  He had wounded the beast, but it had fled before he could kill it, and tracking it was impossible.

He walked into the nomads' village, nodding to the others as he passed them.  He was not one of them, but the followers of Tengri were good folk, welcoming to strangers.  His services to them aside, he could have shown up with little more than the clothes on his back and his spear in hand and they would have brought him in and fed him—and had, at the beginning of the winter.

The horses in the temporary paddock nickered and snorted as he walked by, no doubt discomfited by the smells on his clothing.  He walked further away and downwind, so as not to worry them and cause problems. 

As he reached the center of the temporary village, he found the village elder and bowed respectfully, sending his long hair to dangling before him in a wave of coiled locks. 

"No luck today, mighty one?" the elder asked kindly.

"Some yes, some no," he said in his deep voice, rising.  "I wounded it, but it fled."

"Well, you did your best," said the elder with a smile.  "And it will not harass us in the night again, I'd expect."

The tired man nodded mutely.  The elder was likely right, but the fact of the matter was he had failed to make a clean kill of the beast that had been harassing the Pechenegs, and that frustrated him to no end. 

"Come, come, supper is nearly ready," said the elder.  "You may have not succeeded at killing the dragon, but you have still taught it that we are not sheep to be consumed at leisure.  Let us get out of the cold and give thanks to Tengri for His wisdom and support."

The tired man bowed once more.  "As you wish, elder."  Spear in hand, they walked over the snows to the elder's yurt and entered. 

###

 **_Training Hall, Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

 

Fishlegs stood in the doorway and watched as Astrid attacked Hiccup with an ax.

Hiccup frantically blocked with a sword, keeping the ax from chopping him in two, and then made a clumsy parry. 

"Good!" she bellowed, and swung once more.  "Again!"

Hiccup yelped as she battered past his parry and the weighted wooden training ax hit him in the left shoulder.  His wooden training sword hit the ground with a clatter, and he clutched at his arm.  "Ow!  I'm down enough limbs already, don't you think!?"

She snorted.  "And that's why we practice, babe."  She fluidly bent and snatched the training sword off the ground.  Handing it back to him, she said, "Again!"

She and Hiccup stood back and then she spotted Fishlegs.  "One moment, 'Legs.  Hiccup, your turn.  If you can score a touch on my center, we're done for the day."

Fishlegs winced.  As Hiccup vainly tried to score a touch, Astrid calmly asked Fishlegs, "What's the issue?"

Deadpan, he asked, "So I'm your handicap?"

Hiccup snorted as Astrid blocked another attempted lunge.  "Why not?  I've got one."  He indicated his false foot with a wave of his free hand.

"Not going to comment on that," Fishlegs said.  "So… um… I have good news."

"Oh?" Astrid asked, smartly rapping the back of Hiccup's hand as he overextended, making him yelp and drop the sword. 

Fishlegs nodded.  "I've been keeping count of how many eggs have been… exploding, and it looks like we're past the worst of it." 

"Oh?" 

He nodded.  "It's been two weeks since we figured out that they explode, and nearly a month since that first egg cracked open."  He waved his clipboard.  "Our worst day was last week, when we had sixty-three eggs explode.  But the day before that, we only had forty-one, and the day after that, we only had forty-nine.  Yesterday, we had nineteen.  So, _assuming_ that we count from that worst day as the middle, we should be done in the next two weeks or so."

Astrid beamed at him.  "That's great news!" 

Hiccup swung at her, and, with her distracted, he managed to hit her bicep as she abruptly parried.

"The downside is that the explosions are still getting more powerful, but not by that much," Fishlegs said.  "But we haven't lost whole racks since you made the modifications."

"That's good, at least," Hiccup said with a grunt, as he tried a feint and then a chop, scoring a hit on Astrid's arm, but not managing to otherwise get past her guard. 

Astrid grunted in agreement and then asked in a tight voice, "How many did we lose?"

Fishlegs grimaced.  "Between the destroyed racks and the secondary explosions and other eggs caught in the backlash? Over two thousand."

Both of the Haddocks paused and looked at him.  "We've lost a _tenth!?_ " Astrid asked, sounding agonized.

"More," Fishlegs said sadly.  "Closer to an eighth, if not more."

They all exchanged depressed looks, and Hiccup said bracingly, "At least… at least it's almost over?  According to what you've found."

Fishlegs nodded.  "Yeah, but for next year, we're going to have to massively rethink on how we do things in the Broodery."

Hiccup nodded—and then swung at Astrid, who barely got the handle of her ax up in time. 

"Cheater!" she bellowed with a smile.

"You never called for a halt!" he replied with an answering grin. 

Fishlegs stepped back from the pair.  Then there was a gust of cold air as Wulfhild entered the hall, looking a bit windswept, her bow and quiver slung over her shoulder. 

Coming up next to Fishlegs, she called cheerfully, "Come on, Hiccup!  You can do it!"

Fishlegs hid a smile behind his clipboard.  _Something_ had changed among the three of them last week; the air of tension between them had faded significantly, and he'd spotted all three of them exchanging fond displays of affection in public.  And while that was to be expected between Hiccup and Astrid… seeing Hiccup holding Wulfhild in an embrace, or Astrid giving Wulfhild a peck on the cheek—that was something else. 

It didn't quite feel casual yet, even from Fishlegs' admittedly removed position—it was apparent that all three of them were _trying_ —but it was becoming pretty obvious that the rumors in the village that Hiccup had taken on Wulfhild as a concubine strictly to adopt her into the clan weren't accurate. 

As they watched Hiccup and Astrid spar, Wulfhild asked Fishlegs quietly, "So… how goes the _mundr?_ "

He exhaled sharply.  "I'm set… but Heather doesn't have a dowry together."  And he had just under three weeks until the deadline that Stoick had set to him to figure out how to manage _that_ wrinkle.  The problem was, even with the sky-high wages in the village right now (due to the lack of available hands for the work needed), it would take her at _least_ another year of working in the kitchens to earn enough to meet the legal minimums. 

Wulfhild patted his hand gently.  "You'll make it work."

Fishlegs sighed.  "Yeah.  I hope.  I just wish it was legal for me to _give_ her the money, but…"

"You can afford that?" Wulfhild asked, surprised.

He nodded.  Technically, he was personally contracted by the Haddock clan to supervise the Rookery and Broodery… and Hiccup had given him a _lavish_ salary.  He'd protested that at first, but somewhere around the fifth all-nighter, he'd grown to realize just how much responsibility he had.  And after the last year of work, between everything that he did, plus his compensations from Alvin, and starting to make and sell pieces of glass…

"Yeah, I can afford it."  In fact, he could afford to pay all three parts of the whole _mundr,_ and well above and beyond the legal minimums—and wished that he could do so.  A king's ransom and a city, it wasn't, but it was well and truly satisfactory in his opinion…

Assuming, of course, that Heather could match his bride price with her dowry.  And… well…

She couldn't.

Wulfhild was looking at his face and nodded.  "So… things are working out well between you two?  Other than that?"

At that question, Fishlegs flushed slightly—although not as much as he once would have.  Pleasant memories of nights over the last few weeks all vied for attention; the two of them hadn't slept alone since the Eirish had arrived. 

Wulfhild grinned, seeming to guess his thoughts.  "I see."

He pursed his lips and gave her a sidelong glance in return.  "And how about you?"

Wulfhild glanced at her two partners sparring with each other and said in an affected haughty tone, "I'm finding myself _quite_ satisfied, thank you."

They laughed. 

Astrid glanced at the pair of them—and then grunted as Hiccup managed to get past her guard and poke her in the stomach with the tip of his wooden sword. 

He then pulled back and looked at her apologetically.  "Are you okay?  Was that fair?  They distracted—"

Astrid pulled him into a kiss and then said, "It's fine.  You used a distraction to good effect without getting distracted yourself."

Hiccup gave a sheepish smile and ran his hands through his hair.  "So… now what?"

"Well, you're off the hook until tomorrow," Astrid said with a smirk.  "And, Wulf, how did your practice go?"

Wulfhild shrugged.  "I am increasingly deadly to hay bales covered in cloth painted in rings."  They all laughed, and she continued, "But, no, I'm getting better.  And this bow is wonderful.  I was at thirty paces and I got three bulls-eyes, and the rest of the quiver was within three rings."

"Awesome!" Astrid said with glee.  "That's a good improvement!"

"Yes, I'm getting my conditioning back," Wulfhild said with a smile.  "But, _oh,_ my shoulders _hurt,"_ she whined slightly, rolling the aforementioned body parts.

With a smile, Hiccup reached over and, after a questioning look that Wulfhild gave a nod to, started to massage her shoulders.  She closed her eyes and sighed happily. 

Fishlegs glanced at Astrid, but she seemed to be quite pleased with the mildly intimate moment, judging by her smile. 

Seeing Hiccup next to Wulfhild did remind Fishlegs of just how short the princess was; while Hiccup had shot up in height this year, and was now slightly taller than Astrid, Wulfhild could fit neatly under his chin. 

"Now that Yule's over, maybe things will calm down a little?" Fishlegs said hopefully.

The other three glanced at each other, Wulfhild opening her eyes, and they laughed, before Wulfhild leaned back into Hiccup's massage.

Astrid, shaking her head, said, "While that'd be _nice,_ 'Legs, we still have Eochaid here, plus the Bogs."

"And Stoick's fondly imagining strangling the man with his own entrails," Wulfhild commented dryly, her eyes closed once again as Hiccup worked at her shoulders.

Fishlegs gave another snort.  "You should hear Heather's comments.  His men are undressing her with their eyes every time she goes to stock Eochaid's hut."  And the Eirish king's negotiations weren't much better.

"At least we're building more housing up there," Wulfhild said.  "We're so crowded down here in the main village that it's causing problems."

"And while there haven't been any _more_ incidents since Dogsbreath's assault, putting the Eirish up in separate housing away from the rest of the tribe can only help reduce the tension," Astrid said firmly.

Fishlegs snorted.  "I agree with that."  All of Eochaid's men, aside from the three thralls, were from the upper three ranks of Eirish society, and it was causing a lot of rough edges between them and the Hooligans.  Lots and lots of irritated looks and the like… not helped by the fact that at least nine of Eochaid's sailors and six of the Bogs had decided that those high wages currently being offered for just about any kind of labor were too tempting to resist.  "And speaking of building things, how goes your planning, Hiccup?"

Hiccup shrugged and continued to work on Wulfhild's back as he spoke.  "I've got two ideas for the Broodery—including that one you suggested," he said with a conspiratorial smile that Fishlegs matched; he'd gone and gotten the ancient Roman book by Vitruvio from the clan library for Hiccup, and they'd been scheming there on ideas.  "And we still have to head over to Skye sometime this winter; we contracted with them that I'll help them with their mills in exchange for food."

Astrid gave the pair of them a look.  "What plan do you two have for the Broodery?"

Hiccup grinned.  "It's a surprise."

She snorted and lightly punched him in the shoulder.  "A surprise, huh?"

His grin shifted to a lopsided knowing smirk.  "Yep."

Astrid gave him a long look and then rolled her eyes.  "Given that your last few surprises have all been good ones, I'll let you have your fun."  She then looked down at the shorter woman.  "By the way, Wulf, how are you feeling?"

Wulfhild exaggeratedly sagged her head and let her tongue hang out, and they all laughed. 

Then Astrid said, "Well, I think it's time for lunch, and then…" she sighed, resigned, "another round of negotiations with Eochaid." 

They all sighed with her at that.  "Well, the sooner that's done with, the sooner we can ship him home?" Fishlegs offered hopefully.

Astrid scowled.  "Indeed.  At least me and Wulf being there is distracting him." 

Fishlegs cocked his head and glanced at her.  "Why are you two even still there in the first place anymore?  I mean, Astrid, if dragons are off the table as something to negotiate for, isn't it out of your jurisdiction?"

She shrugged.  "We're still talking about dragon labor to improve his ring-forts.  There are hundreds all across Ulaid, and we'd need their help to make the improvements."  She rolled her eyes and huffed.  "And it's been worth it to see the look on his face every time Stoick lets me go off and start telling him what we can do with dragon labor."

Wulfhild smirked.  "It's been glorious.  And I'm still there both to learn more about Eirish culture, and to advise Stoick with what Heather taught me."  She looked him in the eye.  "Because there's no way that having Heather there to advise Stoick wouldn't be like blowing the town horn right in Eochaid's ear that _something_ is up with the 'servant girl' who is in charge of stocking his hut."

Fishlegs grimaced and nodded.  "That's for sure.  Okay, question answered."  He glanced at Hiccup, and held up his clipboard questioningly. 

Astrid caught the motion, and sighed.  "Come on, Wulf.  Let's go so the boys can talk about their surprise without spoiling us."

Wulfhild gave an exaggerated little whine, but pulled herself free from Hiccup, picked up her bow, and left with Astrid. 

Quickly, Fishlegs flipped to the appropriate page.  "Okay, so we've carved out the tunnels as you indicated.  The cistern is here," he pointed, "and it'll feed into that iron boiler you designed here."

Hiccup nodded.  "Good.  I figure I'll make it out of plate iron once the eggs have stopped exploding and we can retrieve the metal inserts safely.  I'll melt them back down and make fresh plates, and make the boiler out of that."

Fishlegs nodded and made a note.  "And we can shove the snow and such into the cistern, and store rainwater in there during the summer, so that works.  But why not use saltwater?  We've got plenty of _that._ "

Hiccup snorted and pointed to the outflow pipe.  "Remember the saltwater boiler I made last year?"

Fishlegs nodded.

"It exploded."

"What?  When?  I didn't hear anything!"

"Eh, a week or two before Thawfest.  It wasn't a big explosion, but apparently a chunk of salt got stuck in the outflow spigot and nothing could get out.  But the dragons kept breathing fire at it, and it kept getting hotter and hotter inside.  And the steam had no place to go.  So the copper sheets cracked open along the door seam, and the whole container of water seemed to explode to steam at once."  He tapped the drawing.  "So if steam could do that to thin copper, I don't want to see it happen to iron plate."  He shrugged and rolled his eyes.  "My reputation aside, it's not like I _want_ my creations to explode."

Fishlegs snorted.  "Point.  So, then what?"

"Well, then the hot water from the boiler goes up this pipe to help warm the Broodery—although we're going to need more iron for that, I think—while the leftover heat from the fires goes this way, warming both the cistern and the baths…"

###

Stoick looked across the negotiating table in the mead hall's side-room at Eochaid.  Forcing a polite smile to his face, he drummed his fingers on the table.  "While I'm glad that you've," _finally_ "given up on your request for dragons of your own in exchange for each of your thralls, I cannot accept your latest offer either." 

"And why not?" Eochaid asked politely.  "Your forces are tremendous and potent, and it would benefit us both."

Stoick leaned back in his chair and gave the man a narrow-eyed look of hooded irritation.  "You wish for us to do the job of conquering all of Eire for you, make you and your father the High Kings like Brian Bóruma was a generation ago, and in compensation for us to do all of the work, you will proclaim all of the _daer-fuidiri_ to be freed, and promoted to the _bothach_."  Stoick drummed his fingers on the table, not breaking eye contact with the other man.

"Aye.  Your people protest against the holding of people as property.  The _bothach_ are not property, and we'd ensure it so throughout all of our holdings," Eochaid said with a smile.  "Imagine, all of Eire freed of the institution you so detest."

Stoick pursed his lips and glanced at Wulfhild.  She nodded in return and said, "But the _bothach_ are little better than thralls.  They still hold no property. They might have the right to occupy land and benefit from their own labor, but they cannot leave their designated lands without permission from their superiors, have no voting rights, and work as their lords' behest."

Eochaid's smile became strained.  "Aye, but they have the potential, when gaining property, to reach the rank of _aithech_."

Stoick fixed the other man with a flat look.  "That's a distinction without a difference.  And if I recall correctly, the _bothach_ work at the behest of the _flaith_ with little hope of reaching a higher rank.  While they might not wear chains of iron, chains of perpetual debt and service are no better!"

Eochaid's eyes flashed with anger for a moment, and then he settled back down.  "All right then.  What would _you_ suggest?"

"I will not help you conquer all of Eire.  Let me be clear on that.  But, as I understand, your _coiced_ is currently under threat by another group, the Uí Néill?"

"Aye…" Eochaid said suspiciously.

"You may have noticed that my son is a genius," Stoick said with a smile.  "From what I know of the Eirish, you live in ring-forts for defense?"

Eochaid nodded slowly. 

"Well, let's start small to gauge how best to trust each other.  How do you feel about having my son visit your lands and see how best to reinforce your current holdings to be more defensible?  For that, we could contribute dragon labor to help.  And in exchange, you _do_ free all of the _daer-fuidiri_ currently in the lands of the Ulaid, and make them over into _bothach_ or _sen-cleith_."  Stoick leaned forward.  "How is that?"

Eochaid seemed to be considering.  "Let me ponder that, if you would.  It's an intriguing offer, but I would need to see what sorts of changes your son would have in mind."

Stoick gave a small nod.  "Certainly.  Let's adjourn for the day while you consider."

Eochaid nodded in reply and left.

After the door closed behind him, Stoick turned to Astrid and Wulfhild. 

"At least he isn't throwing polite tantrums about Cami any more?" Wulfhild said bracingly. 

"Aye.  Although I'm surprised he hasn't offered a daughter or sister in marriage to me or Hiccup," Stoick said.

"He might not have one available," Wulfhild pointed out.  "But yeah, I'm surprised, too."

Astrid snorted and made a scowl.  "Pity that he didn't offer to just give up the thralls he has here to sweeten the pot.  That would make things so much easier."

Stoick shook his head.  "No, he wants to keep them on hand, rather than give them up too early."  He looked to the door where Eochaid had just left.  "But I promise, they won't be taken away as thralls."

###

 **_Jomsborg, Estuary of the_ ** **_Oder_ ** **_River, South Baltic Sea_ **

****

The hall was filled with whispers, varyingly excited or worried.  As the the older Jomsvikings deliberated, Jonna looked around the packed room.

They were here to decide on her proposed expedition to Berk.  And now the senior Vikings were talking.

She'd pled her case passionately, pointing out the reductions in the Joms over the past generations—the losses in battle and desertions that had reduced their numbers from thousands to hundreds—and the numerous attestations of Berk's newfound power, and that they were devout followers of Odin by all accounts.  The story of the destruction of the Anglo-Dane fleet had been set to song and verse.  The Ransom of Harthacnut was practically a standalone tale in its own right, plus the trickle of stories from nearby Denmark about the teams of dragons who had brought the captured men home again, and helping with the harvests.

Truly, they were blessed by Thor, Tyr, Freyr and Odin.

Now if only the old men would let their people join with these Hooligans…

She listened in on the various conversations.

One young man was softly reciting the original saga of The Hero Of Berk to his seatmates, a pair of young women who were listening with rapt attention.

_"…Shackles shattered and shed, the Dragon took flight,_

_Bursting forth from the darkest cold deep,_

_The Hero's father carried with, contrite,_

_Brothers in battle, into the sky they swept…"_

The young Swede who had arrived in late summer and started work with the blacksmith was practically bouncing in his seat.

Others were discussing the rumored riches or secret magics with eagerness—or trepidation, but Jonna gave those cowards stern looks.  Some of them looked away, while others glared back at her belligerently. 

Finally, though, the Joms elders called for attention.

"After full consideration…" Gudbrand said.

The whole room seemed to take in a breath at once.

"…it is the decision of the Jomsvikings that we shall not be sending an expedition or any other envoy to the Hooligan Tribe of Berk."

Most of the room roared in protest, but Gudbrand waved them to be silent, and slowly they quieted.

Jonna stared at the old man, her jaw set.  "And how was this decision reached?"

"On a number of points.  First, such things are not done.  If they had called for us to potentially join them, it would be different.  Second, on that note, we _are_ mercenaries, and we are not being paid to go.  Third, we are not going to give up our autonomy based on rumors and sagas!  We are our own people, and we bow to no one!  And fourth, these rumors of secret magics and pacts to control the dragons seems unseemly, even dishonorable.  How could we trust an entire tribe that has turned from the path of Thor in order to practice _seidhr_?"

"An art that Odin Himself practices!" Jonna argued.

"Irrelevant!  We are warriors, not witches!  The tale of the battle had no honorable combat in it.  By those very reports, it seems as if the dragon-riders have completely abandoned the sword in order to hide behind their dragons!"

"But—!"

"Our decision is final!"

Gudbrand stood, and Jonna bellowed, projecting her voice like she was once again on the battlefield and needing to be heard above the clashing of blades and the screams of the dying, " _Coward!"_

Everyone seemed to freeze, and Gudbrand turned to look at her slowly.  "What did you call me?"

"You're a _coward_ , you old man!" she called out, with everyone looking at her.  "You're clinging to the old, dying ways because you're afraid!  Afraid of giving up your privileged position, afraid of change, afraid of having been _wrong!_   So you'll take our entire people and lash them to the mast as you set sail straight into the storm, claiming that changing course is against tradition!"

There was a rumble of agreement from the people behind her.

"I am no coward!  I have gone aviking all my life!"

"Not in years, you old spider!"  She grinned savagely.  "No, you stay on your comfortable arse here, and take your share of the diminishing spoils—"

"That's enough!"

"You're right, it is!  Gudbrand Larsson, I challenge you to the _holmgang!_   For my forfeit, when I win, you and your lackeys will release the longboats and outfit as many as want to for an expedition to Berk!"

The room hushed.

Gudbrand looked at her and an unpleasant smile grew on his face.  "As the challenged, I accept, but will have a champion of my own fight in my stead, as I am twenty years your senior."  His smile grew wider and more unseemly.  "And when my champion wins, you will not only give up this quest of yours, but both you and your so-called wife will abandon your sham of a false marriage and join my household."

Jonna's eyes flicked to the side, seeking out her partner, Reidun. 

The other woman was looking at her already, and nodded once, her face filled with trust… and confidence. 

Jonna looked to the vile old man.  "I accept your terms!"

Gudbrand smirked.  "Then in three days time, we shall have the _holmgang!"_

###

 **_Boukoleon_ ** **_Palace, Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

Sigurd slumped onto his bed in the barracks, exhausted.  He'd had to take the Emperor up for another flight earlier, and he was also supervising the construction of the training pit.  _And_ he had his regular duties as well.

And then he remembered one other issue from earlier in the day, and with a grunt of effort, hauled himself to a seated position.  Taking off his dragonleather jacket, he groaned and swore.  There was a hole under the arm, where he'd felt something get caught earlier.  With a series of grumbling profanities, he opened and dug through his chest to find his patch kit of spare scales and cured leather thong, plus some needles. 

Sitting cross-legged on the floor by his bed and still muttering profanities, he started to patch the hole closed with some of Hookfang's spare scales.

He'd gotten it nearly entirely closed when he became suddenly aware that the room was silent…

He looked up and saw that nearly every man nearby was looking at him—in confusion, disbelief, surprise, or shock.

"What?"

Then one man that Sigurd didn't recognize, his face narrow like a hatchet, bellowed, _"Ergi!"_ and tried to charge at him.

Snotlout dove out of the way as the other Varangian charged through where he'd just been sitting, and rolled to his feet, ready to defend himself.  But the shock of the man's charge seemed to have shaken others out of their surprise, and Gudmund, Gunnar, and Thorred dogpiled his attacker. 

The centurion restored order within a minute, and while he was dressing down the attacker—Constantine Botharsson—Gudmund leaned over and whispered in surprise, "You _sew!?"_

Confused, Sigurd nodded.  "My mother taught me."

Another nearby Varangian, looking at the discarded dragonskin jacket lying on the bed, asked, "Trondsson… is _that_ the secret?  Is that how you control the dragon?  By stitching in a spell into the jacket so that the beast sees you as one of them?"

Sigurd blinked at that, and then suddenly realized that he had a golden opportunity to buy himself some time.

"Well, you know, I probably shouldn't tell you _everything_ yet…"  He glanced around ostentatiously, and lowered his voice, "But, the truth is, I made this jacket from scales he shed, and it makes me fireproof.  My dragon and I are friends now, but you need something to help protect you from the flames when you're establishing the bond."  All of that technically true… but if they wanted to interpret it as magic… well… that was their mistake. 

Whoever _they_ might be.

All of the Varangians around him seemed to take that in, and there were whispers and discussions in response, along with repeated glances at him. 

A short while later, he found himself being hauled into a private meeting with Harald, and he was unhappy. 

"Trondson, what is this I'm hearing?  You need _magic_ in order to tame a dragon?  Why haven't you mentioned this before?  Were you deliberately holding out on us in order to keep control?"

Sigurd shook his head and looked Harald in the eye, trying to communicate his honesty without belligerence.  "No sir.  There's no magic involved.  But…" he swallowed against a lump in his throat, "after the incident last week, I saw a chance to add a bit of confusion.  So when someone asked, I didn't confirm… but I didn't deny it, either.  I just hinted that my dragonleather jacket might have had something to do with being able to ride a dragon."  He shrugged guilelessly.  "If they think that the jacket is _needed_ to be able to tame them, well, that's on them, isn't it?"

Harald paused at that, and then a broad smile split his face.  "Oh, very well done, Trondsson!  And it's not even in violation of the Church law in the Empire, so you won't be executed for witchcraft!"

"…What?" Snotlout asked, startled, and then added a belated, "Sir?"

"Ah, yes.  Here in the Roman Empire, seidhr and the like are seen as _deisidaimonia,_ " Harald said.

Sigurd looked at him blankly, not understanding the unfamiliar Greek word.

Harald rolled his eyes and said in Norse, "Superstition.  Suffice it to say that, unlike kingdoms further to the west, where it is heretical, here among the learned peoples of the Empire, you'll be treated as an uneducated barbarian and given a polite pat on the head."

Sigurd couldn't help himself; he reached up and patted himself on the head.

The older man burst out laughing.  "Aye.  And it is good that you didn't claim to be performing magic; that would make you look foolish.  But if they believe it, that is indeed on them, as you said.  Now, what happened?"

Sigurd beamed at Harald's endorsement of his ploy. "I was fixing my jacket, when…"

###

 **_Outskirts of_ ** **_Nidaros_ ** **_, Norway_ **

 

Tuffnut walked through the snowy streets of Nidaros towards the Maxsson household.  He'd been at this for over a week now.  The boy with the broken arm, Isak, came and helped Ruffnut out at the hospital.  Meanwhile, Tuffnut got to go and milk cows, pitch hay, collect eggs, fetch water and the dozen other chores that a household needed to have done. 

It was, to be honest, boring.  Excruciatingly so. 

At least it gave him plenty of time to think.  Aside from working on his Rus' lessons with Vladimir, Ruffnut had asked him to come up with some ideas for pranks to pull on that pushy priest, Father Henriksson, and he'd had a few so far that she'd liked.  But  he was also still chewing over the question that Einar had asked. 

What in Odin's all-seeing eye did he _want?_

For over two weeks he'd been thinking on that question, and he still couldn't think of an answer that seemed to fit. 

He was still a wiseass who played pranks on those who needed to be cut down to size—or on handy targets when he was bored—as the minute particles of beard hair sprinkled in Henriksson's undergarments attested.  That one had been a two for one, as the priest was a deserving target and served to deal with Tuff's boredom. 

But did that mean he wanted to do nothing more than play pranks?  Sure, his patron was Loki, but he couldn't see himself getting to the point of tricking a guy into killing his brother.  And Loki also created things—like the net—and while that had gotten him into trouble, Tuffnut didn't feel like he had that sort of creativity in his body (Hiccup had undoubtedly gotten the bulk of _that_ for their cohort).

Meanwhile, his sister had definitely found her place, and Tuff was feeling a bit jealous at the joy she had in her new hospital.  And everyone was running around her like she was more interesting now that she was pregnant than she had been when she had learned all of Beowulf in a month! 

But he didn't want to get tied down to Nidaros.  Or Berk.  If there was one thing that Einar's words had definitely stirred in him, it was the thought of seeing more of the world.  But even that was more because he was afraid of boredom.  Being the mailman for Norway would be interesting, at least…

He reached the farmhouse.  Rasmus, the father, was waiting at the door when he arrived, giving him a skeptical look.  "I still can't believe that the queen just _gave_ you to us until my boy's arm heals," he said gruffly. 

Tuffnut shrugged.  "Believe it or not, I'm still here, ain't I?"

"It's just not done, that's all."

Tuffnut shrugged.  "You've got that backwards, bud."

"Huh?"

"If I wasn't here, the work wouldn't be done.  So here I am."

As the older man gave Tuffnut a confused look, he put his ax down next to the door, picked up the wicker basket and walked off to the barns, whistling.  Confusing Rasmus with wordplay was turning into the highlight of Tuffnut's day. 

Moving quickly so that he could get done with his work as soon as possible, he did Isak's chores briskly, singing rude songs to himself as he worked.

Finishing up, he brought the basket of eggs and bucket of milk into the house and handed them to the boy's mother, Marte, who accepted them gratefully.  She was a pretty woman, if at least ten years older then Tuffnut.  Her eyes kept darting around, though, and she had a bunch of wrinkles around the eyes and mouth that made her look older.  They had a few other kids, too, but Isak was the oldest.

Rasmus entered the house from where he'd been repairing some of the outbuildings and gave Tuffnut a sullen glower.  In reply, Tuffnut waved at him jauntily.  The other man was bigger and older, but he was a freeman.  Tuffnut was a thane and trained fighter.  It was fun!

"If you don't have anything else, I guess I'll get going," he said with a cheerful wave.  "By the way, did you end up fixing those stairs?"

"Stairs?"

"You know, the ones that Isak fell down and broke his arm?"

Rasmus looked confused for a moment before he glanced at his wife and comprehension lit his face.  "Ah, yes, the stairs.  Don't worry, I've got them fixed up just fine," he said. 

Tuffnut grinned and left, whistling cheerfully as he walked up the streets.  Maybe tomorrow, he'd ask Rasmus what else needed to be repaired around the house and farm, tweak him a little about that.  The place did seem in pretty good order, though.  Tuff ran through the household in his head: the kitchen, the bedroom, the barn, the storage shed…

He stopped in his tracks, clapping a hand to his forehead.  "Shit!"

He spun on his heel and started to head back.  "Left my ax," he grumbled to himself, irritated.  And that filled most of his thoughts for the next little while, until he got close—and heard muffled screaming coming from inside the house.

It sounded like it was coming from Marte.  And then there was a meaty thud. 

Well, that couldn't be good, not at all.  Maybe she had fallen down the steps too?

Then there was another meaty thud, and Tuffnut's eyes narrowed. 

No.  That wasn't flesh on wood. 

Sneaking closer, using all of his prank-won skills, he listened carefully.

"You _idiot,_ " he heard Rasmus bellow, audible through the thick walls.  "We don't have any stairs in the house!  What kind of fool excuse was that!?"

"I'm… I'm… I'm sorry," he heard her whimper, and Tuffnut's teeth grit together as he heard the pain in her voice.  "I didn't think…"

"Bad enough that you look at him like that.  But you belong to _me._   Just remember that.  And clean up this mess."

Tuffnut ducked behind a snowdrift as he heard Rasmus's feet walking towards the door.  The older man strode out into the cold without a seeming care, and left, heading out towards the back fields of his farm. 

_Crap.  Now what do I do?_

* * *

 

 **_AN:_ ** _Posting early this week because my wife and I have tickets to see Infinity War in a few hours, and given what I've heard so far, I think I'm going to want to come back to some nice reviews._

_Now, repeating what I had to say last week._

_Please note that I do not take fic requests (including requests to insert ideas into ATOV), or give out spoilers.  
  
While I appreciate the great interest everyone has in A Thing Of Vikings, my standard reply to any spoiler requests will be RAFO: ‘Read And Find Out’. I’d rather not spoil the story, or leak spoilers that others could potentially post elsewhere to ruin other people’s enjoyment. I’m not pointing fingers, merely noting that in every fandom there are always a few people who like to ruin it for everyone. Rather than take that risk, I won’t be giving out spoilers at all.    
  
And, because there's been confusion on this, let me expand: Asking what might happen to an obscure historical figure or region?  Not a request for a spoiler necessarily, because you don't know how far I have charted out (although it'll generally be a spoiler, so I'll simply respond with RAFO).  But asking, as one person did this past week, "What did Clodgall do to Gobber, that caused Hiccup to dislike him?"  _ That _is a request for a spoiler._ _Reviews that request spoilers will be answered to with RAFO or summarily deleted.  Now, if you want to speculate, go for it.  But don't ask me questions on what will happen and expect an answer._  
  
Similarly, because I have ATOV plotted out in detail, while I do deeply appreciate the enthusiastic suggestions I get for plot ideas/dragons/characters/etc that I get, I almost certainly won’t be able to use them (and even if I could use some of them, I would then be faced with resentment from those individuals whose ideas I was not able to include). So while I appreciate the thought, I’m going to say to people hoping that I’ll include their idea(s), please, use them to write your own stories, rather than asking me to include them in mine.  Repeat offenders here will likewise be deleted and/or blocked.  


	48. ...Run Away

**Chapter 48:** **… Run Away**

* * *

 

 

**_Chapter Trigger Warnings:_ ** _Implied Acts of Domestic Violence, Explicit Act of Assault, Explicit Minor Character Death, Implied Attempt of Non-Con._

* * *

 

 

_The piecemeal Berkian annexation of Eire in the early 1040s set the general pattern for their later hegemonic expansion elsewhere in the region.  Unlike many other sovereigns of the era, Stoick the Vast, followed by his son Hiccup the Wise, were not excessively interested in conquest.  However, they reacted to threats to their holdings and subjects in a decisive manner, a fact that directly led to their first annexation of Vedrarfjord._

_Also informing matters in this area was the simple fact that the Hooligans had instituted universal freedmanship among their tribe over a century before, and detested the institution of thralldom, a detestation which quickly extended itself to serfdom and related institutions.  As a third factor, due to the Hooligans' long war with the dragons, they had come to significantly appreciate the importance of investment into infrastructure, both physical and educational._

_Thus a pattern emerged; an aggressor would attack them and be absorbed as a result of the counterattack, or a holding would petition to join.  Then the peasantry of their new holding would find themselves the focus of intense investment into their economies and societies.  Standards of living skyrocketed across the island, as the new infrastructure increased the demand for labor and allowed for the creation of surplus that could act as trade goods.  Furthermore, the use of dragon scales as currency introduced sufficient liquidity across the Berkian holdings to allow for a transition from the barter system to a market economy.  Finally, Chief Stoick, extending the laws of his homeland to the new holdings, instituted legally mandated universal education for all of his subjects.  While initially based on the Hooligan model of functional literacy for everyone and then allowing for further specialization as fitting the individual's desires, additional subjects—mathematics, civics, rhetoric, languages, and history, among others—soon followed.  These factors caused an explosion of cultural and social output over the following generations…_

_—Origins of the Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631_

**_Saint Olaf's Hospital,_ ** **_Nidaros_ ** **_, Norway_ **

 

Ruffnut looked up from where she was sitting at the preparation table as Tuffnut burst into the dispensary in a wide-eyed panic.

"What's wrong?" she asked, working the mortar and pestle without pausing. 

"Ruff, Ruff, there's a problem!"

"What's wrong?  Did you set the stables on fire again?"

"What?  No!  I…" She saw him look around as she leaned back down over the mortar to use her full body weight on the pestle; her young assistant was looking at him with wide eyes from behind a shelf.  The boy flinched as Tuff spotted him. 

"Uh, could you give us some privacy?" he asked the boy, who darted out of the room.

"Tuffnut, _what is going on?_ " she asked, irritated at the interruption. 

"He didn't fall down a staircase, there are no staircases there, Rasmus beats them," Tuffnut gabbled. 

Ruffnut blinked, paused in her work, and looked closely at her brother, who looked like he'd just run flat out, his chest heaving and his skin flushed.  "He beats them?"

"Isak and Marte, yeah.  I heard him.  Forgot my ax and had to go back, and he was laying into her."

With a scowl, Ruffnut stood up, her vision getting a little spotty for a moment as the blood rushed from her head. 

"Come on."

"What?  Where are we going?"

"Magnus.  He told me to come to him with any problems.  This is a problem."

Her brother nodded convulsively, and she marched to the door.  "Isak!"

He popped out of a nearby doorway pretty much instantly.  "Yes, milady?"

She looked at him and wondered why she hadn't noticed the signs of abuse.  Twitchy at any noise, afraid to make any himself, just generally afraid to give offense…

She pursed her lips in sudden anger at herself.  Isak always seemed to have bruises and made little exhalations of pain every so often, both of which he tried to hide.  And while she and her brother had bruises aplenty when they'd been his age, they'd been showing them off to everybody as proof of just how awesome they were, badges of honor. 

Isak hid them, like they were something shameful. 

"Come with me," she said.

"Uh… am I in trouble, milady?"

"Nope.  Exactly the opposite of trouble, actually, if I have anything to say about it," Ruffnut said tartly.  Men who beat their wives on Berk—and, to be fair, the women who abused their husbands, too—answered to Stoick.  And, after the inevitable divorce, they were usually challenged to the _holmgang_ by one of the senior shieldmaidens, who drew lots for the privilege. 

And Stoick was just a chief. 

Magnus was a king. 

She wanted to see what her husband could do to someone like this.

They marched off to the fort, and she quickly found her husband and Yngvarr sitting in his office.  They were discussing something that faded as soon as she marched in with her shoulders set, her fury having reached a fine boil during the walk.

"Everything all right, love?" Magnus said, standing, and then gave a slight startled twitch as he focused on her.  "Clearly not.  What's wrong?"  He looked at the boy, trying to hide behind Tuffnut.  "And who is this?"

She gently pulled the boy forward.  "This is Isak Rasmusson, my assistant in the dispensary.  His father beats him and his wife."

The boy flinched and tried to hide behind her.

Yngvarr blinked, and Magnus gaped. 

"Say again?" Yngvarr asked.

"He broke the boy's arm, and his mother brought him to my hospital and lied to me that he had fallen down some stairs.  I made Tuffnut do his chores while the bones heal.  He overheard the father giving the mother a beating less than an hour ago.  Turns out that they don't _have_ any stairs, and Tuffnut was stupid enough to ask about it."

A storm had been building in Yngvarr's expression during her explanation.  He turned to Magnus.  "Milord, in exchange for the work I've been doing of late, I beg a boon."

"Odd time for it… yes?"

"May I dispense your justice in this area?"

Magnus gave a harsh little laugh.  "Yes, yes you may."

"Thank you, sire."  Yngvarr turned, and, for a kind, gentle and gregarious man that truly deserved his epithet of "the Merry", it was simply _amazing_ how much he resembled an angry dragon ready to eat someone in that moment. 

Ruffnut felt her own fury diminish as he walked forward.

Clearly it had found a new home. 

And then, suddenly, he was calm, and squatting down to Isak's height, his hands on his knees.  "So, Isak…"

The boy continued to try to hide behind Ruffnut's skirts.  Sighing, she stepped to the side and said, "It's okay.  He won't hurt you."

Yngvarr nodded.  "It's just very important.  Can you tell me what your father does?"

"He's a farmer," Isak squeaked out.

"Thank you, dear boy, but not what I meant.  How did you break your arm?"

"I fell down some stairs."

"I see.  And could you show me those stairs?"

"Uh…"

Yngvarr smiled at him.  "I understand.  But you can tell me."

Ruffnut looked up and at her husband who was watching it all; his expression was stormy, but not at her or Isak. 

"He… my daddy… It's my fault.  I got in the way and made him mess up."  Isak tried to hide his injured arm behind his back, but the sling got in the way.

Yngvarr blinked and said softly, "Is that what he told you?"

"Yessir…"

"And does he also say that to your mother?"

"…yessir…"

"I see."  He reached out and gamely put a hand on the boy's shoulder, and the boy flinched. 

"What's wrong?  I'm not going to hurt you."

"I… it's nothing, sir."

"Nothing, eh?"  Yngvarr lightly touched the boy on the other shoulder, and the boy winced in pain. 

"Nothing?"  He sighed.  "Pardon my forwardness, young sir, but…" Yngvarr gently reached out and pulled up the boy's shirt, and Ruffnut tried to stifle a gasp at the mass of cuts and bruises all over the boy's torso.  Some of them were old and faded, others were new and stark.

Putting the boy's shirt back down, Yngvarr stood, and the fury was back.  "Sire?  I have some trash to take to the midden, and then we'll continue?"

Magnus nodded with a smile.  Well, it had teeth.  "Oh, yes, yes, please."

Yngvarr bowed, and motioned to Tuffnut.  "Come.  I'll need you as a witness.  And Isak here as well."

The boy promptly hid behind Ruffnut again.

She looked up at Yngvarr, and then at Magnus.  "I'll come as well, to keep Isak comfortable."  She bit her lip.  "Besides, if he's hitting his wife too, I can look her over, and Úlfr can keep him from getting ideas."

Yngvarr nodded, and looked to Magnus, who gave a short bob of approval.  As the others walked out the door, he said, "Ruffnut, a moment?"

She turned to her husband, who smiled at her, although it had an angry edge to it.  "I love you, and if I ever, _ever_ do something to you or our children like what that beast did to his boy, you have my permission to geld me."

She hugged him, and then marched out after her brother and Yngvarr.  If there had been any doubt in her heart before this moment that she had made the right choice with him, it was gone now. 

A little while later, she, her brother, Isak, and Úlfr Leifrsson, one of her own thanes, were standing back a short ways as Yngvarr was pounding on the door to the house.

The door opened a moment later and the boy's father was standing there, looking belligerent.  His eyes widened when he took in Yngvarr's badges of office and rich style of dress.

"Mi, mi, milord!" he stammered out.  "What brings you here?"

Yngvarr smiled at the man.  "Oh, nothing.  I'm just curious.  I met your son, Isak, at the hospital, and he seemed like such a delightful young lad.  Very polite and honorable."

Ruffnut, tense, was doing her best to hold her tongue.  This was going to be interesting to watch, and she wanted to take notes. 

"Well, thank you, milord!"

"May I come in?"

"Oh, certainly, please, please."

With that, they entered the farmhouse, Isak's grip on Ruffnut's hand almost painful, with Úlfr close behind her.

Ruffnut looked around; it was a small house, just a few rooms… and no stairs.  But there were signs of wealth; the hearthfire had an iron frame supporting a skillet, which currently had bread baking inside, and there was a frame for holding a cauldron suspended above the flames sitting nearby.  Marte looked up in shock at them as they entered, and then hurriedly busied herself with her cooking.

Three more small children hid themselves as they entered.

Yngvarr looked around with approval and turned towards Rasmus.  "It's a nice home."

"Thank you milord."

"Could be nicer with some _stairs,_ now couldn't it?"

"What?"

"Stairs.  Like the ones that your son didn't break his arm on."

"My wife lied to the queen, sir.  I don't see why—What are you doing?  Milord!"

Yngvarr grabbed one of the man's arms by the wrist and pulled him towards his son.  Forcing him to his knees, Yngvarr ordered, "Clench your hand."

Rasmus scowled—and then yelped as Yngvarr twisted something in his arm.  He did as he'd been told, only for Yngvarr to pull up his son's shirt to reveal several bruises… that matched the man's knuckles. 

"Your wife lied.  Yes.  But she was not the one that hurt your boy.  If I had the queen examine her, would she find more such bruises on her?"

Rasmus said nothing, his expression surly, as Yngvarr moved him away from his son and released his arm. 

"Rasmus.  I know what you're thinking.  She's yours for life! There's nothing that I can do to you that you can't pay her back five-fold as soon as I leave this house.  You _paid_ for her, and you're going to get your bride-price's worth.  Stop me anytime I go off script."

Rasmus grunted obstinately, giving Yngvarr a sullen look, while Ruffnut just looked at Yngvarr in surprise.  Why couldn't she just divorce this ass?  She was obviously capable of bearing children; any other man would happily pay her bride price.

Wouldn't they?

"Splendid.  And if I had you banished for assault," Rasmus's eyes grew wider, "or had you lashed to the point where you'd be bedridden, well, that would leave them without a man to work the farm, and they could end up penniless and starving—so that would just make things worse for them, wouldn't it?"  Yngvarr leaned in.  "But I am not without sin, so I will not cast the first stone.  Instead, I will leave it up to _you."_

"What?" Rasmus said in surprise.

"Oh, Rasmus, Rasmus, you're making a colossal error here.  You see, you're right.  Anything I do to you will just end up harming your wife and children—either from you harming them directly, or them losing their support.  But you have one _significant_ mistake that you're making."  Yngvarr leaned in.  "You're so busy thinking of your wife as your thrall that you can treat and _beat_ as you see fit that you haven't _realized_ that she is your nearest, _dearest_ friend."  He reached out and tightly grasped the man's shoulder in a false show of camaraderie, his thumb digging in sharply under Rasmus' collarbone.  "Because, you see, so long as she tells me that she needs you and that you haven't hit her any more… _I_ won't start hitting _you_."  He drew his sword.  "With this."

Rasmus gulped as Yngvarr stepped back and resheathed the weapon. 

"And you're right in one thing… she can't divorce you under Church law.  But those vows are 'until death do us part', are they not?  And don't worry about them after you're gone.  You see, I have a few thanes that are looking to get married, and would _love_ my suggestions on a good, supportive bride.  Perhaps a young widow with a few stepchildren," he said, adding this last as he looked over the small children trying to hide behind the furniture.  But then he looked back to Rasmus and _smiled_ at the man, making him convulsively swallow again.  "So, I suggest you heed the words of Christ and be kind to your family…  _or else._   Am I perfectly, utterly _clear_?"

"Urk!"

"I didn't catch that."

"Yes milord!"

"Splendid!"  He turned to Ruffnut and stepped over to Isak, gently placing a hand on the boy's unbroken arm.  "Now, milady… I believe the young Isak here is in your employ?"

She grinned.  "Yes."

"And the current arrangement is his labor for Tuffnut's?"

"Yep."

"Might I suggest he be paid a wage?"  He turned back to the man standing next to the hearth, scarcely daring to breathe.  "After all, one might never know when they might need to help support their family in a time of need, yes?"

Ruffnut grinned.  "I think that's a fair statement."

"Good, good," Yngvarr said jovially, and then his voice lowered to contain such menace that Ruffnut involuntarily took a step backwards—and so did Tuffnut.  "This is your _last_ chance.  I have no stomach for men such as you who prey on the weak and defenseless.  Worse still your own kin.  You revolt me.  How long before you would have slain your own son in rage or pique, I know not.  But do not mistake my willingness to follow our Lord's compassion and grace as weakness.  If you would lay a _single_ unkind hand on your wife or children again, know that I would advise that your next act would be to visit the confessional… so that you may disclose and be contrite for your sin to the priest.  For _I_ will be your penance."  He patted the sword at his hip for emphasis.

Rasmus swallowed and nodded jerkily.

With that, the cloud seemed to pass, and Yngvarr's normal sunny self reemerged.  He bowed politely to Marte, who was staring in shock, and said, "Milady of the house, please note the instructions that I have left with your lawfully wedded husband.  If he should be remiss in them, please come and tell me."

Ruffnut looked at her brother and thane with wide eyes, and got stares back; they'd never seen Yngvarr like _this_ before.  She didn't even know he _could_ get angry. 

Leaving, Yngvarr turned to Ruffnut, who had Isak in tow.  "Please keep an eye on that situation.  Men like that… I have frightened him, but, while I pray that I need not follow through on it, I doubt that I have made a sufficiently lasting impression.  But I have given him his chance to change his ways for the better.  We shall see what that does."

Úlfr spoke up.  "Begging your pardon, milord… but that was terrifying."

Yngvarr looked at his man and sighed.  "And hopefully not futile.  But we shall see.  As tempting as it is, I can't have him just executed without a trial at the moment."

"But you just threatened to kill him!" Tuffnut protested.

"Aye, but I have given him a chance to turn from his wicked ways.   Probation, if you will.  If he does abuse them again—if he does not heed my warning as to the consequences, when there has been proof of assault and maiming… then he would have failed that chance.  And if he does that, I _will_ kill him, I promise you, but that is truly the only way in which to free his family from his monstrosity without sending them all into poverty."

Tuffnut asked quietly, "Why not just divorce his sorry ass?  You said that some of your thanes would marry her."

Yngvarr scowled.  "Unfortunately, I doubt that the Pope would authorize a divorce."

Ruffnut blinked.  "What?"

Yngvarr turned to her.  "Christians cannot divorce without the approval of the Pope, milady.  Rendering situations such as _these_ far too common."

She blinked.  "That's insane!"

"In the old days of Rome, it was wise, as it gave a woman surety that she would not be set aside for a younger wife.  Now… I know not."  He sighed.  "Come.  Let us get out of the cold.  I believe the young boy has a wage to earn as well.  I have had enough of using siege weapons on rabbits for the day."

They went up the street on their way back to the fort.  As they walked, Ruffnut pondered what Yngvarr had just said… and if there was one thing that was for sure, he'd just reaffirmed her own commitment to Loki and the Aesir.  While she had no fear of abuse from Magnus…

_…rendering situations such as_ these _far too common…_

She grimaced, held Isak's hand, and wondered how best to pay the boy so that whatever money he earned wouldn't just end up getting stolen by his father. 

###

**_Jomsborg, Estuary of the_ ** **_Oder_ ** **_River, South Baltic Sea_ **

 

Reidun knotted the thong around Jonna's wrist, securing the short sword she was using as a sidearm, and then straightened up from her crouch.  Planting a kiss on Jonna's lips, she whispered, "I'm not afraid."

Jonna smiled and gave Reidun a kiss back before they left their small but homey hut and made their way to where the _holm_ was placed, outside the town, near the sacred grove.  The holmgang itself was set for noon, and it was nearly time.

She wasn't worried.  This was hardly her first holmgang.  It wasn't even her first holmgang against a Jomsviking.  When she'd returned from abroad with a coffer full of loot and Reidun at her side, her own brother had challenged her for dishonoring the family, calling her _flannfluga._  

She'd won, and he'd even started talking to her again last year! 

As they went along the wooded path, leading the bull that would be sacrificed at the conclusion of the holmgang, Reidun whispered, "Ware swordsman…"  Then she coughed and corrected herself, "Swords _men."_

As she spoke, three men of the Jomsvikings emerged from among the trees.  The lead man already had his blade out, and an unpleasant sneer upon his face.

"Thorbrand, really, what a surprise," Jonna said sarcastically, readying her blade.  "But I already _have_ a sword.  Two, even."  She shook out her left hand, sending her sidearm swaying from the thong around her wrist, and caught it in her hand in a smooth motion.

Reidun snorted and shook her head, which made the elaborate blond braid sway back and forth—and palmed a dagger from the sheath at her belt.

Thorbrand snorted and gave her a disdainful look before pointing with his sword.  "This is how it's going to be.  You're going to turn around.  You're going to accept your dishonor and lack of wisdom.  You're going to forfeit the holmgang, and you're going to apologize to Gudbrand."

Jonna crouched slightly, looking at the three men.  If Thorbrand charged, she could move to the side and trip him, but the warhammer held by Hallvr would be difficult to dodge if he built up enough speed with it…

There was a sudden cough behind her and Thorbrand's face suddenly fell. 

Jonna turned slightly, to see the godi coming up the path and smiling at all of them.  "Ah, how nice.  An escort to the holmgang?  Don't mind if I do."

Thorbrand and his men bowed and gave her angry looks, and as the priest passed her, the older man gave her a wink.

She smiled back, and they continued on their way, with Thorbrand and his two cronies walking in step with the godi as his 'escort'.  The old man clearly knew why they were there… and was not at all amused with their attempt to interfere with the sacred duel.

Reidun exhaled a tense breath and smiled at her as they walked along.  "That was close."

"I could have taken them!" Jonna protested.

"Oh, I know, but you would have blunted your weapons on their thick skulls!" Reidun said.

Jonna snorted, and then gave Thorbrand a sunny smile as the man turned and stared daggers at her. 

They reached the clearing for the holmgang; as a holmgang against an existing member was required by the Jomsvikings for acceptance into their order, their holm was well tended near the sacred grove.

As the godi took custody of the bull and went to oversee the final preparations, her second, Sverrir Thorrefesson, came over to her.  He had the three lindenwood shields carried awkwardly in his arms.  "There you are!  I was getting worried!"

She shrugged.  "We almost had a problem on the path, but the godi came and handled it before I could."

Sverrir snorted, and took her off-hand in his own.  "As if that wouldn't have caused further problems."

"Mayhap.  Who is Gudbrand's champion, by the way?"

"Tóki Ingisson," her friend said, adjusting the first shield's straps to fit her arm.

"Him?  Hmm… I guess I should feel grateful for the opportunity," Jonna said, and Reidun scoffed. 

"Just because he tried making a pass at me last month, love, doesn't mean that you should maim him now that you've got the chance."

Jonna gave her wife a sunny smile.  "It also doesn't mean that I _shouldn't._ "

Reidun rolled her eyes.  "So, Sverrir, how's the mood?"

"Hard to say.  Nobody's really talking to me, because I'm Jonna's friend," he said, his tongue sticking out between his teeth as he adjusted the third shield.

Reidun snorted again and, hands on her hips, walked off. 

Shields readied, Jonna took a deep breath and started to center herself.  For all of her confidence, this was still a fight with swords, and for incredibly high stakes. 

She examined Tóki from across the field.  A veritable giant at more than six feet tall and seemingly half that as broad, he was like a _jökull_ , one of the mountains of blue ice that one found floating at sea or stuck between the cold mountains of the far north.  Like them, he was slow, but crushed anything in his path—and, like her, he'd be out of his element today; just as she preferred the ax, he preferred a warhammer.

Reidun returned, seemingly disgusted. 

"What?"

"I found out the betting odds!" she said with a harrumph. 

"And?  Are they expecting me to lose?  Because, hey, if that's the case, go get the coffer and put everything we have on me!  It would be a great chance to increase our fortunes!" Jonna said with a grin. 

Reidun scowled and crossed her arms over her chest before giving Tóki a pitying look.  "No… that wouldn't work."

Before Jonna could ask why, though, she was called over by the godi.  It was time.  The final preparations were handled quickly; it wasn't as if Jomsborg didn't have extensive practice with the holmgang. 

Jonna strode out towards the waiting holm, with the hazel rods marking off the boundaries of the sacred island. 

The godi spoke as she looked over Tóki and Gudbrand; the elder was acting as his second. 

Then the duel began. 

She struck first, her blade a blur, and Tóki yelped as the tip of her sidearm carved a bloody furrow along his sword arm, belatedly getting his shield up after she'd struck. 

He swung back, his blow slow and clumsy, and she dodged to the side. 

She struck again, cutting his upper shield arm with a slice that bled freely down the length of his limb. 

He bellowed like a stuck pig and tried to smack her, but his liking for warhammers was his undoing, and she effortlessly danced out of the way of the heavy but slow blow—and immediately struck back. 

There was a gasp as a mass of his brown beard floated down to the surface of the hide.

Tóki roared and tried to hit her with a wild swing, his face seemingly lopsided now, his chin bleeding freely. 

She grinned cheekily at him and said, "I don't see what you're so mad about.  I could have slit your throat just now, but I promised my wife I'd be merciful!"

"You don't _have_ a wife, you bitch!" he roared and tried to hit her with a swing that had enough power behind it to split her in two—if it connected.

But it was clumsy and easy to see coming, and after he'd over-extended himself, she sidestepped and goosed him with a stab to his arse—making the crowd gasp again, for the depth of the insult—and he roared again before making another swing at her that she dodged. 

Hooking his ankle with her own, she unbalanced him and sent him crashing to the surface of the hide, the blood from his wounds spattering the white surface. 

"I claim victory!" she bellowed, and pointed her blade at Gudbrand, who looked like he'd just eaten something that was still wriggling, where he was standing just outside the holm proper, holding Tóki's spare shields.  "And I claim my forfeit, old man!  Any of the Joms who wish to leave with me for Berk, we make sail once the waters are safe for travel!"

The crowd cheered—mostly.  The Jomsvikings had never really forgiven her for daring to be such a skilled warrior and a woman at the same time.  If not for her sex, she would have been one of their elites a long time before. 

Gudbrand looked like whatever wriggling thing he'd eaten was trying to claw its way out of his stomach.  She smiled at him, and said in a friendly tone, "Look at it this way, Gudbrand.  Once I'm gone, I won't be a thorn in your side anymore!"

He snorted.  "That much is true."

Jonna smiled and turned to the godi, who began the conclusion of the sacred duel.

After the sacrifice of the bull, she returned to Reidun's side.  "So… what _were_ those betting odds?"

Reidun, disgusted, said, "I should have gotten the coffer after all."

"Why?"

"Because I could have gotten us the eight-to-one odds that you would win without needing to use a single shield!"

###

**_Port_ ** **_of Centumcellae, Papal States, Italia_ **

 

Viggo looked out over the drydock, his hands clasped behind his back.  Below him, his ship was being modified in accordance with his and his brother's designs—and over the protests of the hidebound shipwrights. 

"We should be done in the next six weeks or so," Ryker's voice came from slightly behind him, and Viggo turned. 

Ryker stood there, a half-smile curled on his face.  "According to the master shipwright, despite the fact that 'you're insane and you're going to die out there miles from land when your pissante sail isn't good enough to pick up the wind', it'll be done by early to mid-March, and then we can start drilling with the new sail and rudder.  Figure we'll be ready to make way in earnest by early April."  He patted the sword at his hip.  "I'm ensuring that they don't slack off."

Viggo grinned.  As dragon hunters, they'd gone through a fair number of ships in the years since they'd first made their way south from Normandy.  Dragons, after all, breathed fire, and ships were made of wood.  The modifications to their current craft were ones that Viggo had wanted done for a while now, based off an Arabian _dhow_ that they'd absconded with from Alexandria.  Viggo had adored the medium-sized ship for its sprightliness and speed until a sea serpent had fatally cracked its keel.  The sea dragon's carcass had paid for their new ship, at least.  That had been a few vessels ago.

"So, where are we off to this time?  Seville?  Constantinople?  Baghdad?  Alexandria?  Venice?" Ryker asked.

Viggo smirked.  "Home, actually."

Ryker gave him a sidelong look, and then there was a dawning moment of understanding.  "So the rumors are true, then?"

Viggo grinned.  "What rumors?"

Ryker scowled at him and said, "That apparently some Viking tribe up north has managed to tame dragons and kicked King Harthacnut's ass six ways to Sunday, and is in the process of conquering the whole of northwest Europa."

Viggo scoffed slightly and then smirked.  "Well, looking into that is going to be our job, actually.  We're going up there to find out how much is hysteria and how much is truth."

Ryker smiled.  "Well.  This will be interesting.  And that's why the Church is paying for this?"  He waved to indicate their ship.

Viggo nodded and patted his brother on the shoulder.  " _And_ all of our fees and expenses."

Ryker whistled.  "They're _spooked_."  Then he seemed to have a thought. "If they're paying for it all, I have some other ideas for things we could do for the ship…"

He started to outline some additional modifications, and Viggo considered them.  On the whole, yes…

But others he had to veto.

"Why not dragon cages?" Ryker asked.  'If we capture any—"

"We're going up there to gather information, brother," Viggo said patiently.  "If our ship is searched, I'd rather not have to explain why we have cages specifically for holding dragons in our hold."

Ryker scowled, but nodded.  "At least let me bring the muzzles and restraints."

Viggo nodded.  "Those you can bring."  He nodded towards the hooked skinning knife on Ryker's belt.  "And those as well.  Just in case we need them…"

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

 

As dinner continued in the mead hall, the stone walls loudly echoing with hundreds of conversations, Wulfhild, seated across from Eochaid at the high table, finished off her third tankard of increasingly watered beer.  Having mentally rehearsed what Gobber and Stoick had suggested to her, she smiled at the Eirish king and said, "My apologies, King Eochaid, but Astrid and I will be missing out on the negotiations after tomorrow.  But I think you and Stoick have most of the details hammered out by now."  She gave her most winsome and simpering smile.

"Oh?  Why?" he asked, giving her a reasonably polite smile back, his Norse at least growing increasingly polished.  "Has something come up?"

"Nothing of great consequence, King," she said brightly.  "It's just that, before the seasons turned, there was a promise made to the neighboring tribe to the north, on the Isle of Skye, for help with their mills in exchange for food.  So, my lord Hiccup is taking me and Astrid with him there for a week, to fulfill that promise."

Eochaid blinked at her, eyebrows rising, and glanced to the side, and his smile broadened into a knowing smirk.  "Is he really," he said in a tone of jovial satisfaction.

She could see him reaching precisely the conclusion intended—that Hiccup had taken Eochaid's advice to heart—and lilted on as if tipsy enough to miss it.  "Oh, yes, and I'm quite looking forward to it.  It does mean that we'll be missing from the negotiations, as I said, but I don't think we're needed there any longer, do you?"

"Ah, well, you certainly added something to the negotiations, and they'll be much duller without your lovely faces to brighten our heavy talk."  His eyes lingered on her for a moment, rather lower than her face, and she resisted the urge to throw the remains of her drink in his face.

Instead, she signaled for another drink, and Heather brought her out another foaming tankard… this one mostly water.  Wulfhild made a face, hidden behind the rim of the tankard, but continued to chatter on with Eochaid in between bites of food, putting on the appearance of being a cheerful drunk.  Thankfully, he didn't piss her off enough that she forgot to drop any of the hints that were the whole point of this little act in the first place.

"…I do feel so sorry for poor Cami," she confided to him between spoonfuls of her soup, "what with all of the debate about whether she'll get to keep that sweet dragon she befriended.  If she wasn't half-Hooligan by blood and a friend to the tribe for so many years, I don't think they'd ever have allowed it…"

Thankfully, Eochaid seemed to be paying close attention; either he'd seen through the act and knew that a message was being sent, or he was taking advantage of her apparent inebriation.  Frankly, she didn't care which. 

He leaned in and said, "I see.  But they have so many dragons…"

She gave him a cheerful smile and changed the subject.  "And they'll need every one!  Lord Hiccup," she said with earnest pride aimed at her partner, "just finished coming up with a design for the Dragon Mail stations."  She turned and looked to Hiccup, and it wasn't any effort to include some real affection in her voice.  "Hiccup, how far are you planning on building those Dragon Mail stations?"

He blinked and looked at her curiously, but answered, "As far as we can manage, really."

"All the way to Rome, maybe?"

Hiccup smiled.  "Why stop there?"

Eochaid sucked in a breath at that, and she looked back at him.  "Just imagine it," she said cheerfully.  "Anyone near enough to a mail station could send messages to His Holiness in a matter of days!  A thousand miles and more of distance, gone like that!"

Eochaid's eyes had grown wide for a moment… and then narrowed in greed.  "Indeed.  Oh, indeed."

They continued to chatter back and forth, him extracting the clues she _wanted_ to drop to him one by one—

"…oh, yes, you should have seen the coat they made for her.  Silvery gray, with a purple trim, with silver fastenings.  All made from dragon leather."  She leaned in and grinned.  "Do you know what the best part about dragon leather is?"

"It's fireproof?"

"Well, there's that, I suppose, but no—it comes in so many colors and doesn't have to be dyed.  Wasn't purple only worn by Caesar, back in old Rome…?"

—all the while asking his opinion at every turn, nodding gravely at anything he said that he meant to sound wise, laughing at anything he said that he meant to sound funny.  Thankfully, she managed to drop all of her cues before she had to visit the latrine, after so many tankards of drink.  She signaled Gobber covertly on her way there.  Once she was out of sight and practically hopping from foot to foot in desperate need for relief, she heaped some mild mental curses down on Gobber's head for this idea, and on Heather for agreeing with him.  It had been a good idea, but she was looking forward to getting actually drunk after pretending to get drunk and having to deal with Eochaid's heavy-handed wit.  She felt grimy and rather desperately wanted a trip to the bathhouse later, just to wash off his eyes.

When she returned to the hall, though, Gobber had 'stolen' her seat, and was giving a rousing drunken chorus of how he was a 'Viking through and through.'

Reclaiming her play and squeezing in next to Hiccup, she leaned up against him fondly.  Shortly, she was given another foaming tankard by Heather.  Taking a swallow, she sighed at the richer brew, flavored with juniper.

She kept up the drunken-simpering act, practically lying all over Hiccup, who didn't seem to mind—although he did whisper in her ear at one point, "Are you okay?" after Eochaid gave him an approving look.

She nodded and gave him a kiss. 

Eventually, the meal concluded; with the sun having set earlier, people were leaving in dribs and drabs, toddling off to bed, and she left with Hiccup and Astrid, pretending to be drunk enough that she needed one arm slung over each of their shoulders. 

Miraculously, her drunkenness disappeared as they entered the Chief's hut, where Stoick, Gobber and Heather were already waiting.  Releasing her two partners, she made her way over to a chair and sagged into it.  "Please don't ask me to do that again," she said tiredly.  "He's so… _vile._ "

Gobber sighed sympathetically.  "Aye, but after what Toiréasa told Heather the other day, you were the one he was most likely to actually listen to."

"Well, he listened, or at least he seemed to.  Now we'll just have to see if he took the bait or not," Wulfhild said, and stretched out her sore shoulders.  She then eyed her pack by the stairs, next to Hiccup's and Astrid's, ready for their travels tomorrow.  It had been the Hofferson elders' suggestion that the three of them go together, and make a retreat of it.  As unconventional as Hiccup was, his and Astrid's honeymonth had still be interrupted by outside concerns, and they'd suggested that the three of them go up there together to spend sometime as a unit, with only the minimal distractions of their visit's purpose.

Wulfhild felt her ears and cheeks burn slightly as she remembered some _other_ parts of that conversation.  Hiccup had told Rikard and his wives what Eochaid had said… and the four of them had promptly dismissed the man as self-centered and unimaginative. 

Later, though, Ingrid and Dagn had pulled Wulfhild and Astrid aside… for a talk.

_"Um… excuse me, Eld… Dagn," Wulfhild said.  "But I don't understand what you're getting at."_

_Ingrid shared a smile with Dagn and then said in an exaggerated whisper, "Simply put, it is worth seeing how you two get along."_

_Wulfhild and Astrid gave each other baffled looks.  "But we're already friends," Astrid protested._

_Dagn chuckled.  "Aye.  And Ingrid and I are also friends.  You two said that you've been with Hiccup together… but it was with him in the center, wasn't it?"_

_They both nodded._

_Ingrid smiled.  "I'm not saying that you have to, but… look.  Rhonda may have had first claim on Rikard's bed these sixty years, but I've never felt unsatisfied, and neither has Dagn here."_

_For a moment, what the elder was hinting at didn't make sense to Wulfhild._

_Then it did._

_"You… and her…?" she managed to get out as Astrid suddenly wheezed._

_"Yep.  There are only two beds upstairs, and while we rotate, most nights it's us two in one, Rikard and Rhonda in the other."  Ingrid shrugged nonchalantly; Wulfhild put an arm around Astrid's shoulders and tried to help her breathe, as the other woman was suddenly turning bright red._

Not that Wulfhild could blame her.  It wasn't exactly every day that one's esteemed ancestral elder cheerfully admitted to such things—and Ingrid had seemed to relish her great-granddaughter's reaction.

They'd proceeded to cheerfully tell the younger women some of the things that they could do, if they were interested.  Wulfhild and Astrid had left that talk a bit shocked, and a week later, the thoughts that the elders had put into her head were still bouncing around—especially the point that _'things go_ much _more smoothly when things are shared all around.'_

Then it had been back to the main hall, where Rhonda and Rikard had been talking with Hiccup, and the three of them had had a chat supervised by the elders as they talked out various problems that the Hoffersons had either foreseen, or encountered and dealt with.

Of course, none of them had foreseen the issue with the Church… but when Wulfhild had broached it, Rikard had burst into incredulous laughter.

She'd tried not to take it personally, though, when he'd characterized the Church as an overbearing, over-controlling, honorless pack of liars and oathbreakers.

Not after what Father Michael had done to her.

Thankfully, Hiccup had misinterpreted her uncomfortable look as Rikard had told them stories; he'd gone on a trade mission to the Christian ports in the south when he'd been younger, and how the Hooligans had barely managed to escape when the priest had riled up a mob to come after them.  So they'd gotten back onto the topics at hand, and she'd breathed a sigh of relief inside herself when she'd realized that there was _no_ way that the Hooligans would see that vow she'd made as anything other than just another Christian trick.

She just hoped that, when it came time to tell them both, that her two partners would take the same view on it.

 

###

**_February, AD 1042_ **

###

**_Isle of Skye, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

 

Astrid helped manhandle the heavy wooden gear into place in the storage-barn-turned-mill as Wulfhild stood by with a hammer. 

The gear set, she nodded, and Wulfhild took the six-inch-long iron nail and started to hammer it in, the two of them pointedly not paying any attention to the men below watching the pair of girls at work up in the rafters. 

With the wooden gear secured to the shaft, they clambered down, and Wulfhild handed off the hammer to Hiccup, who set it down with the rest of the tools. 

The MhicFhionhains had been a bit surprised when they'd shown up with Hiccup, but had understood well enough that this was basically a honeymonth—a real one, not the endless string of chaos that had been their actual honeymonth—for the three of them.  A little light work, but mostly the three of them stayed in the quarters that the MhicFhionhains had given them for the week… and worked things out between themselves.

And, so far, things were working out just fine.  While they hadn't really been brave enough to try her great-grandmother's suggestions—while she certainly liked Wulfhild, it wasn't in that way, and the feeling was mutual—they'd certainly kept Hiccup busy, either taking turns or both of them at once.  And _those_ bits certainly had been fun. 

They'd also done other things, like playing more King's Fist, racing around on their dragons, exploring the deep valleys of the Highlands—they'd stopped at the village Snotlout had raided the previous winter and said hello to Jarl Ivor, and shown Wulfhild the top of Beinn Nibheis—and generally amused themselves.  Hiccup had even checked by Loch Nis again to see if the rumored Tidal-class supposedly in residence was actually present or not, but they hadn't found anything.

The promise to improve their mills had amounted to Hiccup giving them full design drawings for a windmill and a watermill, along with a small example of each for them to use while they built full-size versions themselves.  And that had gone over very well; the MhicFhionhains had been shocked by the delivery, and insisted that it was too much, but Hiccup had already built them over on Berk and shipped the parts over with Gronckles.  So they'd taken over a small barn to make over into a windmill.

Now they were just finishing up putting it all together together.

While the local carpenters whispered to each other as they examined what her family had brought and built, she whispered to her husband, "You're sure this will work, right?"

He nodded.  "Positive."

"Sure?"

"Yep."

"Nothing could go wrong or explode?"

"Not a thing."

Wulfhild snorted and poked each of them in the side.  "Astrid, stop teasing him.  It'll work fine."

She smirked.  "But it's fun!  And I know that this is only the second—"

"Third," Hiccup corrected.

"— _Third_ windmill he's built," she amended.  "Which, by the way, if it works, it doesn't count."

He made a face at her, and she and Wulfhild both laughed. 

"I've been meaning to ask," Wulfhild said after a moment, "but if— _when_ he succeeds at that challenge, what's his reward?"

Astrid looked at Hiccup, who was looking back at her, baffled.  "Uh… did we ever agree on a reward?" she asked.

Hiccup shook his head.  "All I can remember is that I would be allowed to ask if there was any doubt that my creations would work."

Wulfhild started to giggle.  "Really?  That's it?  You've been at this for a year, just… just for bragging rights?"

Astrid snorted and slung an arm over Hiccup's shoulder.  "Apparently!"

Wulfhild's giggles took over entirely. 

"We should settle on a reward," Hiccup said with a smirk.

Astrid gave him a sidelong look.  "Oh?  And what sort of reward do you have in mind, besides bragging rights?"

"Uh…  hmm.  That's a good question," he responded, still smirking, and deliberately hamming up his expression for comedy.

She snorted and poked him in the side.  "Well, if you can think of something halfway reasonable, let me know."

Wulfhild giggled out something that sounded vaguely along the lines of, "Most men would be asking for bedroom favors…"

Astrid gave her a mock stern look.  "Don't you start."

"And why not?" Wulfhild replied with a grin between her giggles.

Astrid pointed a finger at her face.  "Because I know where you're ticklish."

"Ooooh," Hiccup said with a chuckle.  "That's a threat—hey!" Astrid pointedly poked him in the side and started to tickle him.  "No—hahahaha!—no fair!  Help, I'm being poked!"

He kissed her and she let up on the tickling, only for both of them to get poked by Wulfhild a moment later.  They broke the kiss and saw Wulfhild, still giggling, and now smirking. 

They shared a look, nodded, and then pounced on Wulf, whose laughter rang from the rafters.  More pokes were exchanged all around, causing much laughter and threats of humorous vengeance.

There was a polite cough a moment later.  They broke apart from the three-way tickle-and-poke war to see the clan's head carpenter standing nearby.  "So… we're ready to start," he said a bit awkwardly; the man was older than the three of them put together, and seemed to view them indulgently. 

Hiccup nodded, and went over to the levers that controlled the wind vanes shutters; based off of the design for Toothless' tailfin, the wind vanes could be controlled from below depending on the wind speed. 

As Hiccup gave the instructions on how they worked, Astrid almost jumped as she felt someone touch her hand, but then calmed when she saw Wulfhild at her side.  She took her friend's hand and they watched as Hiccup animatedly explained how his creation worked to the miller and carpenter.

"Thank you," Wulfhild said softly.

Astrid turned and looked at her.  "For what?"

"For sharing him.  For bringing me into this life.  For… for being my friend."

Astrid squeezed back.  "Of course."  She smirked and deliberately joked to lighten the mood.  "Even if you are a bedfur thief."

"That was _one_ time," Wulfhild replied, chuckling.  "And besides, you stole my pillow."

"So you used Hiccup instead."

"Yeah, and he's all bony.  Warm, but bony," Wulfhild said, and they laughed. 

Then, with a clatter of wood, the mill around them started to squeak and move, and they both whooped in jubilation. 

Across the small room of the mill, Hiccup was clearly watching for anything to go wrong.  However, after several minutes, it was clear that everything was working as it was supposed to. 

A light touch at her side heralded a whisper from Wulfhild.  "I say we take him back to our rooms and congratulate him.  What do you say?"

Astrid made a show of looking outside at the dismal weather and thinking it over.  "I'd say that we're not expected back on Berk for at least a day."

Wulfhild cackled, and when Hiccup stepped back from the control levers, she and Astrid stepped forward, each of them taking an arm, and proceeded to jokingly haul him off.

Hours later, the three of them were satiated and preparing for sleep under a mountain of furs.  Astrid lay spooned in Hiccup's arms, Wulfhild curled up against his back. 

Life was good.

###

**_Approximately Five Thousand Feet Above the_ ** **_Sea_ ** **_of Propontis_ **

 

Hookfang's wings swished through the chilly winter air with a steady beat, with Sigurd and the Emperor riding on his back above the sea far below.  This was the fourth flight that he'd taken the Emperor out on, and Sigurd was growing increasingly anxious. 

Then the Emperor spoke up, speaking in the slow, clearly enunciated Greek that he used when trying to communicate with Sigurd.

"Still no ships."

Sigurd sighed.  "I know."

"It has been a month and a half."  The Emperor leaned forward.  "But this dragon here… is here."

Sigurd said nothing and concentrated on flying.

"Look, Varangian… Trondsson, you are mercenary.  I can give you great wealth."

Sigurd tensed. 

"Great fortune.  A hundred stone of gold."

There was a pretty cloud ahead, all puffy and white and backed by the pure blue sky, Sigurd observed. 

"Two hundred stone of gold."

The line between the sky and the water blended together nicely.  It was quite pretty, especially with some of the fluffy clouds below them.

"Five hundred stone!  An estate!  Name your price!"

Snotlout, his temper having finally frayed, turned and said in his Greek argot, "He's not for sale!"  He glowered at the Emperor and said angrily, "He's my friend!  He's my best friend, and if you can't understand that, then you're going to have a _real_ hard time getting a dragon to trust you and let you fly on its back!  If I sold him to you, then not only did he make the wrong choice in trusting me, he'll _never_ be able to trust _you!_   Not when you just flat out _bought_ him!"

The Emperor blinked and his expression darkened.

Snotlout sucked in a breath. 

_Uh oh._

Then he looked and he saw motion on the sea's surface below. 

"Look!"

The Emperor followed where he was pointing, and a smile grew on his face. 

Sigurd gently nudged Hookfang into a dive, and a few minutes later, they overflew the capture fleet.  It had clearly had an exciting time—one ship was missing, and two of the others had char marks on their hulls—but it was _there._

They waved, and the sailors below waved back.  Sigurd called out in his broken Greek that they'd let the city know that they were coming in.  Then the admiral of the little fleet called up to them. 

"We have forty dragons aboard!"

As the cheering fleet vanished into the distance behind them, Sigurd said, in tight Greek, "And there you go.  Now I'll teach you how to train your own dragon.  But they're your friend… not a _thing._   Got it?"

The Emperor grunted, but didn't say anything more.

###

**_Outskirts of_ ** **_Nidaros_ ** **_, Norway_ **

 

Tuffnut whistled softly as he walked up to the farmhouse.  The cows had been moody this morning, and he'd had a difficult time milking them, but he had the pail of milk in one hand and the egg basket in the other.  Pushing open the door with his butt, he slid into the room and turned around.

The pail and basket fell to the floor from his nerveless hands, dumping their contents everywhere, as he saw Marte's motionless body lying out across the floor, the frying pan dropped next to her.  Her toddler was shaking her and looked up at him.

"Mama won't wake up."

Tuffnut, without realizing it, had knelt down next to her and was checking her pulse, and thanked the gods as he found it was still there.

Picking her up in his arms, he said to the child, "Where's your da?"

"He hit Mama and ran."

"Stay here!  I'm taking your mom to the hospital!"

With that, he kicked open the door and ran down the street with the unconscious woman in his arms, praying to whichever gods might be listening that he wasn't too late, cursing the moody cattle for delaying him, and hoping against hope that he could run through the ice and snow without slipping.

A giant bruise on the side of her face in the shape of her husband's fist was taking shape, and she was breathing slowly and shallowly.

At that moment, Tuffnut wanted to kill Rasmus himself, and he'd apologize to Yngvarr later.  Two weeks.  _Two weeks_ was how long it had lasted since Yngvarr had made his threat.

Turning a corner faster than he normally would have dared, he felt his feet slip, and his ankle twisted in a painful way, but rather than screaming that he hurt, he gritted his teeth and kept running. 

People were taking notice of him and shouting inquiries, but he didn't have the breath to respond as he pelted up the street, his ankle screaming at him, his hair whipping behind him like a streamer.

The hospital came into view; the door warder saw him running and hurriedly opened the door. 

He burst into the room, and shouted, "Ruffnut!"

"What happened?" one of her staff called out.

"Where's the healer!?  Then questions!"

People were starting to shout, as his sister ran into the room, her eyes wide.  Turning to her thane, she yelled, "Take her and bring her to the healer's room!  Now!" 

The thane did as instructed and gently took the unconscious woman from Tuffnut's arms. 

Ruffnut turned to him as they left the room.  "What happened?"

"I got there and she was unconscious on the floor!  I think he beat her again and ran off.  I don't know where."  The door was still flapping open behind him and he vaguely heard someone enter, but the throbbing in his ankle was starting to overwhelm his ability to ignore it. 

Ruffnut looked up and her eyes got _really_ wide and she _pushed_ him away from her, spending him sprawling and her staggering back, just as Rasmus, his eyes manically wide, swung an ax through the space where Tuffnut had been standing.

"Die, heathen!  Die!" he screamed, and Tuffnut scrambled to crab-walk away from the man as he swung the battle-ax clumsily.  It was much bigger than the wood-splitter at the man's farmhouse, and it looked like he wasn't used to the weight. 

Of course, one good hit and the best that Tuff could hope for was asking Hiccup to make _him_ a new leg too.

The bellowing farmer swung again, and Tuffnut tried to pull his feet out of the way, but was too slow, and he screamed as the ax bit into his right leg.  He felt the bone snap and his blood start to spray.

Then, before Rasmus could recover his ax from where it was stuck in Tuffnut's leg, Ruffnut's left hand grabbed his long hair and yanked it back, as her right hand smoothly took the dagger-scalpel that she used for surgery off the nearby table.  In the same fluid motion, she dragged the blade deeply across Rasmus' throat. 

The most _awful_ gurgling noise issued forth, and Tuffnut was sprayed with Rasmus' blood.  Rasmus released the ax's handle and spun to confront his sister, but collapsed into a bleeding slump before he even finished the motion.

Ruffnut started screaming, wordlessly at first, and then, after a few moments, screaming for every healer in the city, and _now._

Tuffnut, between the agony of his left ankle and right leg, simply waved jauntily at her and then passed out.

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

 

As the assembled crowds in the mead hall watched, Hiccup wet the quill in ink and then signed the treaty.  Holding up the signed parchment, he then started to read it aloud to the assembled tribe plus guests. 

It was a simple agreement, really, for all that it had taken two weeks to hash out, and then another week to finalize the details—and prepare for this evening's celebratory feast. 

The major points were simple.  Ulaid got aid from Berk—his help, plus dragon labor—to upgrade their ring forts and make them more defensible, plus a mail station, which would be built and whose upkeep would be paid at Berk's cost.  In exchange, Berk would get lumber and food, plus hunting and foraging rights in Ulaid's territory while they were working on the ringforts—although Eochaid had been insistent on adding a rider to that clause, that the dragons were forbidden from eating any of his people.  Stoick had reportedly laughed for days, although that negotiation had occurred while he, Astrid and Wulfhild had been off on Skye. 

Also, Ulaid would immediately abolish the class of _fuidiri,_ and move the bondsmen and bondsmaids from that class to either the _bothach,_ the clanless tenant farmers, or the _sen-cleith,_ the bonded laborers.  It was hoped that, over the next few years, they could get those ranks abolished in the next round of negotiations, and move those individuals up to the freemen ranks.  On the positive side, thanks to Stoick's negotiations, those individuals would be able to move freely through Ulaid's territory, and they were planning on quietly letting it be known that any bothach or sen-cleith who wanted to leave would be welcome in Berk's territory.

And, finally, in the morning, Hiccup and Stoick would be transferring three stoneweight of cured dragon leather to Eochaid in formal exchange for his three personal thralls. 

He kept from glancing at Toiréasa as he read that part.

Treaty read, he set it aside, and joined in the applause.

The feast that followed was slightly more modest than others that had been held over the last several months, as it was currently the middle of winter, but it was pleasant enough; Eochaid had gone on a boar hunt in the forest, and several of the beasts had been roasted as the centerpieces of the meal.

"We're all set to take you back in the morning," Hiccup said, as he cut himself a slice of the roast.  "The weather looks like it will hold, so we'll have you home by sundown, I hope."

Eochaid shook his head, grinning.  "Most excellent.  I imagine that it'll be quite surreal to see the sea so far below."

Hiccup shrugged.  "I've gotten used to it."

Eochaid nodded and said, "I imagine that you have."  He shifted in his seat before leaning in to ask, "So, how go things with you and your spitfire?"

Before Hiccup could answer, however, there was an outraged howl, followed by the sounds of laughter and the _pat-pat-pat_ of bare feet on stone. 

The twins Loutnut and Nutlout came barreling out of one of the side tunnels, laughing and wheezing, carrying what looked like a bundle of clothes with them, and with Dogsbreath in hot pursuit.

Hiccup covered his eyes, but it was too late.  He'd gotten an eyeful of the stark naked Jorgenson scion—as had everyone else and the hall erupted into laughter.

Dogsbreath tried to both cover himself and chase down his cousins, and succeeded at neither.  Instead, he chased them up and down the rows of tables for a moment as the whole hall either clutched their sides or covered their eyes.  Someone else pulled off their cloak and practically threw it at Dog, who took it gratefully.

Hiccup felt a poke at his side and turned, to see Astrid cocking her head and pointing at the tunnel entrance. 

Inga was standing there, looking amused.

"Wanna bet that she told Dogsbreath that she'd sleep with him during the feast… and then told the twins to steal his clothes?" Astrid said with a snort.

Hiccup shook his head.  "No bet." 

Eventually, Dogsbreath reclaimed his clothes and the meal continued, albeit to great laughter.

They were midway through the meal when an outraged shriek came from one of the side chambers, which Hiccup thought sounded like Heather.

But, before he could react, it was followed by a high-pitched masculine scream of pain, the sound of tearing cloth, and the clatter of metal on stone.

Astrid was out of her seat before he managed to clear his peg, and people were running over to investigate.

As he turned the corner a moment later, he saw Heather, her shirt torn open and a long thin cut across her chest, standing over the quivering body of one of Eochaid's bodyguards; the man was bleeding visibly, and was huddled in a fetal position on the floor.  A knife of Eirish make, its blade stained with blood, lay on the floor nearby.  Astrid was standing over the bleeding man, her weapon drawn, with an air of daring him to move. 

Well.

That wasn't good.

* * *

_**A/N:** _ _So, with this chapter, A Thing Of Vikings officially breaks the half-million word mark for posted text.  But there's plenty more coming; according to Scrivener's word count, I'm presently at 682k word count for the compiled fic--and don't forget that the website counts my ANs into the word count, which skews things slightly.  That being said, I will be taking posting hiatuses in July and November so that I can keep my posting rate up, and that'll be a pattern I likely continue into the future: three months on, one month off._

_Beyond that, I appreciate all of the interest and speculation.  I know that my "I don't accept requests or answer spoilers" comment was intimidating, and I do apologize for that.  It was mostly intended for a small number that seem to be under the impression that I work for them.  For the rest of you, if you're_ _interested in chatting with me or with other readers, I have a Discord channel set up for ATOV; the invite link is available at my tumblr.  While I reserve the right to cackle ominously, I promise that I don't bite._


	49. Things Fall Apart...

**Chapter 49: Things Fall Apart** **…**

 

* * *

_**Chapter Trigger Warnings:** Mention of Non-Con, Mention of Attempted Murder  
_

* * *

 

_During the Viking Period of AD 793-1040, the Norse explored, traded and settled extensively, using both the seas and rivers as their means of transportation.  The Norse longships and skilled seamanship allowed them to travel to locations as far-flung as Mongolia, the African coast of the Mediterranean, and Vinland in the Vestrilands.  Skilled and daring sailors would even attempt winter voyages, trusting in their ability to read the weather and the seaworthiness of their ships to avoid and mitigate the hazards of the season._

_This tradition of seamanship continued, albeit in an altered form, during the subsequent Dragon Period (AD 1040-~1400), where the old skills in navigation and ship construction continued to evolve…_

_—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd._

**_February, AD 1042_ **

**_Mead Hall, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

****

Heather could still feel the Eirish guardsman's hand on her skin as she looked down at him. His hot breath still seemed to warm her ear.

_I've been looking forward to this since she said—_

Astrid was standing there, her ax in hand, clearly daring the man to make a move.

Then Eochaid and Fishlegs pushed their way through the door, one after another, along with several other onlookers.

Eochaid glared and demanded, "What have you done to my man, you uppity wench!?"

"He didn't take no for an answer," she said determinedly, as Fishlegs came up and handed her his shirt to cover herself. Pulling her boyfriend's shirt over her own torn one, she looked at the Eirish prince angrily.  "Not when he propositioned me before, or tried to fondle me right in front of you."

At her feet, the Eirishman spat out, "The bitch assaulted me," between his moans of agony. Her leg was sore from how hard she'd slammed it up between his legs, she noted with satisfaction, but that was cut short by Stoick shoving his way in.

As his eyes looked over the scene, she felt a sudden blast of fear, not knowing how he'd react. His eyes didn't linger on her; instead, he turned and ordered, "All right, everyone not directly involved, out!" People were slow to move, and Stoick bellowed, "OUT!"

In a few moments, the only ones left in the room were her, the guardsman, Eochaid, Hiccup, Fishlegs, his arms wrapped around her protectively, and Astrid. She could see a few people standing by the door, attempting to peer in.

Stoick turned and looked at them for a brief moment, and his face soured. "All right. Let's move this out to the hall. Looks like we're having a trial instead of a feast."

Eochaid grunted in agreement. "She assaulted my—"

Stoick held up his hand in a halting motion. "Hold it. We'll get to that, but don't start making accusations!"

Eochaid gave Stoick a poisonous glare, but pointed at one of his men standing by the doorway and gestured for him to enter. Together, they helped up the guardsman as she and the Hooligans in the room left.

Stoick ordered that the tables be pushed back, and the Lawspeakers assembled. Heather found that she was panting in fear against Fishlegs' chest. Few of the faces in the crowd were friendly—especially Bladewit, as she and the other jurists assembled. She knew that the elder did _not_ approve of her relationship with Fishlegs, and knew that it would be an uphill fight for the clanhead to remember her duties as an impartial keeper of law.

Horsefeathers came over and handed Fishlegs a coat, which he shrugged on over his bare chest. And then…

"Heather. It's time to begin," Stoick said, almost gently. "Now, what happened?"

"It's fairly clear what happened!" Eochaid said angrily. "Your serving wench here assaulted my sworn warrior in ambush! In violation of hospitality!"

"Now why would she do _that?"_ Stoick countered, and looked to Heather. "Lass? What happened?"

She looked at Eochaid—and at his guardsman, whose name she didn't even remember. He and the other guard were practically furniture, a matched set, even. And all three of them had been watching her constantly throughout the last month and a half, stripping her with their eyes every time she went to Eochaid's hut with supplies.

She choked for a moment, and then pushed out the words, almost spitting them, "After I turned him down before, he ambushed me in the supply room!  I was getting onions when he put a hand down my shirt, held a knife to my throat, and said he'd been looking forward to doing it since he arrived! I just protected myself! And I _still_ got cut when I pushed the knife away!" She lifted up Fishleg's shirt to display her torn one under it, the edges of the tear damp with her blood seeping from the wound that stretched from her collarbone to between her breasts. Thankfully it was just a long shallow gash, but it was still oozing blood.

The crowd rumbled in anger, which both surprised and heartened her.

Eochaid also noticed, but his reaction was more dismissive. She wasn't surprised by that, though—to his kind of mind, what had just almost happened to her was what wenches were _for._

But the Eirish king didn't have much of a chance to think on that. She pulled Fishlegs' shirt back down and started to wad up her torn garment to use as a pad, as Stoick turned to the wounded man and said in a voice like iron, "Did you put a hand on the lass?"

"What does that matter?" Eochaid asked dismissively. "She's a serving wench, nothing more. She attacked my man, under _your_ roof!"

Stoick scowled at Eochaid as the crowd murmured. "She is a member of my tribe, not a toy for you to play with." He turned back to her attacker. " _Did you touch her?"_

Eochaid snorted behind Stoick's back. "This is absurd!  My man is being entrapped!"

"What did you just say?" Stoick said dangerously, slowly turning to look at Eochaid.

"Aye, you heard me! You sent her to serve us ale and beer, and to service us if we had a mind to!"

Stoick stared at Eochaid, appalled, as the crowd hissed. Heather could see Hiccup, Astrid, Wulfhild and Cami standing nearby, and all four of them were looking murderous—which was expected from Cami, Wulf and Astrid, but Hiccup looked like he was thinking about taking his belt knife and sticking in Eochaid someplace painful, and that was new coming from him.  Heather had never seen him this angry before.

Stoick rumbled, "Your man breached hospitality. He assaulted a member of my tribe. And you are mistaken if you believe she was _sent_ to service you in that manner."

Eochaid snorted. "Oh, please. Of course you sent her, just like you sent your son's concubine to drop a word in my ear at dinner.  It's all part of the dance.  So you gave us a pretty wench and one that's already known as a whore?  So that you could get something out of their pillow talk?" He shook his head dismissively. "I told my men to avoid the trap of bedding her until we got what what we needed, and now that we have—urk!"

Stoick reached out an arm and grabbed Eochaid by the collar, lifting him up off of the ground at arm's length.

Heather was impressed to note that Stoick's arm didn't quiver in the slightest, despite the desperately twitching Eirish king hanging from the fist at the end.

Around them, the hall erupted.

Eochaid's cadre of Eirish warriors gave shouts of alarm, and went to draw their blades—only to be surrounded by Hooligans and Bog Burglars with drawn weapons and dragons with glowing mouths.

"Stand DOWN!" Stoick bellowed, and Eochaid seemed to wave off his men after a moment. Or, at least, Heather thought that he did. It might have been random spasming as he tried to support himself by grasping Stoick's wrist. The weapons were at least lowered… but not put away.

Stoick roared at Eochaid, his voice echoing off of the stones walls, " _Have you no honor!? You are a guest, and this is how you treat my hospitality!? By assaulting one of my own!? By plotting rape!? You held back because you wanted something, NOT BECAUSE YOU HAVE A LICK OF HONOR!?"_

He practically threw Eochaid to the floor; the Eirish king landed on his hands and knees, gasping.

"If _that_ is your 'honor,' then this treaty is a mistake. I am declaring it null and void," Stoick said, and strode over to the table where the parchment was lying.

He picked it up as Eochaid was gasping out half-garbled protests from the floor, "You can't! You swore an oath!"

"I can and I will," Stoick said, and made as if he was going to tear it in half as the unwounded guard dropped his wounded friend and helped Eochaid stand.

Heather made a half-worded cry of protest at the sight as well. It might have been, _All that for nothing!?_ if she'd been more able to voice it.

Stoick paused, the top of the parchment just beginning to tear. "You said something, lass?"

The crowd, as one, all turned to look at her.

And she saw Toiréasa standing in the crowd, her heart in her eyes, her hands clasped over her mouth.

Heather shrank back for a moment, and then nodded. "Chief, I… I… you swore that treaty in good faith. For the sake of those who will have their lives changed for the better—" she briefly glanced at Toiréasa, "—keep it. Please. Don't stain your honor by going back on your word." _Not for my sake._

Stoick stared at her for a moment, and then nodded. "All right." He set the parchment down once more, and _some_ of the tension in the room seemed to lessen. Stoick turned and looked down at Eochaid. "As for you, your man still assaulted a member of my tribe! You can keep the treaty, but that will be the _last_ treaty you ever make with the Hooligans of Berk!"

From the floor, Heather's attacker stammered out, "But… but… we were told—"

" _What_ were you told!?" Stoick demanded, and his arm twitched forward towards the three Eirishmen.

Eochaid stumbled back, tripped, and barely caught himself from falling again. He stared up at Stoick, looking abruptly pale and sickly—and wheeled to glare down at his man, in a show of rage that failed to cover up his own fear.  "Well?  _Answer_ him, you babbling fool, what were you told?"

The wounded man gaped for a moment, looking trapped.  "We were told that, that she was a pleasure thrall, and a troublemaker, and we could do anything we wanted because she wouldn't say nothing…"

Stoick yelled, "And who _told you that!?"_

The man gulped and looked to Eochaid, apparently saw no help there, and then looked through the crowd. "She did." He pointed, and Heather looked… to see the man pointing directly at Vigdis clan Hofferson.

The older woman blinked—and then saw everyone looking at her. "He's lying! He's trying to cast the blame on me!"

Hiccup interjected from where he was standing near the wide-eyed Lawspeakers, "But I saw you visiting Eochaid's hut!"

"I was _born_ in Ulaid, Hiccup!" she shot back. "Of course I was talking with them about home!"

"Vigdis, you deny this accusation?" Stoick asked flatly.

"Of course I do! It's a transparent attempt to deflect blame!" she said.

Eochaid glared at her. "You bitch! You were there the night that the necklace was stolen!"

"I was there a lot of nights, and anyway, you had other visitors that night, including young Haddock there!" she parried.

Then Stoick said quietly, "Vigdis… how did you know which night the necklace was stolen?" He stepped away from Eochaid and towards her, looming. "Heather came straight to me when she discovered it in her room, and we went straight to Eochaid to return it to his man." He looked around the suddenly silent mead hall. "Who here knew that a gold necklace had been stolen from Mildew's hut and planted in Heather's room?"

People were looking around and shaking their heads, and pieces started falling into place in Heather's mind… starting with Vigdis' seemingly prepared deflection to Eochaid's accusation.

Stoick looked down at Vigdis. "So how did _you_ know about it?"

A trapped expression crossed her face, her eyes darting from side to side.

Others around her were having dawning looks of understanding.

"I… I saw you, meeting with the King," she said.

"Oh?" Stoick said, crossing his arms, although Heather couldn't see his expression. "Then where did I meet with him?"

"In his hut, of course," she said guilelessly.

Stoick leaned down to look her in the face. "That's a lie. Why did you steal the necklace and plant it in Heather's room, Vigdis?" he asked, still in that furiously calm voice.

Vigdis stared Stoick in the eye for a long moment, as the whole hall seemed to be holding its collective breath.

And then she screamed and pulled a knife from her belt—but as she rose from her seat to throw it at Heather, Stoick _moved._

He grabbed her hand and hauled her out of her seat, and manhandled her away; reaching the edge of the crowd, he all-but-threw her into the cleared space at the center of the hall. She staggered in, barely keeping herself standing as the crowd murmured and whispered.

Instantly, Astrid was standing in front of Heather, guarding her, ax drawn. Hiccup had his sword out and ignited in front of the Lawspeakers.

Heather swallowed as she looked at her tormentor—whose hate-filled glare made the pit of her stomach sink away.

"Why, Vigdis? Why'd you breach hospitality to frame Heather?" Stoick demanded. He loomed over her. "Why did you tell Eochaid here that she was _acceptable_ to assault?!"

Vigdis hissed and drew herself up to her full height—which would have been more intimidating if she had come up higher than Stoick's breastbone.

"I am a _good_ and _loyal_ Hooligan!" she declared—not just to him, but to the room at large. "Fifteen years ago, I was rescued from a _brothel_ by Thicknut and Chestnut, along with half a dozen other women, most of whom are still in this room here tonight!"

"And what does that have to do with you turning traitor on us now!?" Stoick demanded.

"I am no traitor!" she barked back.

"You broke _hospitality,_ Vigdis! That _is_ treachery!  You stole from a _guest!_ " Stoick bellowed.

"And the only one who would have been harmed was the traitorous spy-bitch!" Vigdis screamed. The room fell silent again, and Vigdis' chest heaved in fury. "Oh, yes. King Eochaid, my Chief here didn't tell you that she was a spy, did he? Always out for herself." She turned and glared at Heather, and made a single stalking step towards her before Stoick's hand fell on her shoulder and restrained her. "She was sent here to spy and steal dragons. And then assaulted one of us, having been caught in the act. Then she betrayed her master. And yet—" she wheeled her arms towards Heather incredulously, "look at her! She walks around with long hair like a freewoman and cozies up to the very man she beat, flaunting the law day in and day out without a care! She spread her legs and her victim forgot everything that she'd done to him!" She looked back at Stoick. "So, yes, I tried to get her banished for _something_ that would do the tribe no harm! Yes, I tried to get that stupid boy to stop thinking with his dick and realize that she's an untrustworthy snake! Yes, I tried to chop that undeserved braid off her head! Yes, I told the king that she's a slut and a manipulative whore, so that maybe, just _maybe,_ that _stupid boy_ would see what she really is!"

Heather felt like a maelstrom was swirling around inside her at the chain of denouncements and admissions of guilt.

But before she could say anything, Wulfhild interjected, her tone furious. "It was you! The day of the avalanche! And you cut her saddle!"

Vigdis turned on her with a sneer.  "I did! Because nobody was willing to treat a spy in our midst as they should have! But I wasn't going to slit her throat that day of the avalanche!" She glared at Heather briefly. "Too _messy_. But cutting off that undeserved braid from her head!? Yes, that I was about to do, before _another_ meddling outsider came in and interrupted!" She wheeled at Stoick. "But you call _me_ traitor!?" She reached over and thumped him in the chest as he looked down at her like he'd just found something squirming in his soup. "You! Who betrayed generations of your ancestors to bring _dragons_ into your home!? You, who kept a scrawny _Hiccup_ as an heir!? You want to talk about treachery!? You stabbed every single one of us who was loyal to you in the back when you took in the dragons after we fought at the nest! That wasn't your idiot heir's decision, that was yours! You had a chance to slaughter them all, starting with that Night Fury, but you were a coward!" She stepped back. "So banish me, for all I care. This isn't the home I came to love and cherish any longer."

"As you wish," a hard voice came from the edge of the crowd. Every head swiveled in unison to see Rikard clanhead Hofferson standing there, his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed. "Vigdis, you are banished from the clan for your admitted crimes. We will stand with you no longer."

There was a murmur among the shocked tribesfolk, but it was interrupted by a shout.

"Wait!" called out Steinn clan Hofferson… Vigdis' husband. Everyone turned to look at him as he moved forward through the crowd. He emerged from the front row and walked over to his wife. "You can't banish her. She's still married to me, and unless you're going to banish me from the clan as well, nothing changes!"

Stoick rumbled, "She's not just banished from the clan."

"What?"

The chief looked to Bladewit and the other Lawspeakers. "I count among those admissions three or four attempts at interfering with a courtship, an _attempted murder,_ and a breach of hospitality with the intent of getting someone banished." His lip curled. "I believe that someone should be. How does the law read?"

Bladewit looked among among the other Speakers, and they all nodded.  Bladewit turned back and said flatly, "Banishment. For at least ten years, to as high as permanent exile."

Stoick nodded and turned back to her. "Vigdis, of no clan—"

She spat in his face and then spat at Rikard before returning to staring Stoick in the face. "I gave up my old name when I married Steinn. I'll take it back now. My _name_ is Aoibhín."

Stoick slowly and deliberately cleaned off the spittle with his thumb and flung it to the floor. "Aoibhín, of no clan, you have said that you no longer feel at home among the Hooligans of Berk. For your crimes, you are hereby exiled from the tribe… in perpetuity."

Steinn took his wife's hand. "Then I leave here with her." He looked around, and cast his eyes specifically on the dragons. "It's not like the place hasn't gotten worse over the last year or so," he spat.

"Then be gone, both of you," Stoick said flatly. Without further ceremony, he turned back to Eochaid, who had been watching the proceedings, wide-eyed and increasingly furious.

"As for _you!_ You were led astray by the lies of one of my own. _But_ what your man tried to do was still a crime that no man of decency or _honor_ would dare contemplate, no less while under the bounds of hospitality. Therefore, you can keep the treaty, but for the assault upon a woman of my tribe, prevented only by her skill and not your man's own restraint, you have breached the decorum of a guest before the gods. As such, I am revoking host's hospitality for you and your men. Get _out._ We'll take your ships back in the morning."

"But… but… but… she—" Eochaid stammered.  It was unlike him, but Heather oddly sympathized at the moment.  _All that, for nothing?_

"She _what!?_ Told your man that Heather was an acceptable victim to rape!?" Stoick asked angrily. " _That_ makes me certain that this treaty was a mistake. But _I_ will keep my word." He hauled up the prince to a standing position. "Your men may eat what they have already been served, but may take no more, and they may sleep in the billets that they've been assigned tonight, but be ready to leave come morning." He loomed over Eochaid. "I will not steal food that has been honestly given, nor turn out guests, no matter how ungrateful, into a cold winter night. But you are no longer welcome here, and I will send you home at first light." He turned to Vigdis… to _Aoibhín_ and Steinn. "As for you two, you're leaving with them. Take whatever of your personal possessions you can carry. The rest will be sold to compensate your victim."

Aoibhín snorted and started to laugh bitterly.

"What?"

"We have nothing left!" She turned and looked at Heather with a sick smile. "Hear that? _Nothing!_ Two years ago, Steinn was one of the best dragon slayers in the whole of the village, and now, we have _nothing!"_ She glared at Hiccup and practically spat her next words. "You! You ruined our lives, and I wish that I could have cut that fancy saddle of yours—!"

The room erupted in protest. More than a few of the Hooligans—and a number of the Bog Burglars—were brandishing weapons at Vig… Aoibhín.

It took Stoick some time to restore order. As he did so, Heather felt someone touch her arm lightly, and she flinched—and turned to see Fishlegs standing there. He pulled her into a hug, and for a brief moment, Heather let herself go to pieces in his comforting arms.

He spoke into her ear, "Heather… do you love me? And do you trust me?"

She nodded. "You know that I do.  How can you even ask that?"

"Because I had an idea… that might make a bunch of people angry. About us." He held her tighter and said, "But I don't want anyone else saying _that_ about you, ever again.  But I also had to be sure it's what you want."

"Fish… I don't have the dowry…" she started to protest.

"Leave that to me," he said, and let her go, keeping one arm behind her back. Turning, he called, "Chief!"

The room fell silent, and all eyes turned to Fishlegs, including Stoick's.

"Yes, lad?" Stoick asked.

Fishlegs scowled at Aoibhín and said, "Apparently, because I made friends with a freedwoman, one who was under impossible burdens, I 'think with my dick'." He sucked in his lips and gave the older woman a sour look. "Yes, I'm young. And people think I'm weird.  I _am_ weird!  But Heather is _not_ a traitor, and I'm not blinded by desire." He looked to Stoick. "But since the two of us are _together,_ " and the emphasis in his voice made it impossible to mistake his meaning, "people are calling her names.  Despite how that story was _your_ idea in the first place!  You even said it 'might not be a false scandal'!" 

Stoick winced and nodded.  "Aye, lad.  I share some of the blame for… this.  Not that it excuses certain… actions."  He glanced at Aoibhín and Steinn with a scowl.

Fishlegs, his arm still around her waist, said, "And I know you gave me a month for us to get a _mundr._   Well, I can afford it.  She can't.  Not in the next week."  He released the arm around her back, went to one knee, and said, in an incredibly formal tone, "Chief Stoick Hamishsson, head of the Haddock clan, leader of the Hooligan tribe… I petition you for the right to take this woman, Heather nic Oswald, as my bound and recognized concubine for the next year."

The room erupted again.

As Stoick worked on quieting them, there was suddenly a shout from right nearby.  "You can't do that!" Bladewit called out, looking upset.

Fishlegs stood and looked at her, his face set and implacable.  "Yes I can, Auntie.  And I _will."_

"I won't give you the funds for the dowry!" she barked.

Fishlegs snorted.  "I can afford it.  And I checked the concubinage laws.  There's nothing in there about the concubine being held by the clanhead for adopting them into the clan!  We just did it that way because the clanhead was usually the one with the money for it!  Well, I have my own money, and in a year, we'll separate and get betrothed and then married!"  He glanced at Heather, suddenly blushing.  "Uh, that is… if you want to."

Heather felt her heart melt into a puddle somewhere around her boots.  Reaching up, she pulled him into a kiss.  And it turned into a long one, passionate enough that people started clapping, hooting and whistling. 

Eventually breaking the kiss, she said, "I accept your terms," hoping that those were the right words for this. 

Then, nearby, Stoick said, his voice cheerful, "Fishlegs Hensteethson clan Ingerman… your petition is granted."

As Aoibhín and her husband were escorted out, and the Eirish sullenly finished their meals and left in dribs and drabs, Heather couldn't keep the smile off of her face.  If her grin was any wider, the top of her head might come off, she felt.

Even when Nanna looked over her wound, deemed it too shallow for stitches, and cleaned it with some vinegar and honey, the smile continued, despite the stinging.

###

**_The Kontoskalion, Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

The decking of the ship was rocking gently under his feet in the morning sunlight as Sigurd watched the caged dragons being offloaded.  But he didn't notice, not with the feeling of bile in his throat.

While he didn't recognize their breeds, the basics were the same.  Boulder-class.  Sharp-class.  Stoker-class.  Tidal-class. Mystery-class.

No Strike-class, though. 

He understood enough Greek by now to understand their names.  Hydra, a long-bodied three-headed Mystery-class.  Python, a snakelike Boulder-class with wicked jaws.  Colchia, a wide-eyed Sharp-class with fangs as long as Sigurd's forearm.  Ismenia, a Tidal-class, with scales the size of shields and fangs like swords.  Chimera, a two-headed Stoker-class which, Sigurd had to grant, certainly did look like it had been made from a bunch of other animals at first glance; the two heads definitely looked like a lion and a goat if you squinted and ignored the scales.   Campe, a Sharp-class, with enough fangs, talons and spikes to make a Nadder jealous.  Scylla, a long-necked Boulder-class, and Charybdis, a wide-mouthed Tidal-class.

And every single one of them was scared beyond belief.  Cowering, terrified, in their cages and muzzles, certain that they would be killed and tortured by the men with loud clanging weapons.  They were being aggressive and agitated, trying to make themselves look big and dangerous.

He sighed, pushing back the anger and sadness he was feeling as he  started issuing orders on the walk to the new training pit—orders which he didn't even notice were being followed without question.

"Okay.  First, get them out of those cages and into the holding pens, they'll feel safer and have some room."  They'd been optimistic about the number of pens they'd need—the Emperor had commissioned a hundred pens, and while not all of them were finished, there were enough to house the dragons.  "Next, they need fish, lots of it."  He saw the terrified glances from the men around him, and resolved that he'd handle the feeding at first.  " _Have_ they been fed?  At all?"

"N-no, sir."

"All right.  Then that's my first priority.  We need nets full of fish.  And soon!"

"Yes sir!" one of the surrounding Army men said and ran off. 

"Also, we need to get some of that minty grass that I told you about—oh, good, you found some, put that aside, we'll need it.  And finally, I want every person in here _disarmed_.  No bows, no spears, no swords, not even your dinky little belt knives.  You don't like it, _leave_.  Anyone who hits them or makes loud noises around them until we've got them settled, you answer to me and Harald if the dragon doesn't eat you first.  I want the crowd out of here as soon as possible; if they see too many of us around here, we're going to make them stressed—"

One of the nearby Roman officers scoffed.  "I've seen you ride your own beast.  He's docile like any horse broken to the saddle.  Why are we coddling them when we should be showing them who is the master and who—" 

He didn't finish the sentence as Sigurd decked him with a single blow to the face, laying him out flat on the ground with a vicious thud. 

 Shaking out his stinging fingers, he stood over the stunned officer and said down to him, "If _you_ want to take that approach, go ahead.  I'll sit back, watch you scream, and then tame the dragon after he's done eating.  These are. NOT. _HORSES_.  They are smart, and they view us as dangerous threats!  If you want to convince one to work with you, you have to make it a partnership based on _trust."_

One of the others in the group of officers asked plaintively, " _Trust?_   A _dragon?_ "

"Yes!  They need to trust _you_ not to hurt them!"

"But…" the man gestured to the dragons being pulled into the dark and quiet holding pens, where Sigurd hoped that, surrounded by thick walls and silence, they'd feel safer and more secure, "they're _dragons._ "

"Yes, and we're _people._   With swords.  And knives.  And arrows.  Dragon versus human who knows how to fight one, dragon loses.  I promise you that."

"Then why are we bothering with this?"

"Because human working _with_ dragon is the sort of thing that lets dragon beat human that wants to kill it.  Promise that too."  Sigurd had an involuntary memory of those moments in the burning _burh_ of Brycgstow, his ax sinking deep into a man's chest while a flaming Hookfang batted at a squad of soldiers. 

"There is also the tactical and strategic consideration of using them as mounts for scouts and aerial commanders," Harald said to the man as Sigurd clawed his way back to the present.  "Even if they didn't breathe fire and come with claws capable of shredding a man, they'd be valuable for that alone.  But that's not the point.  The Emperor ordered this to be done.  Therefore, it is done."

There were nods of assent and several salutes to that, and the questioner backed down.  He didn't do or say anything else other than track the cages with his eyes as they were carried down the ramp into the pit, brought up against the holding pens, and cautiously opened to allow the dragons inside.

After the first few dragons had been let into their new homes, Sigurd motioned the various officers to follow him.  Leaving behind the commotion by the training pit and holding pens, he walked a short distance to where Hookfang was sunning himself on a big rock.  "You okay there, Hookie?"

Hookfang just rolled over lazily and gave Sigurd a big draconic smile, his tongue hanging out in a relaxed fashion.  Sigurd laughed and gave him a good horn wrestle. 

The officers, having followed him out, watched them in awe.  Even Harald, who had flown with him on Hookfang multiple times, still seemed impressed. 

Watching them, Sigurd whispered to Hookfang in Norse, "Help me play this up, okay?"

Hookfang laughed and flopped over, basically purring as Sigurd gave him a chin-scratch, right where the little tuft of soft horn was sprouting like a beard, showing him to be a proper Viking's dragon. 

He whispered, "Okay, don't hurt him, but we want to sell it, okay?"

Hookfang just rolled his eyes and then closed them in enjoyment. 

Sigurd grinned, shrugged, and said in Greek to one of the soldiers standing nearby, "I want you to try to attack me."

"Sir?" the soldier said, looking questioningly at his officer, who nodded after a moment.

The soldier shrugged and pulled out his sword and started marching towards the pair.

 _Instantly,_ Hookfang was on his feet and wings, interposed in front of Sigurd, snarling at the man, who cowered. 

Someone whimpered nearby.

"Okay, okay, that's enough," Sigurd said, walking around.  "We're good."  Hookfang calmed down in a way that would have clued the watchers into how much of it was an act, if they had been at all familiar with dragons.  But they weren't.

The officer that had been questioning the usefulness of dragons muttered in awe.  To Sigurd's ear, it sounded like a prayer.

"Alright.  So, now, we have a bunch of dragons in the holding pens.  I'm going to give them a few days to finish calming down; for now, I want guards around the area, just in case anyone decides to prove how badass they are by killing a helpless dragon.  If we treat them right, they'll be our friends and will help us and let us ride them."

One of the officers spoke up in thickly accented Greek, but was at least polite enough to speak slowly so Sigurd could understand him.  "The Emperor gets the first dragon, correct?"

"Yes, but it's going to take a few days—weeks maybe—before they're ready for riding.  You saw them—they're all terrified right now.  I'm not going to end up being an inadvertent oathbreaker by shoving an anxious and scared dragon in front of the Emperor.  I'd be really embarrassed if he ended up getting eaten by mistake." 

The men laughed, relaxing. 

"So… a week?"

"Call it two, at least," Sigurd said after consideration.  "I'll be going in and getting them used to people first."

There were nods and Sigurd kept issuing instructions.  As he was midway through describing how to best cook the fish in the way that dragons seemed to like, one of the men spoke up.  "Does not the Emperor need a dragonskin jacket of his own to be able to tame the dragon?"

Sigurd, taken aback, stammered, "I, uh, well, you see—"

A different officer shrugged.  "It's not a problem.  One of the Ismenia is injured and smaller than the others.  We could harvest the hide for the Emperor without a problem—"

"No!" Sigurd interrupted, half-panicked.   "The jacket… the jacket is just needed for the initial taming.  You know, when they're first getting to know you.  You don't need to kill any of them!  And, and, and…" a sudden memory sparked and he blurted out, "and in another two or three months, if they're like the dragons up north, they'll be shedding all of their scales and hide then, and you can harvest that without hurting them.  In fact, they'd appreciate having hands to help clean off the old scales!"

All of the assembled officers blinked at him, and Snotlout was suddenly vividly reminded that he was the youngest man present.

The officer who had suggested that the wounded dragon be killed nodded slowly.  "I see."

"And I'll handle the taming stage.  That'll be my job.  I can do it," Sigurd said, feeling much more calm.  He forced a smile.  "Besides, killing one?  When they were so hard to get?  Seems kinda wasteful."

"That is true," the officer said and nodded.

"And, like I said, in a few months, they'll be shedding their scales," _I hope,_ "and then you can make a jacket for the Emperor.  Or _I'll_ make it, myself, like how I made this one."

They returned to talking logistics and supplies and training programs, as Sigurd kept flashing back to hearing the offhanded suggestion that they simply kill one of the dragons just for a jacket for the Emperor. 

The depths he was treading in suddenly seemed much deeper than they had before.  _What have I done, what have I done!?_

Before, it was just him and Hookfang.  And while he'd sworn an oath, there was always the possibility of just flying away… even if it meant forfeiting his honor and his pride. 

But that wasn't an option any longer.

Not when forty innocent dragons had their lives on the line now, because of him, and had only him to protect them.

###

**_Chief's Hut Cliff, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

"There they go," Hiccup said quietly, one arm around Astrid and the other around Wulfhild.  The three of them were standing by the cliff by their home, watching Eochaid's two ships skip across the waves, hauled by teams of Nadders flying in close formation.  They'd be back in Ulaid before the sun set, even on this short winter day. 

And then, from there, they'd be taking Aoibhín, Steinn, and their two children, Gytha and Finn, into exile. 

There were heavy footsteps on the grass behind them on the cliffside. 

"Hey Dad," Hiccup said tiredly. 

Stoick came up and stood next to them.  They watched as a group as the pair of ships vanished into the winter sea mists. 

Once they were out of sight, Stoick said softly, "Remember this when you're chief, son.  Even justice of the purest kind can do harm where it touches other lives."

"That's great, Dad.  Really inspiring," Hiccup said bitterly.  "What happened to 'A Chief Protects His Own'?"

Stoick sighed and rubbed at his face.  "I did my best.  But I couldn't override the rights of the parents to take their children with them.  Not without being a tyrant."

Hiccup sighed.  "When you put it this way, you make it sound _so_ inviting, Dad."

Stoick snorted.  "It isn't.  But you do it.  You do it when your heart is torn in two, you do it when you're just wanting to smack some sense into everyone, you just _do_ it."

"Why?" Hiccup asked, his tone even more bitter.

Stoick paused and took a deep, _deep_ sigh of a breath.  "Because… because you live in fear of not doing well enough, and someone suffering from it.  Because _that_ is protecting your own, son.  Because if not you, then someone else… who might not do as good a job."

Wulfhild twitched under Hiccup's arm and then snuggled in closer. 

Hiccup groaned and sighed.  "I… okay."

They stood in silence in the cold and snow, the sun's warmth in the cloudless blue sky being welcome on their faces, until finally Hiccup said, "We should go to the grove."

The others murmured in agreement, and they left the cliffside on their dragons a few moments later.

Landing at the grove, they found that Gothi, Fishlegs and Heather were already present, as were their parents and siblings, plus Cami.

Bladewit, in contrast, was not there. 

Hiccup winced when he noticed her absence.  While her presence wasn't required, it was definitely a snub, as Fishlegs' clanhead. 

They entered the grove, and, confirming that Bladewit wasn't going to show, began the short rite.  Gothi bound Heather's and Fishlegs' hands together with a length of cloth, and they spoke their oaths.  For the next year and a day, the two of them were legally recognized as a couple, and Heather was now a part of the Ingerman clan. 

And in a year, they would separate, Fishlegs would give her the dowry she needed for the _mundr_ , he would propose immediately, they'd be betrothed, and then they would wed as soon as the mead was brewed the following summer.  If they had any children before that, the child would be recognized as their legitimate firstborn after the wedding, able to inherit and everything. 

It was a nice and tidy plan… and Hiccup hoped nothing would go wrong with it. 

###

**_Lixbuna, Taifa of Badjoz, Al-Andalus_ **

 

Trader Johann looked across the table at the other merchant.  His associate had excellent control over his expression, but the two of them had been trading for a _very_ long time, and he was Johann's contact here in al-Lixbuna, the major harbor of Badajoz.  They'd been associates, even friends, for twenty years.  That hadn't changed, even with the current mess further inland from the collapse of the Caliphate of Córdoba ten years ago and all of the political problems and relocations that had resulted.

Putting on a wry smile, he shrugged.  "I can tell you that their word is good, and the potential for riches is staggering."

The other man looked at him blankly and then shook his head.  "This is insane.  Are you seriously proposing that we support and hire _Vikings_ to carry _mail?_ "

Johann grinned.  They were in the bargaining stage now.  The hook was set.  His friend would act all affronted and attempt to dismiss the value of the goods.

"Yes, Chayim, that is _exactly_ what I am proposing.  And I'm offering you and your people here the opportunity to manage the local office."  He sipped at his drink, a fine wine that his host had poured for him.  "I've seen their flocks, and witnessed their strength, and can attest to their peaceful intent."

"Vikings?  _Peaceful?_ "

"Aye," Johann said with a smirk.  "It feels a tad unnatural, I'll grant, but I can say this much: when you have a group of Vikings that can literally smash an entire English fleet sent to slaughter them, and they not only let half of it flee for their lives, but send the rest home unmolested, and have also gone out of their way to avoid getting dragged into more fights… then yes, you can call them peaceful.  So long as nobody picks fights with them, at least.  In which case, your God should help them, because mine would sit back and laugh."

The other man rolled his eyes at Johann's joke.  "I see.  But a single harbor or port is useless if there is no other port to sail _to_.  Where else have you sold this bill of goods?"

"Well, that's the thing.  I'm currently on my way through the Straits and plan on talking with the rest of our associates soon enough.  But I have talked with Eric Karlsson up in London…"

"Him I am familiar with," Chayim allowed with a nod. 

"And I also visited a few people in Rouen and Paris when I stopped in Francia, and I visited Nantes to talk with your cousin Reuven on my way here.  For the moment, I'm just working my way down the coast and around."

"And how is my cousin doing?"

"Could be better.  From what he said, the community of your people there aren't doing too well; the bishop of Brittany is tormenting them for refusing to convert."

Chayim scowled.  "I warned him."

"Aye, that you did.  But he had no way of knowing that things would work out so well for your people with the collapse of the Caliphate.  He saw chaos coming and fled, and found a place to settle."

Chayim's lips twitched for a moment in a frown, and he nodded.  "That's true enough.  And it isn't as if things have not grown… _tense_ of late.  But I still think he was a fool who was jumping at shadows." 

Johann sighed and picked up his glass.  "Was he?  We've been friends for a long time, Chayim.  I've seen things grow more 'tense' since the Caliphate collapsed.  And your people are only tolerated here—however kind that tolerance might be in comparison to the Christian lands."  Johann scowled.  "Half of the reason you trade with me, old friend, is that I am a Norseman that keeps with the old ways, and we both know what it means to suffer at the hands of a Christian lord."

Chayim lifted his glass in a mocking salute and clinked it against Johann's.  "Indeed.  And I've yet to catch you cheating me, either, which makes up the other half."

They both laughed, the tension broken. 

"So, what guarantee would we have against the possibility of these dragons eating their crazed riders and the mail as well?"

"Well, the fact that, when I checked in with them in the autumn, they had been living alongside the beasts for a year without a nibble is something that I feel to be a good indication," Johann allowed with a smile.

"I see.  This is still insane."

"Perhaps, but look at the advantages, Chayim," Johann said, leaning in conspiratorially.  "I've _seen_ the beasts.  They're intelligent and downright friendly once you get past the teeth and firebreathing.  For Odin's sake, you won't even have a hard time feeding them—they eat fish.  Not pork."

"Well, it's good to know that the dragons are wise enough to avoid such things," Chayim said with a mock-stern tone. 

"I believe I know what that means, so, yes.  They can fly in a day what takes me a week to sail.  Even if all they carry is letters, imagine what that will do for your family… and your people."

Chayim nodded after a moment.  "I see your point.  We are scattered.  Even now…" he sighed.  "Yerushalayim is a bone fought between the Romans and the Arabs, and we are far from home."

"Well, I'll put it this way, my friend.  It's near enough to two and a half thousand sea miles from here to your homeland.  For me, it would take upwards of two months of sailing to reach, and then another two to return.  And, in fact, that is essentially exactly what I am going to be doing over the course of the summer."  He drummed his fingers on the table.  "For a dragon… a week.  Perhaps less."

Chayim said something in that ancient tongue of his people, the one that Johann didn't understand, neither Arabic nor Andalusi.  It was either a loving curse or a sad blessing, and Johann nodded and toasted with his cup. 

"And I am offering to bring you and your family in on it, my friend.  You have never tried to cheat me either, and that is why I approached you first."

Chayim took a deep breath and nodded.  "I see.  Then what is required of us?"

Johann grinned.  "Well…"

###

**_Saint Olaf's Hospital, Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Tuffnut woke to pain.

He hurt.  He very much hurt. 

He groaned, and then turned as he saw Barf and Belch sitting nearby, the two heads of his dragon looking happy to see him.

Suddenly remembering his last few moments of consciousness, he jerked at the blanket to see two feet and sagged in relief.  They were splinted and bandaged to the point where he could barely see them, but there were definitely two sets of toes sticking out of the ends of the wrappings. 

"Ah, good, you're awake," Yngvarr's sardonic tones sounded. 

Tuffnut looked up to see the herald sitting in a chair nearby; he'd apparently been reading a book while he'd been sitting there, and was putting the bookmark ribbon in to mark his place.

"You'll be fine, but you've been out for a day or so.  And you can apparently forget walking for the next month or two."  He closed the book with a solid _thump._

Tuffnut stared at him and blurted the question that immediately came to mind.  "Is Marte okay?"

Yngvarr grinned.  "Ask her yourself," he said, and pulled back a curtain; Tuffnut suddenly noticed that he was in the hospital, in the room with all of the beds for long-term patients. 

In the next bed was Marte, with linen bandages around her head and looking a bit worn, but otherwise alright.  She was talking with another woman, probably her mother, and noticed him looking at her, and smiled at him.

One of the healer assistants came in a moment later with a bowl of porridge and a cup of watered ale on a tray, and put them in front of Tuffnut, who found that he was _ravenous._  

As he ate, Yngvarr spoke.  "So, I must thank you for saving the lady's life.  I've already thanked your sister for doing my job for me."

Tuffnut choked and looked at Yngvarr.  "She did kill him?"

"Slit his throat all the way back to the spine.  That scalpel is _sharp._ "

"Is he dead?"

"Indisputably.  And you got to miss all of the shouting, and the messy cleaning up, and your sister being terrified for your leg, and Magnus has been bouncing back and forth between rage and protectiveness.  Ruffnut is standing up to him wonderfully, though."

"Standing up how?"

"Well, after a fair bit of arguing back and forth between your sister and the king, she convinced him that putting a dozen thanes standing shoulder-to-shoulder around your bed would be counterproductive, and that the dragon made for an acceptable alternative bodyguard, for example."

Tuffnut blinked.

"But he is very angry about members of his household or under his protection getting injured like this.  It's only been half a year or so since Hiccup and Astrid got attacked by those rogue thanes, and it is very much on his mind."  Yngvarr shrugged.  "However, you're supposed to make a full recovery.  Even though I shudder to think of how bored you're going to be for the next two months while your leg and ankle heal up."

Tuffnut groaned. 

"However, we found you a nurse."  Yngvarr waved over Marte's mother, who came over and smiled at him.  "Karin, Tuffnut.  Tuffnut, Karin.  I imagine that you'll get to know each other a fair bit over the next two months.  And, ma'am, I must remind you that he is a sworn thane and trained warrior, and babying him excessively will likely result in extreme levels of embarrassment unbecoming someone of his status," Yngvarr said with an evil grin, and, with that, he bowed and walked off.

Karin just smiled at Tuffnut, who was suddenly having strong urges to run off and cause chaos someplace else at being the focus of such maternal attention. 

Unfortunately, that wasn't an option, not like it had been when his step-mom had tried to replace his mother.

Crap.

Then his eyes widened at the thought of having to actually… _crap_.  Like this.

Uh oh.

###

**_Lixbuna, Taifa of Badjoz, Al-Andalus_ **

 

After his meeting with Chayim, Johann had other stops to make in Lixbuna.  One of them in particular promised to be quite lucrative. 

With Beorn and Miguel-Pedro following in his wake through the narrow streets and small squares of the cream-stone and red-bricked city, he sought out the the unassuming house to which he'd been directed.  Finding it after a short search, he knocked politely. 

The door opened after several moments, and a petite woman in a hijab peered out at him suspiciously.  "Who are you?" she asked in Arabic.

Johann blinked in surprise.  "Does Basir live here?" he replied in the same tongue.

She narrowed her eyes at him.  "Maybe.  Who are you?"

He bowed politely.  "My name is Yuhanna in your tongue.  I am a sailor and trader that he has met before.  If he is home, tell him that I have the quills for him."

She nodded suspiciously and then closed the door.

Beorn whistled.  "Did Basir finally get married?"

Johann chuckled.  "His family has been leaning on him for years.  Perhaps his rear-guard battle finally surrendered?"

Before either of the other two men could comment, the door was flung open, and there was a boisterous cry of "Yuhanna!"

"Ah, Basir!" Johann said, embracing the Moor, giving and receiving enthusiastic backslaps.  "Ah, it is good to see you!"

"Welcome, welcome, my friend, please, please, come in!"

With a grin, Johann and his two men entered the house after the Moor.  It was dim and pleasant inside, a contrast to the warm winter sun outside, and they were quickly ushered to a small room with a table.  As they sat, the young woman came in, carrying a tray laden with fruit and a few small pitchers, which turned out to be filled with a sweet drink; it was the one they called _sharab,_ if Johann recalled correctly, although it had been a while since he'd had any.  There was none of the _sekanjabin_ he preferred, to his disappointment, and he resolved to find some of the refreshing honey, vinegar and mint-flavored beverage before he left Al-Andalus. 

As the woman left, Johann smiled at Basir.  "Your wife?"

The smile on Basir's face grew.  "Aye.  Hiba.  We are wed for six months now."  He took a sip from his cup.  "She is the light of my life, and I wish to protect her and cherish her.  We had been courting for five years, and her father said that we had been waiting long enough."

"Well, I'll be sure to stop by with a gift for your firstborn on—"

The smile left Basir's face like the extinguishing of a candle.  "No.  You need not trouble yourself, my friend.  We are taking… precautions."

Johann blinked and then recalled.  "Oh.  I am sorry that I touched a sore spot.  And here I thought that you had worked past such troubles."

"My sisters' fates weigh heavily on me," Basir said softly, and then seemed to gather himself.  "But enough of that.  So, what exotics do your fellow northerners need from me this year?  Perfumes?  Medicines?  Due to my relocation, I do not have access to the same ingredients as I did in the past, so the price for the refined oleander will increase, for example, but I have easier access to other things."

"My usual customer for the oleander decided to pull a disappearing act," Johann said sourly.  "I ended up selling it at a loss to someone else.  But I have good news for you!"

"Oh?"

"Yes!  Beorn, show him."

Beorn unslung a satchel from his shoulder and passed it to the alchemist.  Basir untied the latch and opened it, and his face grew delighted again.  "Ah!  My quills!" he said happily, pulling a Nadder quill from the bag and carefully holding it aloft.  Then he took a closer look. "But wait, it's not damaged, and the venom sacs are still intact!  How…"

"As I told you last year, the Norsemen have succeeded in taming dragons and no longer slaughter them for parts, but instead treat them as sheep to be shorn. So while Hatim over in Barcelona was furious at the lack of livers, I now have an abundance of quills for you to play with, harvested straight from the tails of the beasts as they feasted on fish."

"Oh?  Is this not all?"

Johann shared a look with Beorn and Miguel-Pedro and they all laughed.  "Good friend, _how many quills would you like?"_ Johann asked, chuckling.

"How many do you _have?_ "

"Counting that," Beorn said, nodding to the satchel, "three thousand."

Basir stared, his jaw dangling open.  "You… you are… you are jesting, are you not?"

"No.  Oh, we might have lost a few to spoilage and accidents on the way, but they fill one of my ships," Johann said with a smile.  "So, how many would you like?  I know that you don't have much coin on hand, but I'd be willing to consider it an advance against goods in kind on my return trip."

Basir stared at them, and then at the quill he was holding loosely in his hand, and then back at them.  Then, with a twitch that was as if he was slapping himself into acting, he said curtly, "All of them."

"All?  That will cost much, friend," Johann said, surprised.  He'd been expecting them to last as a trade good through to at least Italia.  "Even at the reduced prices you can get from our oversupply, it is still a fortune."

"I will take every single one that you are willing to sell me," Basir said firmly.  "Shall we haggle?"

Johann looked into the resolute eyes of his friend and nodded slowly.  "I suppose we shall."

###

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Heather, smiling and humming cheerfully to herself, her arms filled with baskets of food, stepped lightly down the stairs to the mead hall and headed over to the chief's hut.  The last week had been… wonderful.

Bizarrely so, really. 

After Vigdis' rant against her and the exposure of the depth of her actions, many of the Hooligans who had treated her poorly had seemed to have second thoughts.  Two days earlier, she'd even been given an earnest, if slightly sullen, apology by Twiglet for everything that she had put her through.  It was clear that Twiglet still didn't _like_ her, but she seemed to have enough integrity to be able to make an apology like that, which made Heather's own opinion of her increase significantly. 

The harassment in the kitchen had ceased, even if she was still getting a cold shoulder from many.  That being said, Heather was no longer the social outcast of choice in the kitchens, not after the uproar two days ago with Lopsides.

And, last but definitely not least, she and Fishlegs were spending every night together, as a legally recognized couple.

Of course, it wasn't all perfect. 

Mhairi didn't recognize Toiréasa as her mother… and while Toiréasa was doing her best to be part of her daughter's life, it seemed to be slightly baffling to the little girl that she now had _two_ mothers. 

Thankfully she hadn't yet asked the question that Heather was half-dreading, half-anticipating.  While the look on Murray's face would be hilarious, the thought of seeing Toiréasa's expression if Mhairi asked if Murray was her father was painful. 

Reaching the chief's hut, she pushed open the door to the chief's hut with her foot, as her arms were full of the baskets of food.  Stepping over the threshold, she continued to hum to herself, only to pause as her name was called. 

"Heather.  Ah, good."

She looked up to see that the room was filled with people; Hiccup, Stoick, Astrid, and Wulfhild, unsurprisingly, but also Spitelout and his friend Fritjof, and Gobber and Fishlegs.

Stoick motioned her over.  "Good timing.  I was just about to send Hiccup to go look for you."

"What for, chief?" she asked, setting down her baskets and starting to unload.

Spitelout grunted.  "After what happened to you last week… there's no question that Eochaid is going to try to blacken our reputations with all of the courts of Eire."

Stoick gave Spitelout an oblique look, but nodded in agreement.  "Aye.  And I realized that I made a mistake when I didn't rip up that treaty, even if it kept me from being an oathbreaker, even with cause."  Heather winced and felt like her stomach had dropped to her shoes, but Stoick continued.  "What I _should_ have done is claimed his thralls as compensation for the attack on you, paid a nominal sum in dragon-hide for them, and ripped up the treaty."

"Oh," Heather said tonelessly.  "I…"

Stoick waved a hand at her.  "No!  Don't apologize!  You'd just been attacked!  Of course you weren't thinking!  But _I_ should have been.  I was too furious to think of it—and I then made it worse by telling him that he wouldn't ever get another treaty, which was my other mistake."

"Aye.  He's going to milk this one for all he can, and then try to go back on it as soon as he can," Gobber said. 

Stoick nodded.  "But it's done with and now we have to deal with the fact that, thanks to the treaty, we'll have our people over in Ulaid on a regular basis.  And that will put them at risk of attack, since Eochaid has little to lose."

She winced and gave a noise of acknowledgment that she followed as she unloaded the baskets.  The only reason they still had the treaty was because she'd protested.  That made it her fault, even if Stoick said otherwise.  If that put their people at risk, she was all for helping fix that.

"Therefore," Stoick said, "it's been suggested that Hiccup, along with a small retinue, do a tour of those courts."

She blinked and then smiled.  "Meet them, get to know them, do a bit of work as herald, and incidentally mention what happened with Eochaid?  I like it.  And it needs to be done, too."

Stoick nodded as Hiccup said, "So I'd like you, and Fishlegs, to come with me."

"Huh?  Why?"

"Well, first, you know the most about Eire of any of us.  Second, while it wouldn't be exactly the same," he shrugged and smiled at Astrid and Wulfhild, "our trip to Skye last month was nice… and I'd like to give you and Fishlegs a chance for the same sort of thing.  And third, you've got eyes and a mind to use them, and I'd love to have the help."

She considered for a moment, her hands still automatically emptying the basket, and sharing a look with Fishlegs, who smiled at her.  "So you want me there as your spy?" she asked.

"Aide," Hiccup said.  "Like I said, you know a lot.  I'd be an idiot to not take that kind of help."

Fritjof snorted.  "He's already an idiot for not taking more guards with him."

Hiccup shot the old raider a sour look.  "We've been over this.  We're going out there to make friends!  Showing up with a squad of raiders on dragonback—"

"Is the smart thing to do!  Better to give a show of force that you're not easy prey, even if you don't _do_ anything with it, than risk your whole party getting—"

"I'm not going to bring a small army with me!" Hiccup nearly shouted.  "We're going for peace, not war!"

"Aye, and that's why you show up with a nice big fist in your off-hand so you can ask people which they prefer to shake," Fritjof said sourly.

"That's enough, Fritjof," Stoick said.  "While I'd prefer that Hiccup bring along more fighters, you _will_ have your dragons with you, and that should be enough."

Fishlegs smiled.  "Besides, Heather also has her own talents there."

"Oh?" Stoick asked.

Hiccup and Fishlegs shared a brief, gleeful glance, and then looked to her with expressions of total innocence.

Heather rolled her eyes, and walked over to the table where they were all seated.  Wulfhild and Astrid looked intrigued, while Fritjof looked dismissive.  Spitelout seemed confused, while Gobber definitely knew what was coming and was trying to hide a smile. 

She plucked the knife from her belt and set it on the table, which made them all shrug; such a weapon was also a tool, and just about everyone already carried such cutlery.

But the fact that Hiccup and Fishlegs were both working hard at schooling their expressions into impassiveness should have been a warning to the rest of them, though.

With a twist, she pulled the knife from her left shirt sleeve and casually tossed it with a _thud_ into the nearby scarred roof-post.  It stuck fast, and was joined a moment later by the one in her boot, then the one from the back of her belt…

As she produced a small blade from the finger-sized sheath braided into her hair, their expressions had shifted.  Astrid and Wulfhild were looking awed, Gobber, Hiccup and Fishlegs weren't even bothering to hide their laughter, and Stoick looked approving, while Spitelout and Fritjof were visibly impressed—and grew more so as she threw the small blade into the roof-post, right next to the other six.

Then Fishlegs, smirking, reached out and took her hand as she put her leg up on one of the chairs.  "I don't think they need to see that last one, love."

Stoick, Fritjof, Gobber and Spitelout all burst out laughing, and then Fritjof said, "While I'd prefer another thane or three, I think she'll do nicely."

She smiled and went over to the post to retrieve her weapons.  They'd all hit the wood in a space smaller than the width of her spread hand.  

As she returned them to their sheaths, Stoick said, "I'll talk with Magnhild.  Officially, you'll be going as their cook and maid.  Is that acceptable?"

She shrugged, using the motion to reseat the knife that went into the back-sheath.  "Beats 'spy.'"

Stoick snorted.  "I suppose it does."

Wulfhild asked, "Where did you get all of those?"

"Fishlegs had Hiccup and Gobber make them for me as a Yule gift," Heather said with a smile. 

"Aye, and that tiny one on the hair was a right pain to balance," Gobber said.

Hiccup snorted.  "So of course you gave me the job!"

"Aye, who else would I trust with that kind of work?" Gobber asked with a smirk. 

Heather put her belt knife away.  "So, when do we leave?"

"In a few days," Stoick said.  "It looks like the weather is about to turn, so after that."

She nodded and got back to her work. 

As she left the hut a few minutes later, Fishlegs at her side, she smiled at him.  "Whose idea?"

"What?"

"Whose idea was it?" she asked.

He smiled.  "Hiccup's.  He wanted to do something nice for us.  And a trip to Eire seemed like a good idea." 

She gave a happy sigh and then glanced back at the hut they'd just left.

While Stoick held her personal allegiance and loyalty for all that he'd done for her, the mere fact that she could call Hiccup a personal friend was mindboggling. 

Not for the last time of late, she offered a prayer of thanks to Odin for his wisdom, and gave apologies to the All-Father for having doubted him.

And, with a glance to her future husband as he walked along at her side, she offered another prayer of thanks to Frigga.

Her dream of peace looked like it might come true. 

And she would help build it… and protect it. 

* * *

 _ **A/N:** And there we go!  I know that a lot of people have been speculating on who was responsible for the attacks on Heather... and it seemed like _ nobody _noticed Vigdis in the background.  And here I thought that I was being too blatant with my foreshadowing and hints._

 _A couple of things.  First, I want to wish Ramadan Mubarak to any and all of my Muslim readers; I know that it's early and your holy month doesn't start for another couple of days, but I figured that I could get my well-wishes in early!_ ^_^ _(Also, I totally didn't plan to have the first appearances of Islamic characters in the fic this week--first of many!--but I was very gleeful when I realized how nicely it worked out)_

 _Second, I have an addition to my trigger warnings schema; in addition to the Mention/Threat/Attempt/Act axis I have for intentional acts, I will be adding a Mention/Thought/Discussion/Depiction axis for, well, "shit happens" types of events--the sorts of things that there isn't someone to_ blame, _but it is still the sort of traumatic event that leaves its marks on the victim.   Under this topic, I'll be grouping things like disease, miscarriage, accidents and the like, and updating earlier chapters accordingly._

 _As part of that second point, I want to be emphatically clear on something.  Yes, I'm going to be depicting triggering content in this story.  I have already done so.  But, as part of that,_ I don't want to trigger anybody. _I want you to be able to enjoy the story, not suddenly be forced to relive a traumatic memory.  So, this is an open point: if you need me to add something to the trigger warnings because I didn't think of it,_ please, _tell me.  I promise I won't take offense._

 _For the moment, I will be sticking with the chapter-by-chapter trigger warnings rather than adding them to the tag cloud, mostly for pragmatic reasons: it lets me mirror the warnings between FF.net and AO3 without problems, and I believe that a targeted focus of "This happens in_ this _chapter" is much more effective than "_ Somewhere _in this half-a-million-word-plus fic is something that will harm you."_

_And third and finally, by popular request, I've created some maps that have the major locations in the fic highlighted; they're available at the Appendix for this fic, which is posted on AO3.  I'm not doing political borders for the moment--too much work, and things will be shifting in that regard over the course of this story--but with the specific places highlighted, I figured that would help people get an idea of where things are in relation to each other._


	50. The Center Cannot Hold…

**Chapter 50: The Center Cannot Hold** **…**

_A contentious point of open debate among scholars of history and mythology revolves around the mythological origins of various dragon breed names.  While nearly all dragon breeds are co-opted into the dominant regional mythologies, like any animal present in their environment, the question is raised: which came first, the myth that became tied to a dragon, or a dragon whose popular name gave rise to a legend?_

_Campe is likely an example of the first, as the breed migrated to the Aegean from the Red Sea during the Nontoku_ itsunengo _(~AD 350) in response to human hunting.  The dragon, when seen in poor lighting conditions—such as in a cave by a panicked human carrying a torch—can_ very _vaguely resemble the half-human half-reptilian description given by Nonnus in the Dionysiaca (albeit possessing only one head and only four legs), and was likely given the name in identification from the myth._

_Conversely, many breeds native to Iceland, Greenland, the Alban Isles and North-western Europa were named by the colonizing Norse and only later incorporated into their legends.  A prime example of this is the Night Fury (known to the native Celts as Bás Dorcha), which quickly gained the reputation of being the bastard offspring of Thor, god of Thunder, and Hel, goddess of Death.  In the Alban Isles, a new set of legends, unseen in the eastern Norse, grew over the course of the Early Heian Period (AD 800s and 900s), with elaborate stories being told of the divines' intimate encounter that resulted in the dragon breed._

_—To Label The Stars: The Cultural Impact Of Names, Kyoto University Press, Ltd._

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

Sigurd stood at the door to the training pit, willing himself to calm down.  He could do this.  He'd been feeding the dragons for days, but carefully, and through the flaps in the cage doors, letting them calm.

A hand touched his shoulder and he jumped a bit. 

Turning, he saw Gudmund standing there, looking sheepish.  He and Gunnar were standing by the gate, ready to rush in if things went wrong. 

"You all right?" Gudmund asked, running his hand through his short-cropped curly hair, sounding anxious and nervous.  He and Gunnar both had bolas at the ready, and Sigurd had trained them how to use them, but both of his friends looked worried—and given what he was about to do, he couldn't blame them.

Sigurd took a deep breath and nodded, remembering what used to happen in another pit to dragons that had been captured.

He glanced out at the sands covering the pit floor, and swore an oath to himself that they wouldn't be stained red with blood. 

Of course, that would be easy today, as he had the only sword in the whole place.

Grabbing the basket of fish that he'd prepared, along with the saddle and the satchel of the weird dragon-nip that he'd found—apparently it was used as an ingredient in cooking around here, being related to mint and rosemary—he nodded to Gunnar, who, with a grimace, pulled the lever to raise the gate.

It clanked open, and he walked into the training pit.

Placing the saddle by the gate, he tried not to feel nervous as Gunnar cranked it back down. 

He looked up around the rim, and sighed.  While they were under strict orders to remain silent, and none of them were armed, the entire rim of the training pit was filled with watching men—including the Emperor. 

Swallowing, he saluted, and thought about the phrase that Thorred had explained to him last night before bed…

_"Well, in the old days of Rome, they used to have gladiatorial fights against wild beasts—lions, dragons and the like.  And when they entered the fighting pit, the gladiator would turn and salute the Emperor, and that's what they'd say.  And… look.  Sig.  I know you'll be fine, but I can't help but think of that when I know what you're doing tomorrow with the Emperor watching."_

_"What was that saying again?"_

_"What, you're not seriously going to_ say _it, are you?"_

Sigurd lowered his hand from the salute, and muttered under his breath with all of the spite he could muster, " _Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant!_ "

_Hail Emperor, we who are about to die salute you!_

There was a hush among the whispers as he walked towards one of the individual pens and gave the signal. 

The door burst open a moment later in a howl of flame, and the Python inside, a long snake-like dragon, flew free of the pen, bellowing frantically at the top of its lungs and spitting fire. 

Fighting not to flinch, Sigurd stood his ground and waited for the dragon to notice him. 

It spread its wings and screeched.  The men around the perimeter of the pit gasped and flinched, but Sigurd could see that it was panicked and scared, and trying to make itself look big and scary and intimidating. 

Flapping, it tried to take flight, but the chain net didn't have any holes large enough to let it escape. 

It gave a howl of fear and frustration, and then landed back on the ground—and then looked at him.  It snorted and smoke came from its nostrils.

He drew his sword from the scabbard on his back and held it up, making it glint in the sun.  The dragon stared at it, tense and fearful, and snorted little tendrils of flame. 

And then, with a heave, he flung it away.

The dragon cocked its head, clearly confused. 

Sigurd pulled off his helmet and tossed that aside as well.

Now, disarmed and his head vulnerable, he opened the basket and pulled out a fish as large as his arm.  It had been caught bare hours ago, and brought straight in for this purpose. 

He cautiously approached the dragon, and proffered the fish.

With a hesitant motion, it inched forward; it had legs, but they were small compared to the main body, and it seemed to move in a way that was half lizard-like and half snake-like. 

Then, quick as a flash, it snatched the fish from his hand, with enough force to sting his fingers. 

He gave it another, and another, before gently reaching down to his side and opening the satchel.

The dragon instantly tensed and retreated, but then he pulled out a handful of the sweet-smelling herb—which he'd tested on Hookfang yesterday, who had _wallowed_ in it—and it blinked in surprise.  Not that Sigurd could blame it, as the herb was out of season at the moment, and all of his supply had come from dried bundles purchased from various kitchens in the city. 

Stepping forward one cautious pace at a time, he proffered the handful to the dragon, who cocked its head at him again, and while it didn't approach him, it didn't retreat either.  He held out the bundle just like he had held out the fish, and tried not to flinch as the dragon, looking inquisitive, exhaled a warm blast of air from its nostrils only inches from his hand.  It nosed against his shaking palm and then…

It inhaled and gave a purring sound of pleasure, and, to his relief, he saw the pupils of the eyes start to dilate.

He fed it another fish, and it pushed up against him, sniffing for more. 

With a laugh, he pushed it off and fed it another.  And another. 

Then it cooed and seemed to question where _his_ food was, sniffing at him.  A gurgling noise came from its throat, and, even knowing what to expect, Sigurd still sighed as half a fish landed in his arms. 

Knowing what he had to do, he took a bite of the raw fish, and swallowed, making a note to get some vinegar or garum for the next one just to give the fish some _seasoning._   Urgh! 

A thought occurred to him.  Wasn't garum fermented fish sauce?  He'd have to see if Hookfang liked it.

But he pushed the thought away, and handed the fish back to the dragon.   

It seemed to shrug and eagerly took back the leftovers.

Taking out another handful of the nip, he reached out and, this time, rubbed it into the dragon's snout. As it tried to push its snout deeper into his hand to get at the sweet herb, he used his other hand to break out his secret weapon.

A horsehair scrub-brush.

Putting the brush on his hand, he started to rub with it all along the top of the dragon's head crest, and, once it had gotten the herb from his free hand, he started to scratch down and along the dragon's jawline.

It purred, and he used the brush to get in and under where it wouldn't be able to scratch easily, behind the horns on the head and other such places.

As it cooed at him, he reached _that_ spot, under the jaw, and scratched there. 

With a thud, the dragon slumped to the floor of the training pit, warbling in ecstasy.

There was a noise from the rim of the pit, and he looked up. 

Every single Roman standing up there was staring at him in shock and awe—and at least one man had fainted. 

He gave them a thumbs up, and their heads started bobbing, like puppets on strings.  They knew that he could do it… but they hadn't believed it until this moment. 

Well, he'd show them.

Taking out the polished piece of copper from a pouch on his belt, he amused the recovering dragon with a spot of dancing light for several minutes, as it tried to catch the evading dot.  An hour or so later, he had it coiled around him affectionately, forming a wall of scales taller than him around a space wider than his outstretched arms. 

Above him, on the rim of the pit, the shocked and incredulous sounds from earlier had given way to speculative muttering, along with diminishing sounds of incredulous denial. 

Both Sigurd and the dragon looked up in surprise as one man shouted, "No, it's a trick of some sort!  It's not actually tame!" but before he could continue to disrupt things, the Emperor waved dismissively, and the fellow was hauled off by his companions, who sounded upset at missing the show. 

Sigurd shared a look with the dragon, who tilted its head, apparently very confused at what was going on. 

Chuckling, he reached forward and gave it a rub under the ear.  It purred, and he whispered, "Shall we prove him wrong?"

The dragon murbled, and Sigurd stepped back, only to be followed closely by the dragon.  He looked at it, chuckled, shrugged and waved for it to follow.  It sniffed and did so, which just meant that he had less walking to do. He walked over to the entrance and picked up the saddle where he'd set it earlier. 

He held it up, and the dragon sniffed at it curiously.  What followed was a bit comedic, as the dragon's width was wider than Sigurd was tall, but he _eventually_ got it strapped in place and mounted up.  The dragon gave him an odd look, but decided to go along with it, and they had a few tests around the perimeter of the pit. 

As noon approached, he and the Python were flying over the city of Constantinople together.  The dragon had been a bit uncertain about the whole business, but had eventually gone along with it to please its new friend, clearly thinking that it was some sort of game.  And they did have fun—Hookfang, with Gunnar riding on his back, flew alongside, and the two dragons had conversed for most of the flight. 

Once they returned, he fed the dragon again, and returned it to its cage.  After one last rubdown and a laughing insistence that he'd come back later, as the dragon was clearly interested in following him out to play more, he shut the door. 

Applause burst out once it was shut, and he looked up at the fervently clapping Romans and Varangians. 

Unable to help himself, he bowed. 

Now he just had to do it another thirty-nine times…

But he would.

First, though, lunch.  Especially since he'd skipped breakfast due to nerves.

As Sigurd emerged from the training pit's entrance ramp, a crowd of congratulatory men immediately surrounded him.  He was given backslap after backslap, and everyone seemed to want to shake his hand. 

He'd just given Harald a salute, Jorn and Kristoffer at his sides, when an odd hush seemed to spread through the crowd.

People were turning and looking at something, but Sigurd was too short to see through the crowd. 

"Gunnar, what's going on?" he hissed to his taller friend.

Gunnar craned his neck to look—but at that moment, a group of soldiers and an Army officer walked into view, weapons in hand.  But not swords—batons and the like. 

Hookfang gave them all an assessing glare, but they were circling around Harald.  Sigurd backed off as one of them raised his baton at the group he was in.

"What is this?" Harald demanded.

"Spatharokandidatos Harald Sigurdsson," the officer addressed him, "you are under arrest." 

The crowd hushed completely. 

Sigurd blinked and stared across the training pit to where the Emperor was seated in his chair. 

The Emperor was leaning forward, a satisfied smile on his face.

Harald seemed surprised, but quickly gathered himself.  "On what charges!?"

"For the murder of the Sakellarios Kyriakos, the assault and defilement of his wife Avra, and theft from the Imperial Treasury," the officer said.  "The Emperor has ordered your arrest, sir."

Sigurd inhaled sharply.  They were accusing Harald of killing one of the imperial treasurers?  The _Emperor_ was accusing Harald?  What the…?

He glanced at the Emperor again and it came together.

Oh shit.

Harald seemed to have reached a similar conclusion.  "I deny these charges!" he barked.

"You are accused by name, sir.  Now, will you come with us, or will we have to use force?"

Harald grimaced.  "What is to be my fate?"

The arresting officer frowned and said, "You are to be jailed pending trial."

Harald scowled and shouted, "I refuse to die for a crime that I did not commit!" and went to pull his sword on reflex… but it was it wasn't there, because of Sigurd's orders.

The beating didn't last long, and Kristoffer and Jorn held back a few of the other men who looked like they were wishing to go to Harald's aid. 

As they dragged him off, Sigurd looked at Kristoffer.  "Why did you hold us back?"

Kristoffer glanced at the Emperor, who was lounging on his chair, looking smug, watching Harald's arrest with clear satisfaction.  Then Kristoffer leaned in and whispered harshly, "Because those charges were made up by the Emperor, boy, and we still serve him.  And we can get him out and banished home—but only if we don't make a scene now.  But our loyalties are to the Emperor and Empress first, and then to each other.  That is our oath, boy.  Am I clear?"

Sigurd nodded, staring at the spatters of blood on the stones where Harald had been arrested.  "What happens now?"  He looked up at Kristoffer as another thought occurred to him.  "Did he do it?"

Kristoffer sighed.  "I know that he didn't do it, lad.  I'm at Harald's side for more than half the day, and Jorn is at his side for the other half.  These charges were faked, I can tell you that."

Sigurd swallowed hard.  Keeping the Emperor happy had suddenly become a whole bunch more important.

He really, _really_ wanted to spend some time with Father Metaxas polishing his Greek now…

###

**_Veisafjord, Eire_ **

 

Alvin the Treacherous looked up from the note in his hand and felt relief.  "Yesss…" he said in a quiet exultation of triumph to the empty room.  Since visiting his good old friend up near Dubh Linn, he'd hiked back down south again to Veisafjord.  Only thirty-some miles from Vedrarfjord, the neighboring Norse city offered him a place to hide and some resources and contacts, none of which would be available in Dubh Linn—which he had reasons, plural, to avoid.  Now he was just waiting for the spring thaw and the first ship to the mainland that he could get passage on for two. 

Assuming, of course, that she showed.

He returned to the note, and now that the first blush of relief had passed, he looked at it in more detail and scowled.

The basic code phrases they used essentially admitted that she was staying until later in the winter—despite her earlier promise to leave as soon as possible in their contingency plans—and would meet him, as planned, in Veisafjord.  In the meantime, she was gathering funds and information. 

He scowled, and started to compose a reply.  He was in the midst of a third repeated emphasis on how she should be leaving Vedrarfjord, posthaste, when the noise from outside finally intruded onto his awareness.

It was the sound of shouting, and of steel on steel.

He paused in his writing, the quill still touching the parchment and causing a blot, and then hurriedly hid it all in the small inn chamber where he was lodging as an anonymous visitor.  Throwing on his cloak and gloves as he walked through the inn's common room, he emerged—

Into chaos.

There was fighting audible from the next street over, and shouting all around, as people were running and hiding, or running towards the sound of fighting.

He spied one of the latter, a young man moving with intent.  Moving to intercept, he grabbed the lad—maybe eighteen winters of age—by the shoulders and demanded, "What's going on!?"

The young man grinned, showing a gap-toothed smile.  "The Hero is here and we're kicking out the king and giving the city to him!"

Alvin blinked, stunned.  "What?!"

"Yeah, the Hero of Berk just flew in!  And we've all heard about what his in-laws are doing with Vedrarfjord!  Imagine what they could do for us!"

He pulled himself free of Alvin's stunned grip and ran off, whooping.

Alvin stared after him, and then promptly turned, left the wood-paved street, and went back into the inn. 

Reaching his small room and digging out his half-finished message, he added a quick note.  He would meet her in Dubh Linn at their agreed-upon safe house, but she should remain in hiding in Vedrarfjord until she could get out safely.

Having sealed up the message with a dollop of wax, he gathered his paltry possessions and left without paying. 

The streets were still chaotic, so he moved with caution to the blind drop.  Dodging a party of chanting and armed young men, he waited until the coast was clear.  Finally, he had an opportunity.  Stepping up to the two boards in the wall, he slid the parchment into the gap between them. 

That accomplished, he gave a deep sigh.

Then, dodging the crowds of fighting men, he made for the gates.  It was time for _another_ long walk in the wet and cold—and this time, to Dubh Linn. 

Wonderful.

###

**_Saint Olaf's Hospital, Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Ruffnut sat in the chair next to her brother, grinding up some medication and telling him _all_ about the various symptoms that Magnus's little bundle of joy was inflicting on her.

Her brother had that wonderfully trapped expression he got whenever he couldn't escape something uncomfortable, and she was enjoying every moment of it.  With one leg broken to the point where they had been debating amputation for a little while, and the other leg featuring a sprained ankle that was still swollen weeks later, he wasn't going _anywhere_ without help. 

It was wonderful to find someone even less mobile than her. 

"My hands feel like someone's been stuffing them like sausages when I'm asleep, my feet don't fit in my shoes, and I'm going to need more clothes soon at this rate, I'm growing so much down there.  And I'm always feeling like I have gas, my stomach is rumbling so much."

Tuffnut sighed at her.  "Sorry, sis."

"Hey, you're the one person around here who can honestly say that your feet and legs hurt more than mine right now," she smirked at him. 

He sighed again, despondently.  "Yeah."

Magnus walked in, looking around for her.  She grinned at him as he walked over.  "So, how's the patient?"

"Whiny, bored, and smelly," she said, smirking.

"Isn't that a problem? If the wounds start to turn?"

"Nah, that's just Tuffnut.  He always stinks."

Magnus snorted.  "I'm surprised that you didn't just let the man kill him, the way you complain about him."

"And lose out on the chance to sit here and tell him all about what your child is doing to my ribcage?  Why would I do that?"

Tuffnut groaned, and Magnus sighed and smiled at her.  "Well, I wanted to ask if you'd be up for lunch?"

She grinned at him, her heart fluttering a bit.  Ever since this whole pregnancy thing had hit her, she'd been noticing that she could have mood swings all over the place.  It was impressive, really, to experience it.  She'd already had one bout of crying fury that had resulted in her throwing things at Magnus for something, and then had dragged him off to bed less than ten minutes later. 

He was somehow managing to remain somewhat sane and smiling through all of it, which, depending on the whims of the Norns, either resulted in her adoring him or hating him for it. 

Her stepdaughter, Ragnhild, was looking forward to having a younger sibling to play with, and Ruffnut was finding herself occasionally crying at the thought.  It was really unfair that he could just _stand_ there and feel _normal._  

Tuffnut sighed.  "Can I have a lunch that doesn't involve Karin feeding me?"

"What's wrong, Tuff?  Too big and manly to have a woman take care of you?" Ruffnut asked with a grin.  "I mean, I took care of the guy trying to kill you already.  That's pretty much going to destroy your reputation as a badass anyway."

Her brother moaned and sank into his pillow.  Karin just smiled at her and Ruffnut gave her an answering grin. 

Turning to her husband, she suddenly grimaced and held her hand to her stomach. 

"What's wrong?" Magnus asked. 

"Urgh.  Something I ate disagreed with me.  My stomach's been bothering me for days."  Nearby, Karin chuckled, and Ruffnut looked at her.  "What?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing," Karin said innocently.  Her eyes were twinkling and she had her hand out like she was counting something on her fingers.

"What?  Am I getting morning sickness finally?" Ruffnut asked sourly.

Karin smirked.  "Not so much, no."

"Then what is it?"

Grinning, Karin stepped forward and gently took Ruffnut's hand as Magnus watched, curious.  Karin laid Ruffnut's palm flat against her own belly and said, "Just wait for a few moments."

Ruffnut quirked an eyebrow but gamely nodded.  "All right…"

Magnus and Tuffnut shared a look of bafflement, while Karin stepped off to the side, watching with a fond smile.

Ruffnut glanced at her, and mused on the woman's family. Marte had made a full recovery, and was back at her home, packing and preparing to sell the place in between paying visits to the hospital.  Meanwhile, Isak and Tuffnut had bonded over broken bones—and how much they _itched_ inside of the splints.  The boy had a deft hand, though, and she was finding him to be very useful in the apothecary.  And Karin, while being trained as a weaver, she had enough basic midwifery that Ruffnut had offered her a job.  Off in the corner of the long-term care room was Karin's loom, which she worked on while watching over the patients—like Tuffnut. 

All in all, they'd recovered from Rasmus' attack well enough, although there was still the question on where he'd gotten the battle ax—

There was a sudden sensation of movement under her hand, and Ruffnut gave a little gasp when she realized what it was. 

"What?  What is it?" Magnus asked. 

She stared at him, her eyes round.  "Magnus!" she grabbed his hand and put it on her belly.  " _The baby is moving."_

He looked at her, startled, and then focused, and, when the next light flutter came, he melted. 

Tuffnut started making gagging noises and then seemed to reconsider.  Or, at least, he was reconsidering making when she whirled and gave him a hard stare. 

"Uh… sis?"

"Yes?"

"Can I?" he asked hesitantly but earnestly. 

She scowled at him for a moment, and then, sighed and shuffled over slightly, within his arm's reach.

Reverently, her brother reached out and laid a hand on her, next to her husband, and a few minutes later, the next flutter of motion came, and they both looked in awe. 

Karin just looked at the three of them approvingly, a fond smile on her face.  "Not…" she said, her smile seeming to reach from ear to ear, "stomach problems."

###

**_Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

Hiccup slumped into the office chair and plaintively looked up at his in-laws.  "It was ridiculous!"

Hákon laughed.  "I do have to say, that's the first time I've ever heard of someone walking into a city and having it conquer itself in an hour.  So, what will your father say about it?"

Hiccup moaned.  "I have _no_ idea.  For the moment, can you two handle another city?  Because I can't, and I don't know what else to do with it."

Gunvor groaned.  "We're having enough problems _here_ at the moment."

Hákon nodded in agreement and said, "Besides, there's also the fact that you and your father just gave us this city, and this city _only_.  Taking another might make us look like we're in rebellion."

Hiccup slung his head around and gave them his most deadpan look possible.  "You're kidding, right?"

"Hiccup, this place has three times as many people as all of Berk, and that's just counting those that live behind the walls!" Hákon said.  "That's a tremendous amount of power!  I mean, I'm flattered, but how does Stoick know that we won't act like any other lords and try to break away to make a kingdom of our own?"

Hiccup rolled his eyes.  "You _are_ joking.  Have you given Dad any reason not to trust you?"

"Taking another city would be a reason," Gunvor said pointedly. 

"One that I gave you," he countered.  "And besides, you two are the most honorable people I know.  You gave your word to Dad, right?"

They both nodded.

"Then there isn't a problem."  He scoffed.  "And besides, it's not like your only heir isn't _my wife._ "

Hákon snorted.  "Aye, that's true, although some of my brothers have been making hints about us adopting their kids as our heirs for the city."

Hiccup grinned.  "There you go.  Give one of _them_ the job of running Veisafjord—under you, of course."

Hákon quirked an eyebrow.  "Really?"

"At least for now," Hiccup said.  "I'll talk it over with Dad when I get back."  He shook his head.  "I still can't get over it."

Gunvor snorted and affectionately messed with his hair.  "It is a bit absurd, that's for sure.  And Hiccup?"

"Yes?"

She smiled at him.  "Thank you for the trust."

He smiled and bowed his head.  "You're welcome."  He rubbed his eyes and looked back up at the two of them.  "So, I'd like to stay a day, get that promised tour and all of that, before heading back out again."

"Aye," Hákon said.  "So, you mentioned something about visiting all of the kings?  Before you went off on a half-panicked tear on the fact that Veisafjord surrendered before you even set foot inside it, that is."

Hiccup slumped.  "Yeah.  You heard about what happened with Ulaid, right?"

They both nodded.

"Well, we're going around, introducing ourselves to our neighbors, and trying to mention that we're open for trade and such, so long as people are willing to deal fairly with us.  And then we mention Ulaid as a counter-example," Hiccup said dryly.  "So far, we've gone to the Ui Neill, Dubh Linn, Mide, Laighin… Veisafjord… and plan on visiting Corcaigh, Mumham, Hlymrekr and Connacht on the way home."

"And how has that gone?"

Hiccup groaned.  "Mixed.  Tell you later?"  He looked at Hákon.  "First, you promised me a tour of what you've been building—"

There was a knock at the door, which opened a moment later.  Astrid stuck her head in the room and said, slightly wide-eyed, "Uh… Hiccup?  There are a bunch of people at the gates asking to see you.  And it doesn't look like they'll take no for an answer."

Hiccup groaned.  "Again!?"

###

**_Al Jaz_ ** **_īra Al-Khadrā, Bay of Jabal Ṭāriq, Taifa of Algeciras, Al-Andalus_ **

Johann heard his sailors whistle when they reached the Rock of Jabal Ṭāriq.  Not because of the giant limestone rock that marked the straits, no, they'd seen that before.

  The harbor of the city of Al Jazīra Al-Khadrā, on the opposite side of the bay from that rock, was normally moderately populated with the local fishing vessels and whatever ships were ferrying people and goods across the Straits.  But now it was was packed.  Not with warships or transports of the Moors, which Johann had seen once before.  No, now it was a fleet of trading vessels sitting in the harbor—overflowing the harbor, actually, to the point that some were beached on the sands nearby.  It was an unprecedented sight.

They pulled into the port, and Johann saw ships from all over the Mediterranean.   A pair of dromen galleys from the Roman Empire.  Over there, a trio of _dhow_ from the Caliphates _.  Five_ nave tonda—round ships—from Venice, a sight that made his eyes narrow.  And other ships, including trading galleys from Italia, cogs and knarrs from the North…

His own fleet of mixed ships, for once, fit right in. 

They entered the harbor, and were made to haul up on the beach, as the dockyard space was full.  Past full.  Brimming.

And, waiting by the kasbah gates, with the solemn presence of the fort atop the Rock visible across the bay lending a sullen tone to the scene, was a crowd.

And Johann recognized nearly every single face in that crowd.

Painting a smile on his own features, he approached them, with his sailors at his back. 

"Fancy meeting all of you here!  Was there a trade fair and nobody told me?" he said in Vulgar Latin, and then repeated it in Arabic.

Scoffs and amused snorts came from the crowd of his fellow merchants and traders.  Then Haytham Abu Muhsin, the younger brother of Hasim Abu Muhsin, one of the traders from Alexandria that Johann traded with regularly, spoke up in Arabic.

"After seeing the wealth that you brought with you this past summer, many of our fathers and brothers decided to send us to seek it out."

Johann shrugged.  "Reasonable.  But you understand why I'm not exactly heartened by the sight of all of you trying to cut out the middleman—specifically _me?_ "

There were more amused snorts.  "Aye, especially since you've been growing fat on the dragon-tribe's trade for _years,_ " Haytham said.  "But unless you have something new—"

Johann held up his hands.  "Hold that thought."  He looked out over the crowd.  "All right, who here is ready to attack me and my men, take our cargo, and try to kill us?  Anybody?  Or are we here to have a talk?"

"Johann!" chided Cecelio the Younger, one of the Venetians.  "That's quite an accusation to make!  Why would you say such a thing?"

"What, that we're here for having a talk?" Johann riposted, and a nervous chuckle went through the crowd.  "Look.  It may be warm for midwinter, but the wind has made it rather chilly, and my men are hungry.  Shall we call peace and retire to the caravanserai for food and drink?  Because, honestly, having all of you here actually solves a very nice problem for me—and has the potential for profit for all of you."

Haytham bowed.  "No harm in listening.  Follow us."

A short while later, a bowl of soup warming Johann's hands, he looked out across the table of merchants—they'd commandeered several trestle tables and put them out in a line to fit all of them, while their crews milled about, gossiping and mingling.  Nearly all of them were second sons or younger brothers—or, in other words, disposable to the father or elder brother back home who was the head merchant, to be sent far away on a risky venture. 

Johann smiled at the lot of them.  "Now, gentlemen, I have before you the opportunity of a lifetime."

"And all it will take is for us to turn around, go home, and leave you your monopoly on the dragon riders' trade?" someone asked sarcastically.

"Oh, no, quite the opposite.  In fact, help me out here, and I'll gladly write the lot of you an introductory letter to their chief, and even give you directions," Johann said, and ate a spoonful of the soup as the others shared confused looks.  "I take it by timing that all of you are going to try to be there for their Thawfest in two months?"

"Aye," Haytham said, nodding. 

"Well, you should be able to manage it… if you sail carefully.  But you don't have much time to spare."

"So you say," Cecelio said.  "So, what is it that you want from us?"

Johann ate another spoonful, smiled, and said, "Partnership."

"In…?"

"Well, you see… due to my long and fruitful friendship with the tribe, they trusted me, personally, to start spreading their latest idea."  He looked around the table, making eye contact with each of them in turn.  "They are going to have their dragons carry mail… all _across_ Europa.  And here I was going to have to go to your brothers and fathers individually and plead my case again and again, and _then_ go to the dragon tribe and let them know about their agreement, and _then_ go back to your relations…"  He took another slow sip of soup, enjoying how their gazes had sharpened on him.  "But, here, now… I can talk with all of you, all at once, send you off to talk with Chief Stoick with a message telling him where he can put his new mail waystations… and introducing all of _you_ as my partners in this new venture."  He smiled and ate another spoonful as they murmured among themselves.  "I think that would save at least a year or so of back and forth before we can start it."  He pointed his spoon at them.  "Work with me here, you save me months of sailing, cut down on the time needed before this venture can begin, and, not incidentally, get in on this for yourselves, not your fathers and brothers."  He looked around the table once more, again making slow deliberate eye contact.  "So… what do you all say to that?"

There was a murmur of assent, and then Cecelio leaned in.  "Keep talking."

###

**_Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

His day's pay freshly in hand, Fintan mac Ionatan walked through the streets of Vedrarfjord over the fresh cobblestones, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. 

One of his coworkers, her hands muddied, called out to him, "Hoy, Fintan, cheer up!" as she walked past, on her way to the tavern.

With some effort, he forced himself out of his slouch, and lifted his head, rubbing his hand against the fading collar callus there.  It had been a hard day's work in preparing the fields for the spring planting, that was for sure, but, unlike his life from before his collar had been cut and he'd reclaimed himself from being a _daer-fuidiri,_ he got paid in good copper and scale.  The city's rulers, the Hoffersons, were spending coin like water to bring the city through the winter.

It was unprecedented.  Lords hoarded coin; they didn't spend it on paying chattel.  They didn't build marketplaces and create jobs and make kitchens for people to get a meal from and give loans to people to start businesses with, and they _certainly_ didn't give out a small stipend to every man, woman and child in their holdings that would be enough to keep them fed and warm, if not dry. 

Or, as the thought occurred to him more and more these days…

_Christian_ lords didn't. 

Pagan lords… apparently did. 

As he did every day—every _hour—_ his thoughts turned to the young woman that he'd fled with three months earlier… and when they would get around to freeing her and all of the others held by his old _flaith._ And noticed, again, that he had wondered it as a "when." 

Not as an "if."

Reaching the barracks where he was staying, he mounted the stairs to his room; the lodgings were freshly built for freedmen like himself, constructed in the last few months by people and dragons working together.  It was but one of a dozen such buildings in and around the city; while technically the Chief and Chieftess were their landlords, the rent was absurdly low—and covered by the stipend that everyone was given, with enough left over to afford a bowl of porridge every day. 

Technically, Fintan didn't have to work, and neither did anybody else.  Yet the city hummed with activity, even now, in the midst of winter.  Construction was booming, as was farming—or, at least, preparing the fields for the planting—fishing, and a number of trades, and every hand was needed. 

So he worked.  But, for him, it was mostly out of habit.  His coins and scales went right into a coffer.  What he would do with it, he didn't know, but working at least gave him something to fill the quiet days with. 

He wasn't alone in that.  There were others who clung to labor as a way to help hold themselves together.  Still others aspired to more than just a cot in the barracks and a warm bowl of food.  One of the other freedmen in the barracks, Treasach, would happily talk to anybody who would listen—or looked like they might listen—about his planned future inn for sailors and Dragon Mail riders.  Chief Hákon had already promised him a loan for it if Treasach could come up with half of the money, and so the fellow was working himself to the bone for every coin.  And he wasn't alone in that, not hardly.  More people—and not just freedmen—were scrimping and saving up for fishing ships, mead halls, bakeries, and crafts of a dozen sorts. 

Others were enjoying themselves; the few taverns were doing a roaring trade every night, in both drink and women.  Especially after Chieftess Gunvor had reportedly threatened to drop the procurer into the middle of the bay and let him swim to shore if he didn't stop treating the women as his thralls.  _That_ had raised a few eyebrows and started a few whispers.  But that had also put a stamp of approval on those who were intent on reveling in their newfound freedom.  So they labored by day and caroused  by night. 

But despite the exhortations of his fellows to join in… Fintan found that he had no interest in doing so.

Fintan just felt numb.  Like everything around him was happening at arm's reach, and his emotions were like a fire huddled under a soaked blanket.  He still felt them… but they were dampened and hard to feel.

People thought that he was hoarding his own coin for reasons like the others, but, to be honest with himself, he didn't know what to do with it.  Ale held only minor interest.  He had bought himself new clothes, which he wore diffidently.  Worked in the fields, because that was what he knew.

And, for the last few months, that was how he had lived. 

He settled into his small shared room, laying out his length on his thin straw-stuffed mattress, and stared at the ceiling for a while as night started to fall, his mind blank from the day's labor and his own general malaise.

A commotion outside his door made him sigh.  It was probably some of his housemates arguing again over some minor detail and getting ready to come to blows rather than talk it out.  Again.

And then there was someone at the door, shouting.  "Fintan!  Wake up!  Wake up!"

He moaned and rolled over.  "Go'way, Trea."

"Fintan!  Get _up!_ "  Treasach opened the door, and said emphatically, "The Hero is here!"

Fintan came to a half-sitting position.  "Huh?"

"The Hero!  The Dragon Tamer!  He and his wife are here with their retinue!  They're visiting her parents, up at the fort!  Come on!  Half the city is going up to greet them!"

Fintan blinked, stood and gave Treasach a flat look.  "In winter?" he asked, feeling tired and skeptical.

"Dragons look at muddy roads and laugh," Treasach said.  "Come on!"

He went, having nothing much better to do… and feeling very curious.

There was a crowd at the fort of several hundred people, mostly freed thralls, many of whom were clamoring to see the Hero and his dragon.

Someone was reciting the saga of the Hero of Berk with a passion that nearly made Fintan feel jealous of their intensity.  Children were standing near the fortress's wall with a look of anticipatory hope.  Still others were milling about, murmuring and talking with each other and looking inwards towards the fort where once a tyrant had ruled and now a kind Hero and his family reigned.

As darkness fell completely over the next few minutes, the Lady Gunvor Hofferson came outside and opened the gates, her own dragon, a bright golden beast incongruously named Sunflower, following behind her like a loyal hound and not a ten-foot-high chirping dragon. 

"Good evening everyone!  May I ask why you're all on my doorstep at this late hour?" she said in a cheerful tone, which gave full lie to her pretend confusion as to why the crowd was present. 

Someone called out, "Can we meet him!?"

She sighed dramatically and gave a small chuckle.  "My daughter and son-in-law are tired from a long flight, as are their friends."

"We're not asking for much, milady!  But we just want to see them!"

"Why?"

"Because he's the Hero!" another voice called.

"Without him, we'd still be collared!"

"Or worse!"

She seemed to consider it and said, "I'll see if they're willing.  If they are, I'll send them out.  If not, then can this wait for _tomorrow?_   After they've had a chance to sleep and eat?"

Murmurs went through the crowd in consideration, and someone called out, "We won't be ungrateful, milady!  But… please…?"

She smiled and nodded and motioned for the gates to be closed.

People around Fintan were whispering eagerly to each other, swapping rumors and stories. 

"I heard that he lost his foot in battle against the great dragon lord that held all of the regular dragons in thrall," said one young woman nearby.

Her neighbor nodded.  "He did.  I saw it when he was here back before winter.  But he crafted himself one as good as living flesh from silver, rosewood and steel, and walks just like a normal man."

"He did the same for his dragon, too!" another woman added.  "He wounded it by accident, tearing off half the tail, so he made a magic tail for it to be able to fly again!"

"He hurt it?  But, but…" another woman stammered.

"Aye, he had it in his power, but it begged for its life, and he spared it out of compassion.  The two of them are as close as brothers now."

"I heard that his dragon alone has the power of human speech," another man added eagerly. 

The second woman chortled.  "I'd believe it!  It's a clever beast!"

Nearby, another group was discussing the Hero's marital arrangements, with another pair recently freed from the collar listening intently. 

"Wait, so the Hoffersons were _millers?_ " one of them asked incredulously.  "But… but… they're the Hero's in-laws!"

"Aye, they are!  Because their daughter is the love of his life!" they were told enthusiastically.  "He married for love, not for power!"

There were romantic sighs at the thought, and then one person sardonically added, "Of course, there's the Norse princess…"

"What?" someone else asked.

"Aye, one of the princesses of the Norse fell in love with him and begged the favor of his bed!"

"I can't say that I'm surprised," said one of the young women with a happy sigh.  "He's so handsome…"

"So what happened with the princess?  You can't leave it there!"

"He acceded with the approval of his wife!  But he's so devoted to her that it took her approval before he accepted!"

"I've heard that she—the princess—is his concubine now."

"Wow.  Millers' daughters as the wives of Heroes, and princesses as concubines…"

"Aye, we live in an age of wonders, where anything is possible!"

"Men riding dragons…"

"Women too, don't forget."

"Thralls being freed all over…"

"Remember what Cinaed Hofferson said?"

"What?"

"He was telling us about the English attack, and the Hero took charge after their first counter-attack was chased off, and he practically single-handedly—"

"Single-dragonedly, you mean," a wise-ass interjected.

"— _single-handedly_ destroyed half the English fleet, between his ideas and the battle plan."

"Supposedly, the whole nest of dragons bows before him as their lord."

"Aye, but they bow their necks because he's their _leader,_ and they're loyal to him, not because he demands it." 

More footsteps sounded from nearby, and then the gate opened briefly, with a short woman emerging from within.  "He's coming!" the young woman said gleefully.  "Lady Gunvor said that I could tell you!"

The crowd cheered, and the young woman, finding herself the center of attention, leaned in conspiratorially.  "Just don't push him too much, all right?  He's had a long day."

"What happened?" someone asked.

"Veisafjord surrendered to him this morning," the young woman said gleefully.

"What?  He's going conquering?" someone asked, sounding surprised.

"No, no!  Better!  He and his people are flying around all of Eire to start talking with the kings… and Veisafjord overthrew their king just as he arrived and gave him the city."  She grinned.  "They want the same prosperity for their city that we have here!"

"Can't blame them!" someone called, and the crowd murmured in assent. 

The young woman quickly joined the crowd, being questioned intently, and eager discussion broke out again. 

It was clearly only a matter of time before the Hero was accepted as the High King over all of Eire, and the assumption was clear that once that happened, he would bring the same peace and fellowship and prosperity to all of Eire that his family was bringing to Vedrarfjord. 

Thralldom would be outlawed all over, and people were speculating eagerly on who would follow Veisafjord's example next.  Children would be taught to read and write, and all of the Hooligans' subjects would be given dragons if they could learn to fly them.  A golden age would dawn under the Hero's aegis, art and music, peace and plenty, and no one would ever have to go hungry again. 

Rather than joining in with the discussion, Fintan found himself staring blankly ahead at the closed gates, his thoughts tired.  And while he was grateful for the chance to be here, he wasn't sure what he was _doing_ here.

And then the gates opened and the crowd hushed.

And the Hero emerged.  He was walking next to his dragon, flanked by his wife with her own dragon, her resemblance clear to her mother, along with another woman and a silvery dragon—the princess, Fintan presumed.  Bringing up the rear was Lady Gunvor and her dragon.

And the crowd cheered thunderously, hundreds of voices joining together into a single cry of approval.

Fintan just looked at the boy next to the sleek black dragon and felt something tear in the back of his mind.  He was a _boy._   Beardless, perhaps a year into true manhood, years younger than Fintan was.  His beast had wide black eyes surrounded by a fringe of green. 

And they both looked embarrassed at the attention. 

Fintan continued to stare at them, almost incredulous.  This was the Hero who had upended the world?  The way people had been talking, he'd been expecting a younger version of Chief Hákon—big, broad, and stout.

And yet…

There was the leg.

And the dragon—which indeed had a red, false half-tail. 

"Thank you everyone," the boy Hero called out and they all cheered before he could say more. 

But, rather than watching it go to his head, like such adulation would for most boys of that age, Fintan watched the boy blush and redden. 

"So… thank you for that warm welcome.  I'm not sure what to say.  I wasn't expecting this."

Someone called out, "Thank you for our freedom, Dragon Lord!"

His jaw dropped at that.  "I… I… wow.  Um… you're welcome?"

The crowd cheered, at length.  Fintan found himself caught up in it… but then paused as he saw the Hero seeming to shrink in on himself.

Lady Astrid seemed to notice as well, and turned to her mother.  They conferred for a brief moment, and then Lady Gunvor stepped forward, raised her arms and motioned for the crowd to quiet.  It took a few moments, but eventually, they had calmed to the point of excited murmurs instead of shouts of adulation.

"While this is quite _flattering,_ I'm sure," she said with a smile, and there was some laughter through the crowd, "it _has_ been a very long day."

"Milady!" one voice rang out.  "Please!  We just want to talk with him!"

Lady Gunvor looked around at the crowd, who were still milling excitedly, and then sighed.  She turned to the Hero and they conferred for a moment. 

Finally, she turned back and said, "Alright!  If you have something that you're wanting to say, pack off to the main mead hall, and we'll try to address it!"

The crowd cheered, and while some people left, massive grins on their faces and excited tones in their voices, the majority of the crowd left for the mead hall.  The building was freshly constructed in the last few months by the Hoffersons; as the largest building in the whole city, it would be capable of holding the whole crowd.  With difficulty.

Fintan went along with the crowd, not quite sure on why.  His bed was calling… but yet, he felt that he needed to _understand_ what he'd just witnessed.

The hall was packed when he got inside, but Fintan was on the scrawnier side, so he managed to slip in through the crowd—but still got jostled forward to where he could see. 

The people were eagerly talking in anticipation; Fintan could hear a few people apparently practicing what it was that they wanted to say as they quietly repeated dramatic phrases to themselves.

Then there was a hush and the Hero, Lady Astrid and Lady Wulfhild appeared.  Fintan craned his neck and saw that they were standing on the trestle tables that had been pushed out of the way.  A chirp overhead made him look up into the rafters, and he saw their three dragons lounging there.

People cheered, and the Hero flushed again.  "You don't have to do that!" he said. 

Someone called out, "Food, a roof, kindness, and freedom to work for ourselves and not freedom to starve, and you wonder why we cheer?!" 

The Hero looked at the speaker, a young man a bit older than Fintan, and said, sounding confused, "I… well, you're our people now.  That's how you _treat_ your own people."

Several people laughed and others cheered, and the same man replied, grinning broadly, "Among the Hooligans, apparently, but not anywhere else!"

The Hero blinked, and covered his eyes for a moment.  He mouthed something quietly to himself as the crowd hushed.

"So then why are you thanking _me?_   Why me, and not my Da—father, or the Hoffersons?"  He held his hands up in a wide gesture of bafflement.

Several people chuckled or cheered and a few started speaking at once, and then started trying to shout each other down.

The princess stepped forward, said something quietly to the Hero, who nodded.  She looked out over the crowd and pointed to one of the quieter speakers.  "You there!  You had something to say?" she asked in heavily accented Gaoidhealg.

The crowd pulled back from the selected man, who bowed.  "I did!" He looked up politely to the Hero.  "And what I wanted to say is that while I _have_ thanked the Hoffersons, and I would love to thank your father, _they are not the ones that tamed dragons."_

Another man waved and the princess pointed.  "Aye!  What he said!  You're the one who set us on this path!"

The princess' finger moved, and another man spoke.  "Exactly!  I might not have been a thrall, but it wasn't your father, or the Hoffersons, who looked at yonder beastie there," he pointed to the black dragon, "and decided, 'Today, I make a friend!'"

Everyone laughed—including the princess, Lady Astrid… and the dragon, who dangled down from the rafters by his tail behind the Hero and made what was unmistakably a laugh at the crowd. 

That set off more laughter.  The Hero turned and looked at his dragon, his hands on his hips, and gave his big scaly friend what Fintan could only imagine was an incredulous look.

The dragon responded by swaying towards the Hero and licking his face, making him yelp.  "Toothless!  You know that doesn't wash out!"

Everyone in the crowd laughed and applauded, and the man who had been speaking before said, "See what I mean!?"

As Toothless jokingly swatted the Hero with a paw, resembling nothing as much as an oversized cat at play, the first speaker joined in.  "Aye!  Look at him!  He's your friend!  You took a dragon and made him your _friend_!"

Others chimed in with similar sentiments as the Hero chided his dragon, only to fall silent again as Lady Astrid stepped forward, shared a look with the princess, and pointed out a speaker. 

"Thank you," he said, and bowed.  "Milord—"

The Hero turned and looked at him, incredulity painted on his face.  "I'm not your lord!"

The speaker grinned.  "Yes, _milord,_ you are!  Even if you don't count the fact that we are your vassals through your father and you are the heir, _we owe you!"_

Dozens cheered, echoing the sentiment—and, caught up in the moment, Fintan found himself as one of them.  Because he did owe this young man for his freedom.

Another young man, practically shaking out of sheer energy, spoke out of turn.  "Besides, _you_ gave Chief Hákon and Lady Gunvor this city!  So you're responsible for what they've done with it!"

There was a murmur of emphatic agreement across the room, and a young woman practically jumped up and down for attention.

Lady Astrid, grinning, pointed to her, and the young woman, the same age or so as the Lady, spoke eagerly.  "What they said!  I don't know how it was for you, growing up in your tribe, but you've brought us joy, and hope, and warmth, and, and the, the chance for more than we ever had before!"

A big, rough-looking and heavily scarred Norseman in the center of the crowd politely raised his hand, and Lady Astrid pointed to him.  Bowing deeply and respectfully, he spoke in a surprisingly smooth voice, "As I was saying, you, my lord, having grown up as an heir—even though, as I understand, your father's mother was a thrall—you do not understand what it is that you've wrought here."  He waved out over the crowd.  "We dug in the dirt, we squabbled for scraps, while our lords fought for ego and greed.  And then, here you come, _showing_ that kindness and understanding are not _weak!"_

Fintan nodded in agreement with the man's words as they bounced around inside of his head.  He felt more awake… more _himself—_ Fintan, the bard's apprentice, sharp of wit and sharper of tongue—than he had for years.

The Norseman looked around at the crowd, who were giving him looks of approval, and then bowed again.  "I have been thinking on this… and, sir… I can not blame you for saying that you are not our liege.  You have greater things on which to worry.  So we thank you for our lives and our hope while you focus on things of importance—"

"How can you _say_ that?" the Hero interrupted, staring at the Norseman, his eyes wide and incredulous.

"Say what?" the Norseman replied, sounding baffled.

"That you're not important!?  You're people!  You're right, my grandmother was a thrall, and I've heard what her life was like!  And I imagine that most of you were like that!"

The Norseman chuckled fondly, and the sound spread through the vast room.  "But _imagining_ isn't the same as _living,_ milord!  And that you took the time to lift us up, when you are clearly marked for greater things!"

The Hero's jaw dropped open, and he shook his head as if to clear cobwebs.  "I… I only ever wanted to have friends.  To be accepted.  I didn't ask for any of this!"  He reached out and gently lowered Lady Astrid's outstretched hand, but she lifted her other arm.

"You didn't sound like you were finished," she said, giving a lopsided grin at her husband while nodding at the Norseman.

He bowed deeply.  "Thank you, milady.  And, yes, milord, you follow the Old Ways and old gods… so let me say this much…"  The big man took a deep breath, smiled, and said, "To me, you seem like Baldr, beloved, and spreading peace and compassion where you go." 

The Hero stared, his eyes wide.  He blinked and stammered, "But, but, I'm _not_ Baldr!  I'm Hiccup!  Just… _Hiccup!_   I'm just… I just someone that was too stubborn for my own good, and tried to fix what I broke and made a new friend!"

Fintan couldn't help himself and barked a laugh—and then blinked as suddenly Lady Astrid's hand was pointing at him.  "Uh…"

"You had something to say?"

Fintan thought fast and nodded.  "Sir, you don't understand," he said to the Hero.  "To most kings, people like us," he waved to indicate the crowd, "are not worth their kindness.  You've _already_ given us more of yourself than we would ever see from one of _them."_ He smiled.  "You broke their grip… but please don't try to fix it!"

People laughed and applauded to that. 

Fintan grinned, and, in the flow of the moment, continued talking—the same habit that had gotten him in _so_ much trouble when he was younger.  "But you've definitely made new friends!"  He waved to indicate the crowd again, who roared in agreement.  "In fact… I have this much to say.  I know that they are your lady wife's parents, but while the Hoffersons may hold our allegiance as our lords, to _you_ we owe our loyalty and our service!"  He went to one knee and bowed in the direction of the Hero.  "You point, we follow.  You ask, we answer.  We might not be your friends, but we know that you care about us, and you should know that we will listen to you!"

Around Fintan, others followed suit.  It spread like a wave through the hall, slowly at first, but within a few moments, most of the hall was bowing or genuflecting towards the Hero. 

The Hero stared—and then almost jumped as his dragon poked him.

"Do you accept that, my lord?" Fintan asked.

Before he could reverse things, however, the Hero blinked and stammered out, "I, I don't see what else to say to that, except that I do."

And the crowd cheered. 

###

**_Visitors' Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Her legs hooked over the wooden roof beam, Cami pulled herself upright, lowered herself back down, and then upright again, her hair swaying in the crude ponytail she'd put it in.

"Lass, you're making my back hurt just _looking_ at you," Stoick complained from where he sat nearby, holding a mug of ale. Skuggi chirped in agreement from his spot by the hearth-fire.

She let herself flop back down, hanging by her legs, and gave the chief an upside-down smile. "What? I'm just exercisin'." And being very grateful for her cousin's loan of some tight-fitting linen breast-bands; Karolina's chest wasn't as ample as Cami's, whose mother was nicknamed 'Big-Boobied Bertha" for a _reason,_ but it was still a help _._ Exercising with the damn things was a literal pain.

Stoick sighed.

"So I wanted to say thanks for lettin' Mother know that we got here safe," Cami said. "Gives her a couple of months to calm down over the loss of the ship before I see her again."

Stoick snorted. "Aye, I can see that. And it wasn't a problem."

Cami did another sit-up on the beam before saying, "Well, it was. It's not like my home is easy to find. And you could've easily just started takin' us home, one by one."

"Aye, but I promised you hospitality for the winter," Stoick said. "It's still winter."

She snorted and hopped down from the beam, landing in a perfect crouch… and her ponytail promptly flopped into her face.

Stoick barked a laugh, and quickly suppressed it into a chuckle.

Pushing her sweat-soaked hair out of her face, she shot him a dirty look, which made him break out in more chuckles.

Standing up and trying to continue on as if nothing had happened, Cami said brusquely, "Well, I can say that there are a few people I wouldn't mind shippin' home ahead of the thaw. Like, say, Inga."

Stoick snorted. "Aye. It's been near on two months now that she's been leading Dogsbreath on, and while I hope teasing him is all she's planning, I somehow doubt it."

"Same," Cami said. "But I can't send her home without a _reason!_ Arrgh!"

Stoick hoisted his mug in a mock salute and said, "Welcome to being a leader. Cheers."

Cami scowled at him, but picked up her mug of water that was waiting and lifted it in a matching toast.

After she drank, she set the cup down and said, "I will say this much, though: I can promise you Steinn and his wife won't get sanctuary among the Bogs." She was refusing to even say the woman's name. There was, in Cami's opinion, a special place in Helheim for women who betrayed their sisters like that.

Stoick scowled. "Aye. I appreciate the promise, lass. I just hope that their children will be able to come home when they're of age."

"And that their parents haven't poisoned their minds against Berk before then," Cami pointed out. "Six to eight years is a long time."

"Aye. But we've had such problems with having children here—with keeping our numbers up—that I'm loathe to give up any. For their parents… I didn't have a choice. But I wish that they'd been willing to let Steinn's brothers raise the children here," Stoick said.

Cami smirked. "Well, if it's numbers you're worried about, the way that Heather and Fishlegs look at each other, I'm sure they'll make up the difference—"

Stoick gave her such an intimidating look that she trailed off and chuckled weakly. "Too soon?"

"Ayep," Stoick drawled. "And it's not just the numbers. I worry for Gytha and Finn. You and I both know how cruel the world is. I dislike the thought of them suffering for their parents' crimes."

Cami paused as a number of memories crawled up… not the least being Heather and Toiréasa's training stories. Both women had become her friends over the course of her stay, and Toiréasa had continued Cami's spy training while Heather was off in Eire. Cami had already offered Toiréasa sanctuary with the Bog Burglars, but the other woman had turned her down; she wanted to stay with her daughter… who considered Heather her sister and Heather's parents her own. And Cami had to respect that.

Rather than address that, though, she looked to Stoick. "Speakin' of which… what's goin' on with Lopsides?"

Stoick groaned at the question and covered his face with his hand. " _Thankfully_ Clodgall is keeping that under control—she _is_ his daughter—but if he and Magnhild weren't covering for her, if… if…" he sighed, "if it had been Heather and Fishlegs instead of the child of a clanhead, I'd probably be having to ask you to take her in… at least until the baby is born." He groaned again, his head bowed slightly as if he had a headache.

Cami shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time. Or last, I expect." Stoick gave her a look, and she hastened to add, "For takin' someone in! Not for Lopsides!" _Although that part's accurate, too,_ Cami mused. Lopsides Clodgallsdoittor clan Jorgenson was a year or two older than Cami, and would normally be quite the social catch. But she had an _adorable_ little girl named Wart… born when Lopsides was only sixteen winters, and she had refused to name the father then. And now she was pregnant again—and again refusing to name the father.

To say that it was a scandal in the village at the moment was something of an understatement. Of course, from Cami's perspective, it wasn't exactly a big deal; most of the Bogs weren't married, and single mothers in her tribe were the rule, not the exception. For Frigga's sake, Cami and her sisters—her _actual_ sisters, not just her affectionate term for other women—knowing their father and being raised by him was highly unusual by Bog standards.

As she had said to Stoick, it wouldn't be the first time some girl facing motherhood out of wedlock had taken refuge with the Bogs and joined them.

Just then, there was a howl of outraged yelling from outside, and she smiled at Stoick. "Duty calls!"

He scowled, but hauled himself to his feet—just as there was pounding at the door to the hut, clearly looking for Stoick.

Cami shrugged… and then did a double-take.

She was in the _guest_ hut… not _Stoick's._

Suddenly praying to Freyr that they had already checked the chief's hut and were here for him, she went to the door ahead of Stoick and opened it.

An unfamiliar, red-faced and poorly shaven man was standing there, looking furious. "Where is she!?"

"Who?" she asked, tensing up. An angry man standing at the door of the Bog Burglars and demanding to know where 'she' was… that _never_ ended well.

Behind her, Stoick sucked in a breath. "Rolf, what happened to you?"

Cami blinked. _Rolf?_ Taking a closer look at the man standing at her door, she saw that her first impression of him being 'poorly shaven' was in error.  His beard had been _hacked off,_ with patches of uneven hair all around the underside of his chin and around his cheekbones.

Suddenly which ' _she'_ he was asking about became abundantly, _painfully,_ clear. 

Uh oh…

"What happened?" Cami asked tonelessly, even as her hands clenched into fists. 

Rolf scowled. "I lay down to take a nap and when I woke…"  he gestured to his face.

"Breezy chin, got it," Cami snarked.

"Cami!" Stoick chided her.

"But aside from the beard, my _coffer_ is gone!" He glared at Cami. "So where are my son and his so-called _girlfriend!?"_

Cami shared a look with Stoick and leapt into action.

Inga was staying with some of the Jorgensons—although not in Rolf's house. Her few possessions were gone when Cami checked. At Rolf's house, Dogsbreath's possessions had been ransacked, with odds and ends strewn about… some in a suspicious cluster around an empty spot on the floor.  To Cami's practiced eye, a _bunch_ of things had clearly been hurriedly thrown into some sort of bag. His dragon was gone, along with his saddle, and some provisions—and, yes, his own rucksack.

Stoick called for a search, but as night came, they had to return to Berk. While they hadn't caught the wayward pair, it was pretty obvious what had happened. Cami agreed to stand for restitution to Rolf, who had lost a small fortune with the theft of his coffer… and privately promised herself that she'd strangle Inga personally if and when she caught her.

###

**_Ring-Fort of Cashel, Saint Patrick's Rock, Mumhan, Eire_ **

 

The half-dozen dragons appeared in the sky over Mumhan, and people began to run about in alarm.  Vedrarfjord had fallen to a dragon attack only four months ago, and it was clear that the Vikings were looking to add to their list of conquests.  A man could walk to Vedrarfjord in two days' time, as it stood only thirty-five miles to the southeast. 

"What took them so long?" the door warder wondered aloud.

Nearby, the head guardsman sarcastically replied, "Even dragons take time to chew."

The garrison of Saint Patrick's Rock, the seat of the king of Mumhan, was still running around preparing for battle when someone called out, "They're carrying a flag of truce!"

Someone swore in denial.  "It's a lie!  It has to be!"

The sleek black dragon, dark against the white clouds and blue sky, came in closer.  Its rider called out, "Hail the fort!  We are here to parley, not to attack!  I am the herald of Berk!  Chief's son!"  The figure pulled out a dagger from a sheath and dramatically dropped it to the ground below, after first checking to make sure that there was no one below.  "I come in peace!"

"Chief's son, eh?" the door warder muttered.  "That there's their Hero, then…"

"Aye.  Bargainer with demons himself.  We should send him down to meet his master."

"He's claiming herald status, though," someone else put in. 

"So what?  He's a damn devil rider!"

The door warder snorted.  "Damned indeed!"

"May we land and speak?" called out the young man on dragonback.

One of the archers nocked an arrow and drew back.  "Say the word. I think I can put it through his eye at this range."

"Put it down," said another man.  "It's the King's decision."

"Do you truly think he'll decide otherwise?"

"That's not the point."

A man came pelting out of the keep and called out to the demon-rider, his hands cupped around his mouth, "The King accepts your request for parley!  Land your beast outside the fort and enter on foot for good faith!"

The dragon-rider called back, "May my associates join me?"

"Yes, but on the same conditions!" 

He flew off and rejoined the flock of dragons, which began to land nearby. 

The men on the wall stared at the man by the door to the keep, aghast.

"Has the King gone mad?  They're Vikings, heathens, and in league with the devil!  We can't treat with them!"

"Aye… but the king wants to hear what they have to say.  Maybe they are truly peaceful."  The other men snorted at the mere idea.  "Aye… and if not… well, this is Saint Patrick's Rock.  He banished the devil from this rock once, when it was in the mountains.  His successors can do it again."

At that thought, the men started to nod, fondling their weapons and making the sign of the cross.  A chance to prove their worthiness before God Himself in such a fashion did not come along every day.

* * *

_**AN:** _ _Wheee!  Oh, I'm so looking forward to the upcoming bits and everyone's reactions.  Just a reminder that I'm going on hiatus for July, meaning that I'll be posting through to chapter 55 over the next five weeks, and then resuming on August 5th with Chapter 56.  I've updated my 'Table Of Contents & Buffer' page on my Tumblr (link is on the blog's sidebar) with a projected schedule of chapters (subject to change, obviously, but I'm going to do my best to hold to it).  _

_Also, you all get an early chapter this week because my wife and I are heading out to Berlin for_ vacation! _for the next few days, and our train leaves in three hours.  (We're both having that "Holy crap, we're_ adults. _How did_ that _happen?" feel).  It's going to be awesome!  Also, in terms of awesomeness... my Scrivener word count just hit 700,000!_

_Finally, to give an idea of how long I've been working on this fic...  out of the eight scenes that this chapter contains, the Scrivener metadata records that four of them were initially created between December 5-12, 2016.  While they've been edited and revised since then, that's when I wrote the first draft for this arc._

 

 


	51. Mere Anarchy Is Loosed Upon The World

**Chapter 51: Mere Anarchy Is Loosed Upon The World**

_Furthermore, the legally mandated food and housing welfare requirements for all members of Berk's holdings—a holdover from the days of the Dragon War, when a surprise dragon raid could put any of the Hooligans out of house and livelihood—helped significantly with accelerating the rate of social, cultural and economic growth._

_The end result of the pattern of absorption was that, by the mid-1050s AD, Eire was politically and socially unified, integrated and enfranchised under Berk's auspices as a province of the newly created North Sea Empire.  With the second-highest per-capita productivity in the Empire, Gaoidhealg forming one of the initial core Imperial languages, and their voting block resolutely backing and supporting Hiccup Haddock in the Grand Thing, the actions of the Eirish had, and continued to have, an indelible impact on the society, culture, economy and political life of the Empire…_

_…This is not to say that all went smoothly, especially at first, before the pattern had established itself.  The Hooligans took significant time to formulate specific policies and end goals in regards to Eire, and there was also staunch resistance due to the fact that Eire had been a formalized caste-based inequitable society, and had no cultural experience with the Hooligans' more egalitarian traditions.  In contrast, the Norse-Gael towns that dotted the coast of the island were easier to acculturate, as they already had the cultural traditions of the proto-democratic Viking Thing and the social closure effect of the_ holmgang.

_Further complicating matters were the long-entrenched conflicts between the native Eirish and the Vikings, and the religious differences between the Norse Hooligans and the Christian Eirish. As the Eirish had no experience nor expectation of actual intent of peace from Vikings, and no worldview that would allow them to see the act of dragon-riding as anything other than witchcraft or devil-worship, it was an uphill struggle for the Hooligans to convince the Eirish of their peaceful intent, much less politically and socially integrate the island's populace—not helped by the necessity of self-defense against preemptive attacks._

_—Origins Of The Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631_

 

**_Ring-Fort of Cashel, Saint Patrick's Rock, Mumhan, Eire_ **

****

His false foot tapping on the stony soil, Hiccup focused on walking up the side of the big limestone bluff that Fort Cashel was built on, followed by Astrid, Wulfhild, Fishlegs, Heather and Fritjof. 

Their dragons had been left at the foot of the hill, and Heather was _not_ happy. 

"Look, Hiccup, I saw them pointing bows at you.  They separated us from our dragons.  They're _not_ friendly!"

Astrid chimed in, scowling as well.  "Hiccup, look.  I get the whole 'in good faith' gesture, but you didn't have to give in to every single thing they wanted!"

Hiccup just shrugged as they stood by the gates.  "They're your parents' neighbors, love.  We can't exactly blame them for being jittery after we conquered Vedrarfjord in an afternoon."

"Blame?  No.  Prepare for?  _Yes,"_ Astrid said back, sounding worried and irritated.

"But we _are_ prepared for it," he said to her with a smile, and motioned to his outfit.  He had his sword and shield strapped to his waist and back, respectively, and there were other… surprises that he had prepared. 

"Not enough…" she muttered irritably.

Hiccup pointedly glanced at his wife.  Armored and embellished with Nadder scales, carrying her crossbow, ax and knife, with a shield strapped across her back and a light helm, she looked to be the very image of a Viking shieldmaiden.  Complete with angry scowl. 

Wulfhild had gone lighter on the armor, and was just carrying her shortbow and a quiver of arrows, although her armor was made from Mistletoe's scales, giving her a wonderfully plated look.  Leather vambraces and archery gloves made up the rest of her ensemble. 

Heather growled from behind Hiccup.  " _You_ trust too easy."

He shrugged.  "Worked pretty well so far.  Look, I'm expecting there to be yelling, and shouting, and stamping of feet and lots and lots of angry threats.  But we're not here to conquer them.  We're here to talk to them.  Once we get our foot in the door, I'm sure I can talk them into another non-aggression treaty, like we have with the others."

She scowled.  She was also wearing a mix of leather armor and plating made from Windshear's scales, along with an ax and more knives than he cared to consider.

Towards the rear, Fishlegs shrugged as Hiccup's gaze ran over him.  He was wearing his usual fur and leather ensemble, although, pushed by Heather, he had added some armor plates to various points, held on with rivets.  According to what he had told Hiccup, before they'd left Berk, she'd taken a blunt training knife with red paint along the edge and stabbed him with it repeatedly during their discussion, saying things like 'Kidney, dead in a minute, Lung, you drown in your own blood…' and he'd taken the point at seeing all of the red slashes on his shirt.  Hiccup had commiserated, remembering his training bouts with Astrid. 

Fritjof was—thankfully—keeping his own council for once, although Hiccup was certain the retired raider was in agreement with the girls, given how he and Spitelout had all-but-demanded that Hiccup take along an honor guard for this mission.  Said suggested 'honor guard' had been larger than the group that they'd used to conquer Vedrarfjord.  After a long fight, they'd compromised on Fritjof, who was kitted out as heavy infantry.  The big man was wearing head-to-toe scale-mail armor, all of it augmented with dragon-scales, even to the point of having a leather helm stitched with overlapping scales.  He also had a sword, shield and shortbow, making him practically bristle with menace. 

The gates to the ring-fort opened as they approached and they marched in.  Hiccup looked around; it was a fairly typical ring-fort, with an outer palisade fence built of wooden logs and filled with smaller buildings inside the ring.  The most interesting point about it was really the giant limestone bluff that it was built on.  For any normal army, it would have required a siege to take.  For a group of dragons… it just meant that they didn't need to fly as low. 

They were led into the main hall, with the king and his personal guard in attendance.  The room was on the modest side for a king's chamber from Hiccup's admittedly minimal experience, with a low ceiling held up by periodically spaced wooden pillars.  Maybe fifteen by fifteen paces at most. 

The King was sitting in a throne, flanked by two warriors who stared at them with fear and anger.

Hiccup bowed and said, "Greetings, King Donnchadh mac Brian of Mumhan!  My name is Hiccup Horrendous Haddock; I am the herald of my father, Chief Stoick the Vast of Berk.  I bring you offers of peace and trade, as well as news from your neighbors."

The King stood; he was a man in his sixties, his hair having long since faded to white and gray.  His right hand was reduced to a stump, but he moved cleanly and with at least some agility, for all of his age and obvious battle injuries.  His stump had a prosthetic hand on it, a finely carved piece of wood in the shape of a hand, embellished with gold leaf and silver tracings, and detailed to the point that Hiccup could see that the artisan had even included gold fingernails.

"Why?" the king asked flatly. 

Hiccup just looked at him, a bit taken aback.  "Why what?"

"Why have you come, when you could just conquer my home as you have done with Adalwin?"

"Because we don't want to…" Hiccup said slowly, taken aback by the blatant accusation.  "Adalwin was attacking _us._  We had to deal with him and didn't want to leave the city leaderless just before winter."

The king scoffed.  "Likely story.  Where was his fleet and army with which he was attacking you?"

"He didn't have one. He was sending spies to—"

The king interrupted him, "I know that he didn't have an army worth speaking of.  And spies?  Feh.  Some threat.  So your tale just sounds to me like lies made up to excuse your conquest.  And your new holding has been causing me problems.  I will not be next on your list of conquests."  He snapped his fingers, and the guards drew their weapons.  "Sorry, boy.  Surrender, and you won't be harmed, and you'll be treated well."  The guards stepped forward.  "But I feel like bargaining with your father from a stronger position."

One of the two guards—the more fancily dressed one—grinned and said, "Please.  Resist."  He hefted his sword in a way that left no doubt as to his eagerness to use it. 

Hiccup heard both Astrid and Heather say from behind him, "Told you so," and he sighed… 

And _yanked_ on the cord around his belt, which snapped as designed. 

A half-dozen small lopsided glass spheres that had been dangling from around his waist fell to the floor and shattered, spraying out Zippleback gas into the room.  The sudden cloud of green gas startled the guards and gave them all a moment to run for cover. 

People started shouting, and there was the twang and thud of arrows hitting wood.  A meaty _thump_ sounded from nearby, and he heard Fishlegs give a cry of disgust.

"What's wrong?"

"Guard got between his hammer and the pillar!" Heather said back from somewhere nearby in the gas cloud. 

"Where are you!?" one of the guards called out in frustration; Hiccup could see his feet near the edge of the cloud.  A moment later, there was a twang of a bow and the sound of something _sharp_ hitting meat, and the guard bellowed in pain. 

Hiccup hit the floor and called out, "Clear?!"

His people shouted acknowledgments.  Drawing his sword, Hiccup ran his thumb over the sparker as he forced a yawn.

The concussion from the small cloud of Zippleback gas exploding was still enough to knock people down and blow out the thin-scraped hide in the windows—and almost knocked him out, despite his preparations.  At least he could still hear, thanks to the yawn, even though his ears were ringing a bit.

Astrid, having already known what his tactic would be, immediately popped out from behind the pillar where she had taken cover.  Aiming her crossbow at the senior guardsman as the man got back to his feet, she fired, grunting as the recoil of the stock rammed her shoulder—Hiccup had needed to pad her armor there in order to keep her from hurting herself on the crossbow.

The bolt flew straight and true and transfixed her target through the middle of his chest.  He screamed, collapsed and quickly went silent.  Next to him on the floor was the king, who had also been knocked down by the explosion.  He stared at his dying man, aghast, as Astrid dragged Hiccup with her over to the pillar.

Wulfhild, a focused scowl on her face, was standing behind another pillar as she nocked her bow, while Fritjof had taken position by the room's main door.  Three guardsmen were trying to get past him, but he was keeping them at bay, his sword and shield flashing and pounding against their weapons.  By the sounds of it, he was either having too much or not enough fun.

Hiccup lurched back to his feet—and heard a crunching _yelp_ from the side and glanced over.  Two of the other guards in the room had also gotten back to their feet… only to have Fishlegs plow through both of them with a table that he was carrying like a battering ram.  Both men were knocked prone again, and Fritjof dove out of the way as Fishlegs barricaded the door with the heavy oak table. 

Other guards were recovering from the explosion and staggering to their feet—and one of them suddenly screamed as one of Wulfhild's arrows nailed his hand to the wall.

Hiccup glanced at Wulfhild—she already had another arrow nocked, and as he watched, she fired.  Another guard found himself pinned to the floor with one of her arrows. 

A third charged at her, and she yelped and, panicked, shot him in the throat.

He fell.

Wulfhild looked sickened, but a bellow of challenge drew Hiccup's attention.  He turned, to see the king and a single remaining guard pointing weapons at him. 

Flicking the flame on his blade to life again, Hiccup charged towards them, hoping to get the man to yield and end the fight before anyone else got hurt. 

As the blade hissed, the king stared at him in understandable shock.  After all, a scant few heartbeats ago, the king had them outnumbered four to one.  Now, Hiccup was charging at him with a _flaming sword._

Then Hiccup could hear a distant whistle starting to rise. 

Uh oh.

Astrid, her crossbow slung across her back and her own ax flaming, moved up alongside him.  Making war cries—hers much more menacing than his—the two of them pressed the king and his guardsman, who were still looking stunned from the concussion of the explosion, blinking and shaking their heads as if to clear the ringing from his ears.

As Astrid lunged, the king staggered back out of her swing, his movements slightly uncoordinated, but he still managed to pull his own blade and bellow, "Heathens!  Devil worshipers!  What dark pacts of treachery have you made?"

Hiccup pointed his blade at the elderly king.  "You're the one who attacked a herald," he said.  "I wouldn't talk about treachery if I were you."

The king swung his blade at Hiccup, who managed to put Astrid's relentless drills from the last month into practice and blocked with his shield.  It helped that the king was still stunned from the explosion, judging by how his eyes didn't seem to be focusing correctly and he kept blinking. 

"I don't want to kill you!" Hiccup said, straining, as people outside started to scream, and he could hear the distinctive sounds of Nadder and Night Fury fire. 

"Pity that I cannot say the same!  My father broke the power of the Vikings in Eire once already!  I will not let you undo his legacy!" the old king said, trying to force Hiccup off balance with a shove of his sword. 

Next to them, the guard was trying to keep Astrid from flanking the king, but he suddenly screamed as an arrow sprouted from his shoulder, making his arm go limp.  Wulfhild gave a gasp of relief from behind them, and Astrid shieldbashed the man out of the way. 

Before they could flank the king, though, Hiccup heard Fishlegs and Heather retreating and shouting as the barricade by the door got shoved out of the way by a pack of guardsmen trying to reach the king. 

Hiccup and Astrid pressed the king as more screams issued from outside—and then the wall exploded in a rain of splinters as Meatlug bashed her way into the room, followed by the rest of their dragons. 

Hiccup turned and shouted, "Disable them!" as Astrid grunted in effort behind him.

The dragons seemed to hear him—and, amazingly, they listened.  Windshear, Stormfly and Mistletoe proceeded to knock the armed men into piles.  Nott and Delling used their tail to trip the guards, while Meatlug battered into the crowd like a ram. 

Toothless, however, ignored the guards completely to charge at Hiccup, who ducked, and there was a thud behind him.  Hiccup whirled back to see that Toothless had bowled over the King, who had apparently almost attacked Hiccup when his back had been turned.

The king was pinned, his sword knocked out of his hand and clattering to the floor—and Toothless inhaled. 

"No!" Hiccup shouted.  "That's enough!"  He turned to the room at large and looked at the pile of screaming men by the door.  "Stop!" 

 Toothless sighed and knocked away the King's sword with a small spit of fire, just before the man could reach out his arm to grab it.  The other dragons calmed, and instead started to bat away weapons and warriors like they were cats playing with captured mice. 

"Stop!  Yield!  Lay down your arms!  Surrender and you won't be harmed!" Hiccup called out again.  The Mumhan warriors, perhaps having a bit more of a sense for survival than their king, surrendered, dropping their weapons and raising their hands, staring down the throats of a half a dozen angry dragons who were clearly holding back their fire at _his_ order.

Hiccup looked down at the old King with a scowl, and hoisted him ungently to his feet and said harshly to him, "If I wanted you dead, you'd be _dead._   I came under parley, and you attacked!"

The king spat at him. 

Hiccup resisted the urge to deck the old man. 

"I will not bow to a heathen demon, nor his master!" the king barked.  "Kill me already.  I will die a martyr."

Hiccup looked at him and at the bodies littering the floor.  He snarled, "This is your fault!  I came to talk!"

"Why haven't you just killed me, boy?" the king demanded.

"Because enough people have died in here already!" Hiccup howled back.  Toothless snorted in agreement next to him.

That seemed to finally get through to the king, who scowled at him.  "Truly?  You believe that, when you could just kill me and take my kingdom?"

"Yes, I do!" Hiccup said, getting exasperated. 

"You are a pathetic excuse for a Viking," the king observed.  "You lack even the commitment to see your victory through."

Astrid scowled at him.  "Are you honestly complaining that he _isn't_ killing you?"  She hefted her ax.  "Because I can fix that."

Hiccup glared at her and she subsided.  Turning back to the King, he said, "Look.  I want peace.  If I wanted your kingdom, I'd _have_ it.  I'm not here to kill you!"

"Well, I will not surrender to you either."

Hiccup grimaced and clenched his fists.  "I'm not here to either kill you or conquer you!  What will it take to get you to understand that!?"

The king just stared at him and said nothing.

Hiccup grimaced, glared at the man, and then, with a cry of exasperation, he hopped on Toothless's back.  "Come on," he called to the others.  "We're leaving.  Since the old man doesn't want to talk, I have nothing left here to do."

As the others followed his orders, he turned to the king and pulled out a small scroll of parchment from a pouch on his belt.  "If you change your mind, send a herald to Vedrarfjord.  They will be treated with all courtesy and hospitality.  I want peace.  If you come with an army, I will smash it.  If you come with an open hand, I will shake it.  Am I clear?"  He dropped the parchment onto the floor with a scowl.  It contained the treaty terms that he had planned on presenting to the king.  It rolled away a bit and came to a stop against one of the bleeding bodies.  "C'mon, bud.  Let's go."

And with that, he and his friends took flight out through the hole in the wall. 

###

 **_Base of Beinn_ ** **_Ìme, Am Monadh, Alban Isles_ **

 

The sound of wind against the tent intruded on Inga's awareness first, but she pushed wakefulness away, not wanting to face it. 

But other points quickly followed the sound of the wind, including the hunger in her belly, the hands and dried sweat on her bare skin, and the memories of yesterday's events.

Hey eyes popped open, and she inhaled sharply. 

She and Dogsbreath were spooned together in the tent that he'd stolen, both of them naked under the equally stolen furs, his arms wrapped around her protectively.  Last night, when they'd made camp here, they'd fought, each of them blaming each other for their predicament, and then…

She didn't remember which of them had kissed the other first, and a _kiss_ was probably the wrong way of putting that angry near-biting mashing of teeth and lips.  They'd been so _angry_ with each other, her for his stupidity in taking her joke about shaving his father's beard and stealing his coffer _seriously,_ and him for… well, her thinking that he wouldn't _do_ it!  But they'd been so caught up in the angry passion of the kiss that they'd tumbled into the furs and…

Inga swallowed hard at the intense memories as they bubbled up, and tried to tamp down on the arousal they brought with them.  She hadn't been a virgin before last night, but she knew that Dogsbreath, for all of his boasting about his conquests, _had_ been _._   And she was hardly more experienced than he was, but the rage they'd both carried with them had made it incredibly intense.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart.  She was in _so_ much trouble.  Camilla would skin her alive with a dull rusty knife for this, with all of the warnings she'd given Inga.  She'd breached hospitality, and while she could have blamed Dogsbreath easily, it would have been so obvious and blatant a diversion that it would probably just compound her punishment.  And the worst part was that she _had_ been joking in the first place when she'd off-handedly mentioned the idea!

So now, instead of her original plan of taking Dogsbreath with her when the thaw arrived and abandoning him—naked, preferably, and stuck with the inn's bill—in Dubh Linn or someplace similar… she was now dependent on him for her survival, putting the shoe very much on the other foot.  And it pinched.

She took another deep breath and behind her, Dogsbreath stirred. 

"Inga?" he asked sleepily. 

She twisted and looked him over in the dim light.  Right now, this man and his dragon were her sole chance for evading punishment.  So she considered him.  Tall, burly, with long dark-blond hair and the beginnings of a beard, he was hardly ugly, and still filling out.  He just had a serious attitude problem when it came to women, to say the least.  Ordinarily, if not for leveling out the score for her mother, Inga wouldn't have considered him as an evening's bed partner… much less _this_.

But she wasn't exactly spoiled for choice. 

So she had to make sure that he wouldn't just turn around and hand her in…

She leaned in, gave him a kiss, and that deepened and led to… well, she couldn't call it _love_ making, not hardly.  But it was at least somewhat enjoyable, although Dog had a _lot_ to learn about being a decent bed partner.

Eventually, they rose from the furs and got dressed.  Dogsbreath, surprisingly, gave her a degree of privacy as she pulled her clothes back on and he did the same. 

At least lighting a fire was easy with his Nadder, a vain fellow that he'd named Redsnout.  Even the wet wood that they'd found lit quickly under the Nadder's breath. 

They ate in silence from the sack of provisions that he'd taken.  Finally, though, Dogsbreath asked, "Now what?"

She finished chewing her mouthful of day-old bread, swallowed, and said quietly, "We can't go back.   _I_ can't go back.  You might have been the one to do it, but it was _my_ suggestion," she said seriously.  "And it was a hospitality breach.  Can you imagine what Camilla and Stoick would do to me?"

Dogsbreath grimaced and nodded.  "And me.  Last winter, me and my cousin Snotlout went a-viking… not far from here, come to think of it, did a bit of a cattle raid.  And we got in such trouble…"  He swallowed and gave a pained nod.  "So we go.  Where?"

Inga crossed her arms.  "We've got a lot of money in… in your father's coffer.  So that's not a problem, at least.  But we can't stay in the Isles.  Anybody that sees us… and sees _him,"_ she pointed her thumb at Redsnout, "will report us to Berk like _that."_   She snapped her fingers.

Dogsbreath nodded, clearly following her thoughts, and thinking his own.  Finally, he said, "We could go join my cousin."

She blinked and tried to recall what she'd heard about him.  "Snotlout?  Didn't he leave for Greece?"

"Aye… and that's a long ways away, but there's Norsemen there, from what I heard, so we'd be able to talk to them."

Inga inhaled sharply; she hadn't even considered that point.  So she nodded and said, "Sounds like a plan.  Do you know how to get there?"

Dogsbreath nodded.  "It's someplace South.  I'm sure we can figure it out, right?"

###

**_Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

"How is he?"

Astrid looked up at Wulfhild as the other woman settled down in the nearby chair near the room's hearthfire.  She sighed and said, "Sulking still, with Toothless.  It… it really upset him."

Wulfhild grimaced.  "I… I can sympathize.  Astrid… I killed men today.   I mean, it was to protect us… but… but I just… just hear the _sounds_ they made… over and over…"

Astrid leaned over and hugged Wulfhild, who shook against her shoulder, silent tears wetting Astrid's shirt.  After a moment, Wulfhild sniffed and pulled back.  "I'm all right.  Thanks for that."  She settled back into the chair and smoothed her leggings.  "And… well, better them than us, right?"

Astrid nodded and said tartly, "You saw the looks that head guard was giving us, right?"

Wulfhild grimaced, but before she said anything, Heather's voice intruded.  "Yeah… I wouldn't want to be a woman prisoner in _his_ gaol."

Astrid and Wulfhild both looked up to see Heather standing nearby, leaning against a pillar.  She glanced over at the door to the small lounge.  "Fish is pretty shook up about it.  He's distracting himself by talking with your parents about finding some people with the necessary skills for some of the work we need done on Berk and seeing if they'd be willing to come."

Astrid nodded.  "Sounds like a good idea.  On both points."

Heather smiled slightly.  "Good."  She glanced at the doorway again.  "Is it a bad idea to go in there and say 'I told you so'?"

"Yes, it is," Hiccup's voice, much more gravelly than usual, intruded. 

They all jumped a bit, and then Astrid looked at her husband, who was clearly upset.  Behind him was Toothless, looking worried.

Heather sighed.  "Well, you brought me along for my advice.  And then you ignored it.  So… I _did_ tell you so."

"I didn't think—"

"Didn't think what?  That he'd ignore your status as herald to take you as hostage?" Heather asked.

Astrid nodded ruefully.  "You had to admit that it was a worry in your head, Hiccup.  Otherwise, why'd you make the Zipplebubbles?"

Hiccup grimaced at the mention of the gas-filled glass balls he'd made, which they'd used to such great effect.  "To prove that I could.  I brought them because they might be useful."  He stepped towards them slightly, and then leaned against the wall.  "But I didn't want to kill anyone.  But how many died because of us?"

Astrid narrowed her eyes.  "It was because of the king, love.  Not you."

"If we hadn't shown up, they would still be alive," he said petulantly.

"And if he hadn't ignored the rules and conventions of war, his men wouldn't have died," Heather rebutted.  "You would have been perfectly within your rights to kill the king and take his kingdom for that kind of breach—"

"No," Hiccup said in that iron-hard tone which Astrid heard so rarely. 

Heather pursed her lips as Astrid stood and stepped over to him.  "And why not?" Heather asked as Astrid gently put her arm around Hiccup's back.  Toothless gently headbutted her leg, and she used her other arm to pat him on the snout.  "Hiccup, you're a good man, and you asked me to come along to give advice.  That's my advice."

"Right.  To walk in, kill a bunch of people, and say that we're in charge now?" he said sarcastically.  "Just because we _could?"_

"Yes," Heather said flatly.  "Look, Hiccup, your ideals are great, but you left the king alive after he had essentially _declared war_ on you, on _us!"_

"And I told him that I was open for peace, and that if he brought an army, I'd stop it," Hiccup said.  "Give him some time to think, and the fact that we _showed him mercy,_ and I'm sure he'll want a treaty."

Heather sighed.  "There's a difference between being merciful and being foolish.  You should have realized by now that the world is far nastier and crueler than you hoped it would be, and you _need_ to toughen up."

Astrid felt Hiccup tense—even more than he was already, which was impressive—and he stared at Heather, clearly appalled.  "What?  What did you just say?"

Heather bit her lip and said flatly, "You left the king alive back there and you shou—"

Hiccup interrupted and barked, "Yes, I did!  You know why? Because I _didn't have to kill him!"_  

Astrid commented, "He practically demanded it."

"Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't doing what the 'enemy' _wants_ you to do a _bad idea?"_ Hiccup said sarcastically.  "You heard him!  He'd be a martyr!  So we'd _actually_ be at war with an entire _coiced_ , all of whom would be _pissed_ at the Vikings who just killed their king!"

Heather crossed her arms and gave him a flat look.  "True, but we could still defeat them.  So that's not why you did that."

"Of course that's not why I did that!" Hiccup said, taking a few paces around the room, spreading his arms out and waving them before turning back to glare at Heather.  "You're wrong.  I realize _plenty_ about how nasty and cruel the world is.  I've heard stories all my _life_ about what people can do to each other, seen tribute extorted from us, seen brutalized men and women try to rebuild themselves from what's been done to them.  I _know_ that people can be cruel and vile.  It's what's going to cause Ragnarok, really, when you look at it!"

Astrid blinked.  "Huh?  What?  Ragnarok will happen because Loki gets loose from his bonds and he goes off and joins the _jotunn_ against Asgard."

He stepped over to the room's hearth and looked into the flames.  Not looking at any of them, he asked quietly, "And _why_ was Loki bound in the first place?"

As Toothless stepped over next to Hiccup and curled up next to the hearth, Wulfhild said softly, "Because he killed Baldr, Odin's son."

"And why did he do _that?"_ Hiccup asked, still looking into the flames.

Astrid shared a questioning look with Wulfhild and Heather, and then suggested, "Because he's unpredictable like that?"

"Oh, there was some of that, for sure," Hiccup said, absently giving Toothless a head-scratch.  "But he didn't exactly make a habit of killing before then, now did he?"

Astrid paused to think, and then shook her head.  "No…"

"Exactly.  No, he did _it_ —killed Odin's son—because of how Odin had treated _Loki's_ children, despite them being oath-bound friends.  The All-Father was cruel, and he banished and bound Fenrir, Jǫrmungandr and Hel.  And Loki got _revenge_ for those acts.  And Odin _did_ it in the first place because he was _afraid."_   He looked up at the three of them, and Astrid saw that his face was set in determination.  "He was _afraid!_ Of what _might_ happen!  And because he was afraid of it, he _created_ it!"

Astrid blinked.  She'd never thought of it that way… but Hiccup was right. 

"So, now you're telling me that I should have killed the king because of what might happen.  That he _might_ lead an army against us."  He looked back into the fire.  "That sounds like the All-Father's mistake.  So, let's go back.  We kill the king.  Son of Brian Bóruma, the man who fought Vikings _like us_ at Clontarf twenty-something years ago.  Word gets out.  The fact that he attacked us first doesn't matter.  We made a martyr, just as he wanted.  How does Mumhan and the other _cóiceda_ react to that?  He has an heir, doesn't he?  What does _he_ do?" 

Heather made a noise.  "Oh… shit."

"Yeaaaah," Hiccup drawled angrily.  "If we did that, we might have made a _new_ High King, who would have _every_ reason to make a war against us."  He waved his arms and then ran his hands through his hair.  "But that's all the politics.  And while I've been thinking on that… _that's not the reason I did it_."  He turned away from the fire and looked Heather dead in the eye.  "Odin was cruel to Loki and his children because he saw that they would be a threat—and in that cruelty, he created the threat that would end him."  He patted Toothless on the snout, and the dragon purred.  "For three hundred years, we fought against dragons.  We all _knew_ that they were threats, right?  They stole food, burned houses, invaded our village…"

Astrid nodded, seeing where he was going with this.  "And it turned out that fighting… that the _rules_ were wrong?"

He gave a tight smile to her.  "Exactly.  And I haven't always had a _choice!_   We had to fight the Green Death or the tribe would die.  We _had_ to destroy Harthacnut's fleet or the tribe would die."  He swallowed hard, but said in a pain-filled voice, "And if King Donnchadh doesn't… doesn't _listen,_ if, if he comes with an army to destroy this city and Veisafjord… if he wastes the chance I just gave him, I'll… I'll…"  He looked down and clenched his hands.  "I'll do what I have to to save lives."

"We know you will, babe," Astrid said softly, and put a hand on his shoulder. 

He bowed his head and then snapped it up and glared at Heather.  "But if I have a _choice?!_   Yeah, I'll spare lives!  I'll leave the king alive!  I'll pull people from the water!  I'll save every single life I can!  And I don't care what the _rules_ or _customs_ say about it being okay to just _kill!_  I _refuse!"_

Heather looked down and away.  "I… I got it."  She snorted, the sound tired and bitter. 

"What?" Wulfhild asked. 

Heather bit her lip and looked at Wulfhild, and then at Hiccup and Astrid where they were sitting by the fire.  "If… if Hiccup took my advice… if he became the kind of person who _wouldn't_ have made friends with Toothless and the other dragons…"  She swallowed painfully, and continued, "I'd be a pleasure thrall in Ímar mac Arailt's bed right now."  She looked down at her hands, lying limply in her lap.  "Toiréasa would still be Eochaid's thrall.  And…" she trailed off.

Astrid grimaced at the mention of King Ímar of Dubh Linn, whom they'd met just a few days before, and who was indeed a monster; he'd politely sneered at their overtures of peace, and had bluntly asked how much it would cost to hire them as mercenaries… or buy their dragons like they were thralls. 

Still holding onto Hiccup, she motioned with her head to Wulfhild.  Her friend nodded, went over and hugged Heather, who leaned into the embrace. 

The crackle of the fire was the only sound in the room, and Astrid found herself gently stroking Hiccup's back.

Eventually, Hiccup said quietly, "And that's why, Heather.  Can you work with that?"

Heather nodded.  "I can."

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

"Sigurd!" the voice hissed, intruding on his dreams. 

He moaned and rolled over. 

" _Sigurd!"_   Someone poked him in the side, hard, pulling him out of the first sound sleep he'd had in days.

Yelping, Sigurd tried to pull the blanket up over his head, only to have it yanked down off of him.

Swearing, he looked up to see Gudmund standing over him, his dark skin glistening with sweat, breathing hard and holding Sigurd's blanket. 

"What!?" Sigurd demanded, flinging his pillow at his friend.  "…been taming dragons all week… let me sleep…" he mumbled tiredly and a bit petulantly. 

Gudmund glanced him over for a moment and then threw the blanket back over Sigurd, who realized he was dressed only in his linen short pants.  "Well, that might not be a problem any longer if you don't get a move on, right now!" Gudmund said urgently. 

"Why?" Sigurd said, pulling himself to a seated position, yawning and stretching. 

"Because the Emperor just ordered one of _his_ men to take over the dragon taming!  He's going to be going in to start taming the dragons himself any moment—"

"Shit!" Sigurd's stretch suddenly turned into a cramp as he tried to relax and move at the same time. 

Gudmund helped him throw on his uniform and grab his dragon-taming tools, and the two of them bolted for the training pit.

Sigurd could hear screaming as they approached. 

"Sounds like your job is safe," Gudmund observed as they ran flat out, both of them panting.

"Great," Sigurd bit out.  "Now is the dragon safe too?"

The guards at the entrance saw him coming, and crossed their spears. 

"You're not allowed entry, sir!" Tetrarch Georgios, the usual guard for the training pit, said anxiously… glancing back over his shoulder at the sounds of screaming and fire coming from behind him.

Sigurd scowled.  "I don't have time for this!"  He moved forward and bashed his helmeted head into Georgios' chest, making the bigger man _whuff_ out his breath.  As Georgios staggered back, Sigurd snatched his spear out of his hands and blocked the second guard's spear jab with his new weapon.  Gudmund then tackled the second guard.  Shouting thanks, Sigurd bolted into the training pit's upper platform and made a beeline for the net, dropping the spear as he went. 

Climbing up onto the fence, he leapt out across the pit and onto the chain net; while the holes were too small for a dragon to escape, he fit through easily.  Dangling from the chain, he saw the dragon—one of the Hydra—chasing around a Greek man. 

One of the heads spotted him and spat a blast of fire in his direction.

He yelped and let go of the chain.  As the fire passed over his head, he dropped, and managed to get into a roll onto the soft sand of the training pit, his bones protesting but otherwise unharmed.

Getting to his feet, he ran _towards_ the Hydra, and pulled out what he'd hoped he wouldn't need to use from his satchel.

The dragon recoiled and fled as the brightly colored eel—purchased from a fishmonger's stall in the market the day before—flopped in Sigurd's hands. 

"Get out of here!" he bellowed at the cowering soldier.  "And take those idiot weapons with you!"

The man didn't need to be told twice, and bolted for the gate.

Sigurd turned back to the poor Hydra.  There were a few wounds and welts on its hide, and Sigurd shot a glare at the fleeing man.  But there wasn't time for that, so he put the eel away and worked at calming down the poor dragon.

It spat a bolt of fire at him, and he caught it on his jacket.  The heat made a few of his hairs curl up in pungent smoke, but he was otherwise unharmed. 

Grimacing, he stepped forward and got to work.

Other soldiers arrived around the rim of the pit just as he started to get the dragon under control.  The sound of fifty bowstrings getting pulled back  drew both his attention and the Hydra's.

They turned together and looked.  The Emperor was flanked by dozens of archers, and Gudmund was being restrained by two other men nearby. 

All of the archers had their bows pointed at him and the Hydra.

With a bravado he didn't feel, Sigurd hopped up on the Hydra's back and pointed the dragon's three heads towards the rim of the pit and the soldiers standing there… although he was careful not to point them at the Emperor.

"I don't think that the other guy did a very good job!" Sigurd called out in slow Greek from his spot between the dragon's wings.  "If not for me, we'd be down one very _expensive_ dragon right now!"

"We could find more," the Emperor said flatly.  "But you're right."

He and the Emperor continued to stare at each other for a moment, and then Sigurd asked, "So, whose bright idea was this?"

The Emperor's eyes narrowed, but he said, "One of my generals.  He assured me that his man would be able to break the dragons to the saddle without your dancing around."

Sigurd snorted loudly.  "Yes, and that worked _so_ well!"

"Apparently."

Sigurd eyed the archers, and hoped that their arms weren't getting tired.  "By the way, you _do_ know that shooting a dragon with an arrow is just about the stupidest thing you can do?"

"Watch your tongue, Varangian," the Emperor said curtly.

Sigurd shrugged.  "Sire, it's my duty and my oath to protect you.  Which means that I need to warn you that _dragons explode_ when you shoot them wrong," Sigurd said.  "And the more arrows, the more chances to shoot them wrong." 

"You're bluffing.  You're trying to save your own skin!"

Sigird put his hands on his hips.  "Where do you think the fire comes from?  One of those arrows hits where they store it and… _phooosh!"_   He waved his arms to mimic an explosion.  "I'm trying to protect you!  Please, listen and let me!"

The Emperor seemed to consider that, and waved for the archers to lower the bows.  They did so, but they didn't put them away.

"Look, milord," Sigurd said, laying it on thick, "I came here to serve.  I took oath to you.  I've been nothing but helpful.  I agreed to train dragons for you.  Just let me do my job."

The Emperor scowled. 

Sigurd gently put his hands on the necks of the Hydra, who purred from three throats.  "Look, if you _want_ dragons to ride, you _need_ me.  Let Gudmund go.  He's with me, and I need him to help."

His gaze met the Emperor's, and the two of them stared at each other for a long moment, until the Emperor looked away.  "Bah!  Fine.  But I want _my_ dragon ready by the end of the week!  Or you'll be joining Harald for failure to follow orders!"

Sigurd bowed.  "As my liege commands."  It was a bit of a fight to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but he managed. 

A few minutes later, he had the Hydra back in its pen, and Gudmund—working out the kinks in his shoulders—came down to him.  "You're insane.  He's going to kill you as soon as he doesn't need you anymore."

Sigurd patted Gudmund on the shoulder.  "Well, I guess that means I'll just need to keep being useful for as long as possible."

Gudmund snorted as the two of them walked up the ramp.  "And maybe the horse will learn to sing!"

###

**_A Dungeon, Faaborg, Denmark_ **

 

Markus shivered in the cold cell.  He'd been in here for a month, awaiting trial, along with a dozen other men from ships that had fled the slaughter. 

The sound of the key in the lock to the dungeon made them all look up.  They were only fed once a day, and they were so hungry…

Then Markus noticed that not _all_ of them were looking up.  

"Frej!  Wake up!" he said, and tried to rouse the other man, who had been on the same ship as him…

And then he noticed that Frej's skin was too cold.  And the man wasn't breathing.

He shrank back as the door opened, and turned and said, "Frej is dead!"

The guards sneered, but took the body.  Then the guard with the food said, "Ah, well.  Guess we won't be needing this, then," and poured the small bowl of thin porridge back into the steaming pot.  He handed out the other bowls with a sadistic smirk. 

Markus took his bowl gratefully, his stomach rumbling.  "When… when will we be tried?" he asked, as he always did. 

"When the King says that you'll be tried," the guard said, as _he_ always did.  "But if you'd do yourself a favor, you'd lay down and die like that other poor sod.  You're guilty, cowards all of you, and you're going to die." 

The second guard, one of the ones armed with a baton in case the prisoners started anything, snorted.  "That dead one was obviously guilty."

"What?" Markus asked, shivering as he ate.  The guards wouldn't let them keep the bowls or utensils, and if you took too long, they'd take them back, along with any unfinished food. 

"Aye.  A weak coward like that?  He gave up rather than face justice for his crimes," sneered the guard. 

"That's about right," said the one with the food.  "An _innocent_ man would keep going, because he would know that he'd be cleared."  He smirked.  "None of you lot are going to make it through the winter."

Markus, his stomach still grumbling at the small portion, handed the empty bowl back.  "I will."

The guards laughed.  "Right, _sure_ you will!"

They left and shut the door.  Markus knew better than to have asked them about his family's fate.  He had nightmares from what they'd said last time he'd asked…

###

**_Mead Hall, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

The doors to the mead hall opened and Stoick looked up to see his son and the rest of his retinue shuffle in from the dingy gray afternoon, all of them looking tired and cold.  "How did it go?" he asked, noting thankfully that they were all hale and hearty. 

His son sagged bonelessly into the seat across from Stoick and sighed.  "Could've been worse.  Could've been better."

Astrid and Wulfhild sat down next to Hiccup.  Astrid looked up and shrugged at Stoick with an air of exasperation before she said, "Did you get the report we left with my parents?"

Stoick nodded.  "Aye, but it was a bit short.  So, what happened?"

Wulfhild, rubbing her hands together, said, "Some were interested.  Some weren't."

"Emphatically so," Hiccup groused.

Astrid nodded.  "Mumhan's king tried to take us hostage."  Stoick frowned at her and she continued, "It didn't work well for him.  Hiccup insisted on leaving him alive, but he's in for a chilly winter."

"And the rest?" Stoick asked, still frowning, and noting that Hiccup looked depressed.  Well, Astrid would take care of that.  Stoick had approved of her effects on his son's moods and temper before they had gotten married.  Something about Moping Boyfriend Dunking, she'd mentioned to him once… plus, more seriously, he remembered her standing vigil over him when he'd gotten dead drunk after the battle. 

Astrid looked to Wulfhild, who nodded and straightened in her seat.  Clearly organizing her thoughts, she paused and then said in a level tone, "Conchobar ua Mael Sechlainn of Mide—the southern Uí Néill—was cautiously interested in a non-aggression treaty and some trade, and believed us about Eochaid's behavior.  Ímar mac Arailt of Dubh Linn was insulting and dismissive, and basically dared us to try to stop the thrall trade…"

Stoick raised an eyebrow.  "He did, did he?"  He chuckled.  "Oh… I'm tempted… but I won't approve an unprovoked attack on him."  That was his philosophy.  He didn't start fights, but, by Thor, he _finished_ them.    Even with the temptation to simply go a-viking and deal a death blow to the thralldom trade that he so detested, he wasn't going to go picking fights.  It wasn't who he was.  

"Pity.  And he tried to buy our dragons from us and hire us as mercenaries," Wulfhild said tartly.  "If only he'd acted like the King of Mumham…?" she looked at him wistfully, but Hiccup gave an irritated snort that made her nod and continue.  "Murchad mac Dúnlainge of Laighin signed eagerly… and then we accidentally conquered the town in the south of his kingdom."  She shrugged a bit sheepishly. 

Hiccup deadpanned, "We went back and apologized this time."

Stoick snorted.  "I heard about Veisafjord.  And your solution for how to handle it should work, so good work there."

Hiccup gave a small smile.  "So we talked with King Murchad and he's willing to let us work on the lands between Vedrarfjord and Veisafjord so long as he can tax them."

Stoick snorted again and rolled his eyes.  "Of course."

"We also went to King Donnchadh mac Brian…" Wulfhild said, and Hiccup leaned down and put his head on his forearms, "and well, that didn't go so well.  Tried to take us prisoner… we fought back…"

"And a whole lot of people died that didn't need to," Hiccup said, muffled.

Astrid patted him on the back of his head, and he sighed. 

"Uh… the kings of Corcaigh and Hylmrekr both begged off signing anything now, but they said that they'd send envoys to Thawfest… Uh…"  Wulfhild's eyes looked upwards and she was counting off on her fingers.  "Art Uallach Ua Ruairc of Connacht didn't want to commit one way or the other.  Very polite, and didn't really say anything of substance.  And Niall mac Máel Sechnaill of the northern Uí Néill basically took one look at what we've signed with Ulaid and matched it.  So they'll be freeing their _daer-fuidiri_ and need help with their ring-forts as well."

Stoick nodded.  "And is that it?"

Wulfhild looked at the others and Stoick followed her eye.  Heather had the proud look of a teacher watching a successful pupil, while Fishlegs was rustling around in his saddlebags and producing a stack of rolled-up parchments—presumably the treaties and the like.  Hiccup was leaning up against Astrid, who was wordlessly rubbing his back… and Fritjof was standing off to the side, aloof. 

Turning to the old raider, Stoick asked, "How did it go from your perspective?"

Fritjof shrugged from side to side.  "Fairly well.  Your boy depends on clever tricks more than swordplay, but I can't argue with the results.  Six of us took on two dozen of them and held them off long enough for the dragons to come to the rescue at Mumhan." He glanced derisively at Hiccup.  "Of course, the boy is beating himself up over the ones that decided to try to attack a group under a flag of truce and paid the price for it.  He's too softhearted." 

Hiccup picked up his head and scowled at the old raider.  "I'd like to think you'd be happy if I was just as worried about your life as I was theirs."

"Boy, I hurt people and kill them as a profession.  Your tenderheartedness is an insult to what I do.  I followed your lead because I was oathsworn, but I just saw a man with more charity than brains leave a live enemy at his back.  Great gesture.  Appalling tactics.  And if you think that _more_ won't die because of it, you're a fool."

"That's enough, Fritjof.  I release you from your oath, as you have completed your mission," Stoick said. 

"Thank you, chief.  I'm going home, unless you have any more questions."

"No.  As you've noted, you're not one for questions of diplomacy."

"Aye, ain't that the truth.  Good night."

As Fritjof walked off, Stoick turned to Hiccup.  "So, son, sounds like you did your best and I'm impressed."

Hiccup just looked at him with a frown.  "I was just hoping…"  He sighed.  "I was hoping to do better.  Instead, we had to kill a whole bunch of the Mumhan guards, and the king was basically daring us to kill him.  I just don't understand how he can _think_ that way…"

Stoick patted him on the shoulder.  "You went to over a dozen Viking and Eirish kings and only got attacked once?  And you convinced, what, a quarter of them to listen to you?  Hiccup, _the gods_ couldn't have done as well."

His son moaned and pounded his head on the table.  "I'm not a god.  Why do people keep _saying_ that?"

Stoick looked up in confusion. 

Astrid shrugged and said, "When we visited my parents in Vedrarfjord, this whole crowd of freedmen and other people showed up outside the fort and… asked?… if they could see Hiccup.  And…" she paused, clearly thinking on how to describe what happened.

Hiccup said to his knees, "And they all started bowing and calling me a god like Baldr and saying that I was their lord and it was so _utterly_ creepy."

Astrid shrugged.  "Yeah, basically that."

Stoick just started laughing.

Hiccup looked up at him, misery on his face.  "What's so funny?  Dad, I'm…"

"You're their hero, son, and you're complaining that they're treating you like it?  Aye, son, you are a good man and they recognize that."

He groaned and put his head back down, and Astrid, rolling her eyes, patted him on the shoulder.

Stoick looked at his son.  "Hiccup.  Either accept that you're a hero to people and that some will accept you and praise you and others will fear you, or stay home and don't do anything.  I'm proud to call you my son either way.  But you can't escape the fact that you have done great things."

His son looked up at him, his eyes tired and worn.  "Dad… I… I feel like a fake some days."

Stoick just looked at the young man who a scant year and a half before had been overconfident and headstrong and a repeated source of chaotic disasters. 

And raised an eyebrow.

"A fake _what_?  Not a fake Viking.  You've beaten enemies that many of us could not dream of.  A fake hero?  Ha!  A fake son?  I'm pretty sure that I'd argue against that…"

Hiccup's expression was deadpan.  "Ha.  Ha.  Sorry, Dad. I'm just tired and—"

Abruptly, Astrid took one arm and Wulfhild took the other and together they lifted him out of his seat.  "Okay, Hiccup, that's enough wallowing in unjustified self-pity," Wulfhild said. 

"You've been like this for days," Astrid said.

"And we've had enough of it," Wulfhild said. 

Astrid continued, "We're taking you home."

"And we're going to make you make us sing your praises," Wulfhild said. 

"Are we done, chief?" Astrid asked.

Stoick laughed.  "Far be it for me to suggest otherwise!  Take him away, ladies!"

Hiccup blushed and quipped, "But I have a terrible singing voice!" as the two women proceeded to haul him off.

Wulfhild chortled, and Astrid said, "That's all right.  We have other uses for your mouth."

One of the onlookers burst out laughing, and Hiccup's arms, for all of his mock-resisting, were slung fondly around Wulfhild's shoulders and Astrid's waist.  As the three of them bantered and joked fondly on their way out the door, Stoick just gave them a little wave.

Gobber walked over, a wide grin on his face and tamping down on a laugh.  "Every bit the boar-headed stubborn Viking that you are."

"Aye, and he has _two_ Valkas, and I only had the one," Stoick said in bittersweet reply.  _Ah, love, if you could see our son now.  He proved you right.  So very right.  You'd be so proud of him, in every way._

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

"Well… here we go…" Sigurd said quietly. 

Gunnar clapped him on the shoulder.  "Sigurd.  This will be an event that will go down in history.  You should feel proud and accomplished."

Sigurd looked up at his friend and nodded.  "Yeah…"  He swallowed.  "And if things go poorly…"

Gunnar nodded.  "I will see to Hookfang's needs and protection."  He bowed.  "You have my word."

Sigurd looked around his group of friends… and Thorred.  Well, no, that was unfair.  The Dane was a good man… just a _terrible_ skald. 

Ben glanced around the corner.  "Just about time, Sig.  You ready?"

Sigurd nodded.  "I've got those dragons as calm as I can manage."

Hrafn bowed.  "This will be a historic day, that's for certain."  He sighed wistfully.

Gudmund snorted.  "And if the history part is 'Emperor Michael the Fifth got eaten by a dragon because he couldn't be bothered to listen', we'll be sure to loot some fresh spices in your memory, Sigurd." 

They all laughed. 

Sigurd did a last check of his equipment and left; his friends would be guarding Hookfang.  Officially, they'd help restrain the Nightmare and any other dragon if they ended up going out of control, but if worst came to worst…

They were good friends.

A minute later, Sigurd led Emperor Michael down the ramp and into the training pit.  His personal squad of Varangians were unhappy; while they were armored, they had no weapons, and were anxious about the Emperor being in range of the dragons. 

Sigurd's preparations paid off, though.  The various dragons—one of each breed, for a total of eight—perked up at seeing him there.  He walked up to his new friends and started rubbing snouts and giving neck scratches in those areas where they couldn't reach. 

Behind him, the Emperor seemed to be trying to put on an air of confidence, but Sigurd saw that his hands were shaking. 

Walking back over to the Emperor, he said, "Which one do you wish, milord?"

The Emperor blinked at him, stunned, and startled when Sigurd repeated the question, and then just looked over the dragons—sunning themselves, relaxing, or badgering Sigurd for rubs and scratchings—with his eyes wide. 

Sigurd basked in his shock for a minute or so, hiding it as he gave the Scylla a neck-rub.  The dark-skinned dragon—almost as dark as a Night Fury—had a long neck that could extend out, and the dragon adored it when Sigurd gave her a scratch in the folds of skin. 

Finally, Sigurd coughed as the Emperor continued to stare.  "Milord, may I make a suggestion?" Sigurd asked.

"Yes…?"

"I've trained them all at least a bit with the saddle.  I'll fly with you, and you can see which of them you like best, or which seems to get along with you the best?"

The Emperor nodded slowly, and then more quickly.  "I… yes.  Let us try that."

Sigurd walked forward to the Colchia, which rubbed up against him like an affectionate cat, sniffing at the satchel containing the dragon-nip.  He laughed and gave the spiky dragon an affectionate horn buff, and motioned the Emperor forward. 

Gingerly, he did so, looking at the dragon with eyes nearly as wide as the dragon's—and that was saying something, as, according to legend, they never slept and never missed seeing anything. 

Finally, the pair of them were on the saddle's back, the Emperor holding on tightly behind Sigurd—tighter than their past flights—and they took off.

Since they had eight dragons to go through, Sigurd didn't want to go far, so they just did a circuit around the city walls.  It was a gentle flight—Sigurd didn't want to overdo it, even though he was _sorely_ tempted, but he didn't want to end up sharing the cell with Harald—and fifteen minutes later, they landed back at the training pit.

Michael dismounted and looked over the Colchia, who sniffed at him and then sneezed, before turning and shaking his head at Sigurd.  "Not this one."

There was a sudden hush above, as the Empress Zoe had arrived.  She'd taken the Emperor's usual seat, and was watching in awe as her adopted son and Sigurd mounted the playful Campe for her turn around the city.  The Emperor didn't acknowledge her beyond a polite nod as they flew out.

Once they reached a cruising height, the Emperor spoke to Sigurd. 

"Lower!  Right over the streets so that my people can see me on a dragon!"

Sigurd laughed and gently had her take them just over the streets below. 

People looked up as they buzzed overhead, and gasped and pointed.  Even after several months of Sigurd and Hookfang flying over the city, they still stared in awe, and he and the Emperor waved.  Realizing who the richly dressed figure must be, people cheered.

As the afternoon progressed, the Emperor became more comfortable with the dragons, but, to Sigurd's satisfaction, he treated them with the respect they deserved.

At least for now. 

And then came the important moment.

The Emperor, coached by Sigurd, reached out his hand as the sun was beginning to grow low on the horizon, and the Scylla bumped her snout against his palm.

The watching crowd continued to whisper among themselves, not realizing the significance of what had just happened.

That was honestly fine with Sigurd.  The last thing he needed right now was for the dragon to get startled. 

As the two of them bonded, he hopped on Hookfang's back, giving his best friend a solid rubbing in apology for ignoring him all day, and then he and the Emperor, and their dragons, took flight.


	52. The Question Of Justice

**Chapter 52: The Question Of Justice**

 

_The legal status of dragons has nearly always been that of a minor child legally beholden to and dependent on an adult human.  While the fact that dragons are fully sentient and sapient individuals was very quickly apparent, even to the early dragon-riders, the fact also remains that, outside of a few exceptional individual dragons, a typical dragon's abstract reasoning skills and higher order thinking processes range around those of a five- or six-year-old human child.  While dragons have their own language capable of communicating abstract concepts, much like those of corvids, prior to their integration with human society it was still extremely primitive, with even the most complex regional dialects only consisting of perhaps a thousand words.  Simply put, dragons aren't quite intelligent enough to be humanity's full intellectual partners.  Hence their legal status._

_At present, dragon-riders essentially adopt the dragon in a civil bond away from the legal trusts of the Brooderies, who corporately act as the dragons' legal guardians until and unless they are bonded to a rider.  With the bond between rider and dragon holding a legal status similar to that of a marriage or child adoption, dragon-riders are, presently, entirely responsible for the behavior of their dragon, and have obligations to the dragon in kind (food, housing, medical care, etc.)._

_Ideally, it is a partnership between near-equals, where the human gives their hands and brains, and the dragon gives their wings._

_—The Dragon Law: A Primer On Dragons And Jurisprudence, 1744, London_

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

**_February, AD 1042_ **

****

Wulfhild lay in bed with Hiccup and Astrid, the three of them grinning and panting slightly. 

After dragging Hiccup home from the mead hall, they'd cleaned him and themselves up from the rigors and mess of travel and then messed themselves right back up again; her own waist-length hair was currently gnarled into sweat-stuck ropes and yarns all over her body, Hiccup's hair was stuck up in amusing little spikes, and Astrid's shoulder-length hair was every bit as bad as her own.

"Well…" she drawled in a yawning voice, her body still shuddering a bit from the aftershocks of pleasure, "we asked for a command performance… and I think that you delivered."

Astrid smiled sleepily and Hiccup gave a tired and smug smile.  "Thank you, thank you," he said in a happy, if tired, tone.  "I mean, I think my hands are going to be cramped into claws for the next day, but…"

Wulfhild kissed him.  "You are entirely too smug at the moment for your own good."  She smirked and leaned in, propped up on one hand.  "Even with those magic hands of yours."

"Humph," he said with a satisfied smirk that made Wulfhild grin in response.  "Please.  They're not magic.  It's _skill._ "

From his other side, Astrid chimed in, "It really is.  Be glad that you managed to join in after he'd had a chance to train on me, Wulf."  She gave a happy sounding sigh as Hiccup's smile turned sheepish.  "Of course, all of that was more fun than not, especially once he got started…"

Wulfhild laughed, and she smiled at the two of them.  "How long did you two…?"

Astrid, her head also propped up on her hand, looked over at her.  "Well… last winter, we didn't have much to do aside from spend time together and work in the smithy…  but that was just awkward fumbling at first."

Hiccup groaned at some memory and flopped back down onto the mattress.  "Very awkward."

"Gloriously, hilariously awkward," Astrid confirmed with a smirk.  "But we didn't have our first time in _full_ until we got to Norway."

Wulfhild quirked an eyebrow and felt her cheeks heat.  She said as lightly as she could manage, "And I was under the impression that you'd been lovers for months, from the way that you acted together."

"Define 'lovers'," Astrid said, her smirk deepening.  "If you mean the sort of… _things_ that would have required me to perjure myself when I wore my krasen circlet, then, no, we didn't until that first night in your brother's kingdom.  For lips… and fingers… and tongues…" she licked her own lips and caressed Hiccup's hands, making him moan and Wulfhild  gave a little heated giggle, "well, we started playing around with each other a little after last Thawfest."

Wulfhild felt her cheeks flush more; even though she was naked in bed with both of them, and having just _enjoyed_ Hiccup's use of said body parts, there was still a frisson of embarrassment, and she envied Astrid for her frankness.  Trying to emulate her friend, she laughed and looked at the two of them.  "You managed to hold off from _this_ for months?"

"Yep.  Of course, well," Astrid gave a languid little wave to indicate the entirety of Berk, "this place is small, and people would have noticed and talked if we took the time for that."

Wulfhild nodded, her smile widening.  "And, besides… you were having enough fun… exploring?"

Hiccup laughed.  "Oh, yeah.  The first time I…" he wriggled his fingers suggestively and Astrid moaned in memory, "well, it took me a few minutes to understand that, no, I wasn't hurting her."

"Far from it," his wife said with a satisfied smirk, and plunked her head down on his sweaty chest.  "So… Hiccup, are you feeling better?"

It was apparently the wrong thing to ask; Wulfhild watched the light withdraw from his expression and turn inward, and he sighed.

"Astrid… no.  Look, we killed people.  People that didn't need to die."

Wulfhild scowled and poked him in the ribs.  "So, you're saying that I should have let those guardsmen that were coming to kill you do that?"

"No, but…" he flailed his arms a bit.  "Look.  I… I was thinking about what Heather said.  And while I still don't think I need to 'toughen up', I made a mistake there—in assuming that everything would be fine and he'd act just like all the other kings, even though I knew that his dad was the old High King—and Vedrarfjord's neighbor.  I should have thought of that, and I didn't.  And so all the people who died… that's on me."

She and Astrid shared a commiserating look, and then Wulfhild spoke up. 

"So, Hiccup.  I want to make sure I understand this completely.  We walked in there to negotiate both peace and a mutually beneficial relationship with them, right?"

"Yes…"

"And we had gone in prepared to have to fight our way out if necessary, right?"

"Yes, but I didn't think—"

She put a finger over his lips.  "And we had already talked with several other kings, right?"

"And that had all gone pretty well," Astrid interjected, an eyebrow raised sardonically.  "We walked in, we talked, maybe you got some of what you wanted, and some of what you didn't."

Wulfhild nodded.  "Now, a bunch of that was because they felt that you were threatening them—coming in with dragons and everything—but, still, at the end of it, we got attacked _once._   Over nine out of ten kings and chiefs that we went to were willing to listen.  And you're blaming _yourself_ for the fact that one of them _wasn't?_ "

"I… no… yes…"

Wulfhild rolled her eyes and gave Astrid an exasperated look.  Astrid shrugged, making a few of the furs slid off her shoulders, and she said to him, "Hiccup.  Why are you blaming yourself?"

"Because…" he flailed his hands and shoulders passionately, "because… because if we hadn't… they'd be alive if we hadn't gone there!" he said in frustration.

Astrid looked a little taken aback, while Wulfhild just sighed and stroked his chest.  "Hiccup.  Do you also blame yourself for the deaths of those two traitors back in Nidaros?"

"Huh?  What do they have to do with it?"

Wulfhild sighed again.  "Everything.  Look, your line of thinking goes like this as I understand it."  She ran her nails up his chest and he shivered, and then she poked him lightly with one nail at his left shoulder.  "Start at the beginning.  Why were we there?  Because we are doing a necessary task for the good of the… of _our_ tribe.  It was a lawful, needed task, ordered by the Chief, done in order to keep our reputation from being blackened unfairly."

"And now our reputation will get worse when they find out that we killed a bunch of them!" Hiccup said, scowling.

"Will it?  You did everything you _could_ to save their lives," Wulfhild said.  "And the survivors will know it.  But do you agree at least that we had every reason to be there?"

He nodded curtly.  "I suppose."

"Good.  And, on a larger scale, I would also point out that, how did you put it, Astrid? That staying in and having little to do over the winter just isn't an option any longer."  She shook her head.  "Not if we're going to be carrying mail.  We can't be the mysterious tribe of riders— _especially_ not when we're only a day or two's flight from them.  Or less.  We'll just look like a threat."

Hiccup made a face, but nodded.  "Point."

Wulfhild smiled, took a deep breath, and then said carefully, "Good.  So we start from there." 

"Meaning?" Hiccup asked.

"We, meaning _you,_ as herald, and the rest of us, as retinue, _have to_ go out to meet the neighbors."  She tapped him pointedly on the shoulder.  "If you had _refused_ to go, what would have happened?"

Astrid interjected sarcastically, "Well, I think Stoick would have been rightfully pissed off.  And then you," she poked her husband in the side, "would have had another moping episode.  I mean, it's not like, oh, last spring, I had to _duel_ Snotlout for the right to do _exactly_ that."

Wulfhild nodded. "Exactly.  And you're someone who's already had some success in getting to know your neighbors," she said with a smirk.  "I mean, Norway's practically right next door by dragon."

Astrid glanced at her with a mixed amused and sardonic expression.  "If you're 'the girl next door', what does that make me?"

"His wife, lover and partner… and a violently accomplished shieldmaiden who can and _has_ knocked me around the training room with great skill," Wulfhild said earnestly to her friend—who snorted—before turning back to Hiccup.  "So far you've had nothing but success there.  I mean, looking back to when we set out, _would_ you have had any reason to doubt that things would work out?"

He opened his mouth to protest, and Astrid said first, "Be honest, Hiccup.  Would you?  Really?  Would you really have said to yourself, 'no, this is a mistake, I shouldn't do it?'"

He moaned and rolled over, putting his face into his pillow, and Wulfhild took the moment to appreciate the view.  All of that time in the forge and riding Toothless was giving his back muscles _fine_ definition, and she shared a smirk with Astrid, who rolled on top of Hiccup and started to rub his back. 

"Nope, not that easy, babe.  Answer the question," she said, straddling his lower back and massaging the neck and shoulders.  Wulfhild just started to play with his hair, running her nails across his scalp.

He moaned into the pillow and said, muffled, "Yes, you're right.  I would have gone.  But that—hey, ow!"

Wulfhild released the tuft of hair she'd tugged.  "Good.  So, you would have gone regardless.  Was it your fault for things working out poorly with that _one_ king?"

Astrid balled her fists and started kneading up and down his back, and he moaned in pleasure.  "This isn't fair… you two… ooooah…. Right there… no _fair_ …"

Wulfhild smiled sweetly at him and reached out and played with his ear as Astrid massaged his back.  "If you think _this_ isn't fair, I have some ideas on how to make it worse."

"Uh oh," he mumbled.  "But, no, seriously, stop.  I _am_ trying to think, and… ooh.  That's… _distracting._ " 

Astrid shrugged and rolled off of him, as Wulfhild chuckled.  "For the moment, I'm still working through your thinking here.  So, we were doing something that made perfect sense for us to be doing, something that would be helping both our people and theirs.  And one of them attacked us, despite the fact that you were a herald and showed up with a small retinue.  Right?"

Astrid leaned over and said, "So, somehow, the fact that we, outnumbered and under a flag of heraldry, managed to fight off four times our number, is somehow _our_ fault…"

He sighed into his pillow again, and said, muffled, "They said that they'd take us prisoner and wouldn't hurt us."

Astrid gave Wulfhild an irritated look and motioned to her with a _can you believe this?_ expression.

Wulfhild rolled her eyes.  "Hiccup.  The king was already showing that he was willing to ignore the conventions of diplomacy and war.  Ignore the threat to _your_ life.  God knows that you risk that far too easily for me or Astrid to be happy."  She looked at Astrid, eyes set, and motioned with her chin.  Nodding, Astrid slid her arms across Hiccup's body and pulled him upwards to face Wulfhild.  She asked, "Ignoring that risk to yourself…  would you _really_ be willing to risk the two of _us_ in the dungeons of a man who called you a devil worshiper and attacked a herald?"

Before he could respond, Astrid followed up with, "And whose head guardsman was clearly looking forward to hurting us all?"

He gaped at the two of them, head darting back and forth between Wulfhild and Astrid.

Astrid, after a few moments of this, poked him in the stomach and asked, "So… love… is _our_ safety _less_ important to you than _their_ lives when they risked them like that?"

He groaned, and then moaned,  "No…"

"Good.  I mean, you took the right action in the moment, and I'm not blaming you for feeling guilty now.  It shows that you're a good person," Astrid said.

Wulfhild nodded emphatically.  "The fact that you're _not_ writing off their deaths as acceptable losses or even as 'good kills' just shows that you're a wonderful person, Hiccup."  She patted his flank… which turned into a sensual stroke after a moment.  "But you can mourn their deaths _without_ blaming yourself for them.  Blame the king that panicked and attacked us.  Blame the men who didn't have the sense to hold back from attacking people with dragons.  Maybe blame yourself a _bit_ for agreeing to leave the dragons outside as they demanded.  But you don't get to hog all of the blame.  Sorry.  They died because their king attacked a herald whose retinue acted in self-defense."  She shrugged.  "Really, if anything, you're letting the man actually _responsible_ off too easily.  Who would you blame if he'd ordered the attack on untamed dragon instead?  Him, or the dragon?"

Astrid beamed at her, and Wulfhild smiled back in response.  Hiccup just closed his eyes and sighed. 

Lying behind him, Astrid gave Wulfhild a wink and mouthed the words, _oh, good, he's finally thinking._

Wulfhild gave her a grin and a tiny nod in response, and then mouthed _finally._

After a good solid minute, Hiccup slumped and said, "Yes… you're right.  Both of you.  I'm sorry."

"Hiccup, there's nothing to be sorry _about._   None of us got hurt, your creations _kept_ us from getting hurt, and you're listening to us instead of saying that what _we_ have to say is pointless," Astrid said bluntly.  "From my perspective, that makes you a great person.  You just needed a kick in the ass," and Hiccup gave a little cry of surprise and his hips jerked towards Wulfhild as Astrid pinched the mentioned body part, "to remove your head from it."

Wulfhild snickered and, taking her eyes off of the very enjoyable parts of his body that had just moved towards her, she looked him in the face and said, softly, "Hiccup.  There's enough blame in the world for enough bad things that you don't need to be greedy and start grabbing for more."

He glanced at her, and said, "Was that what I was doing?"

"Yes.  You were," Astrid said.

"I'm sorry."

"We know you are.  But be sorry for the right things, babe," she said.

"I'm… okay."

Wulfhild leaned in and molded herself against him.  "I think that we can promise you that if you take too much or _too little_ blame for something, we'll call you on it."

"Not that there's much chance of you taking too _little,_ " Astrid said sarcastically.  "But if you start doing either of those, we'll call you on it.  Okay, partner?"

He smiled softly.  "Okay."

Astrid grinned and nudged him forward.  "Wulf… you're the one that did most of the head-ass plucking this time.  You get the kiss."

"Now _there's_ an image," Wulfhild said with a grin as she pulled Hiccup into an embrace and a kiss. 

###

**_Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

Hákon looked out over the milling crowd in the courtyard of the fort and shook his head. 

Next to him, Gunvor snickered.  "Are you really surprised?"

"I'm not," he said, watching his brothers fill in the little slips of old parchment with the names of the hopefuls and put them in the big barrel for the drawing.  "But, well, when we announced that we'd be starting to send people over to Berk, I wasn't expecting to have to draw lots to determine who would be going!"

Gunvor shrugged.  "Between the wages offered, and being eager to learn about our people… _and_ the chance to potentially train a dragon, is it _really_ a surprise?"

"No… I guess it isn't.  I just wonder how many of them are there for a dragon of their own or greed or actually wanting to know what it means to be one of us?"

"You can't know the hearts of men—or women, for that matter, husband dearest," Gunvor said.  "But I can say this much: it needs to be done.  And not just because Berk needs more hands to help, and we need to train people in how our home works." 

"What do you mean?" Hákon asked, as his brother Cinaed and his wife Dingleberry broke up an argument between two men trying to cut in line. 

Gunvor sighed.  "Haven't you noticed that everyone here... gods, how do I put this?  Everyone here that isn't from Berk is looking up to us?"

Hákon nodded.  "Aye…" he said slowly.

"Right now, we have a lot of support.  Between the freed thralls practically worshiping the ground that Hiccup walked on, and the loans for jobs and the stipends for the Bed Rights and Food Rights, and how we _aren't_ playing the same sorts of games that Alvin did, even those people who don't like the fact that we aren't noble or Christian or Eirish grudgingly support us… out of their own greed, if nothing else.  But those are a minority."  She chuckled and elbowed him lightly in the side.  "Many of them support us strongly.  I've been told that at least a few people are starting to refer to you as either Hákon the Wise or Hákon the Good."

"What!?" Hákon blurted, loudly enough that a good tithe of the crowd looked up at him in surprise.

Gunvor waved to them and smiled.  "Just talking!  Don't worry about it!"  The upturned heads in the crowd bobbled in nods and got back to their business, and she looked back to him.  "Yes.  Right now, as one person told me, we're seen as lords like none other—which is why Njord is now running Veisafjord for us."

Hákon nodded; he'd given his immediately younger brother—younger by only ten and a half months—stewardship of the nearby city. 

Gunvor continued.  "So as far as the general feeling is concerned, we can do no wrong.  But we need more dragon riders here—to help with the construction and other work, plus transportation between the cities.  And we need more Hooligans to help bring people in to… you know, how we do things."

"Aye.  That's why we're sending people there, to help them become Hooligans, even though we're short on hands as well," Hákon nodded, wondering where she was going with this.

"And I realized something the other night," she said.  "Another good reason to do this."  She waved to indicate the crowd.  Hákon looked out at them; nearly a thousand strong, a good quarter of the city and hinterlands' population was crowded in and around the fort.  It was almost a festival—to the point that at least one of the food sellers had their children walking around with baskets and pushcarts, selling warm food and drink.  They were doing quite the neat bit of business, it looked like.  "Right now, they're all looking up to us.  But what would happen if we didn't try to include them?  If we," she stepped in front of him and looked him seriously in the eyes, "acted like the lords they're used to, and kept the power—the swords, the money, the _dragons_ —to ourselves… what would happen?"

He blinked.  "I don't know."

She nodded seriously.  "So, yes, I'd say most of them down there are here, at least in part, for the hope of a dragon of their own."  She leaned in.  "And we need to let them have that hope.  They _need_ to have dragons of their own."

"Why?  I'm not disagreeing with you… but why is it so important?" he asked.

She reached up and poked him in the chest… specifically on his mother's amulet.  "Because, if we don't… then in ten years, or a generation… what this was made from won't be what marks someone as a thrall.  It'll be the absence of a dragon."

Hákon stared at her, stunned.  He couldn't have been more breathless if she'd struck him.  "Oh…"

"Aye.  Already, look at how things are going here.  We're making this city dependent on dragons—for protection, for labor, for any number of things."

He nodded, but before they could continue on the topic, there was a call from below, as one of his brothers called up to him.

"Hoy, Hákon, it's time!"

He nodded, and as he and Gunvor went down the stairs, her words were bouncing around in his head.  It would be a sick jest of the Norns if the very dragons that had brought freedom to his ancestors were the thing that forged new jarls and thralls here.

As he entered the courtyard with Gunvor at his side, the crowd applauded, and they waved. 

He approached the barrel, which currently had one of his nephews—Stigir Finnsson—clowning around on top of it.  The lad had the barrel on its side and was walking it through the crowd so that the parchment lots inside would be well mixed. 

As he watched Stigir do his acrobatics, Hákon looked out over the eager and cheering crowd, pondering what they were doing today in a new light.  Out of the hundreds of hopefuls, only fifty would be selected today to be sent over to Berk, because that was all that Berk could safely house and feed at the moment.  When he'd first made the announcement, he'd been anticipating a few hundred at most would be interested in leaving the city and moving to Berk, even with the promise of work there.  It wasn't as if Vedrarfjord itself—and now Veisafjord—didn't need every hand they had.

Instead, a full _quarter_ of his new subjects had been interested, to the point that he'd thrown up his hands and instituted the lottery as a fair way of handling the selection.

Stigir eventually, and after much laughter from his antics, walked the barrel over to him and Gunvor.

Hoisting the barrel up on a table, he pulled off the cover and motioned to Gunvor to begin.

She smiled, stepped forward and put her hand in the barrel.  Plucking out a single strip of parchment the size of her finger, she read out the name. 

"Caolán mac Fionn!"

A hoarse shout of exultation came from the middle of the crowd, and a young man with a scarred face stepped forward, practically bouncing in glee. 

Hákon smiled at him, and then it was his turn to select whose life was about to change.

A young Eirish woman, a laundress judging by the redness of her hands, was next.

Shortly, all fifty had been selected and were lined up by the doors to the fort, chatting excitedly.  Hákon moved past them and climbed the stairs back to the balcony. 

Taking a deep breath at the top stair, he shook his head in bitter amusement.  What had Lord Freyr been thinking, making him a jarl?  Six months ago, the biggest worries in his life had been ensuring an even grind from his millstones and his daughter's happiness.  And he'd managed to severely damage the latter—out of good intentions, no less! 

Now…

He stepped over to the doors to the balcony and opened them. 

A roaring crowd greeted him, chanting his name. 

He managed to keep the incredulous laughter from escaping his throat, and waved once.  "Thank you, everyone!  Now, just to remind you all, they're not vanishing permanently—although," he looked down, "how many of you lot are unmarried?"

About two-thirds raised their hands.

Hákon shrugged exaggeratedly.  "All right.  I make no promises that they'll end up coming back.  We like weddings over on Berk."

Great titters of laughter came from the crowd. 

"But we'll see them again regardless!  There are plans for regular flights back and forth, carrying cargo and mail and _passengers_!  So for the married ones, you'll undoubtedly be able to join your spouses soon!  And I'm hoping that more of my tribe might want to come here!"  He clasped his hands behind his back to keep from swinging them anxiously.  "We will be one people, not distant lords on a faraway island and peasants in the cities!  We've always taken people in and mixed with them!"  Unclasping his hands and taking his right out from behind his back, he reached into his shirt and pulled out his mother's amulet.  "As my mother did!  As the Chief's mother did!  Some of our greatest, like my wife's great-grandfather, came from outside!"  He looked down at the fifty.  "As for you, I'm covering the costs for your trip over!  Because that's how we operate as a tribe!  I help you get a leg up, and then you give a hand to me!  Or to someone else!  Because together, we are stronger!"

The crowd cheered, and Hákon had to swallow incredulous laughter again.  They were applauding what he saw as obvious, from a lifetime of experience. 

He raised his hand, and the crowd quieted.  "Now, tomorrow morning, you leave for my old home," he said, addressing the group they were sending.  "I hope that you treat it like I have been treating this place!"

One of the men in the group stepped forward, bowed, and said, "Sir!  We will!"

"Then pack your bags, and get ready to try Magnhild's beef stew up in the mead hall for dinner tomorrow!"

They all cheered and laughed. 

Gunvor came and joined him as goodbyes were made below, and leaned up against him.  "Very smooth," she said softly into his ear.  "I could barely tell that you were panicking the whole time."

"I've been practicing," he said just as quietly.  They clasped hands as the crowd dispersed and his brothers gave the future residents of Berk the rucksacks to carry what they could take with them.

Hákon wished them the best of luck.

###

**_Dubh Linn, Eire_ **

 

Alvin hit the floor as the two guardsmen shoved him forward.  Hooded and with his hands bound behind him, he landed awkwardly and hard, jarring his shoulder.  He hadn't recovered from that before more hands gripped him, pulling him upright, and his head was cruelly hauled upwards. 

As the hood was plucked off his head, he deadpanned, "Thank you.  Have you considered washing those?"

"Well, you've got quite the smart mouth, don't you?" came a nearby voice.

Alvin shrugged and looked at the man sitting in the throne.  He'd seen Ímar mac Arailt before, in his preparations to assume Adalwin's identity as one of the Uí Ímair.  Ímar was older than Alvin by a decade or so, but they were both tall and dark-haired Norsemen, which had been the point that let him get away with his charade.  Of course, Ímar was sitting on a throne and dressed in a fine outfit while Alvin was on his knees, hands bound behind his back, wearing a roughspun tunic. 

"Well, it's gotten me this far," he responded.  "So, I take it that you have a job for me?"

Ímar blinked and then scowled.  "That's a fine presumption, _Alvin._   Perhaps I wanted to see the man so brash that he thought he could impersonate one of my kinsmen before I handed you off to my torturer."

Alvin shrugged as best he could.  "If that was your intent, I'd already be strapped down and getting worked over.  But instead, I'm here, in a private audience—" he nodded his head around to the mostly empty room, "—while you're dressed to impress, and my identity was kept secret with the hood.  Which really needs to be washed, by the way.  Was it made from an old horse blanket or something?"

Ímar scowled at him.  "You are an impertinent little…"

"Look, if you're going to kill me, can you get it over with?" Alvin said, giving another nonchalant shrug… and _finally_ the small knife he kept strapped to his forearm dropped into his hand.  Carefully, he started to cut the rope around his wrists.  "Otherwise, I'm curious as to what it is that you want me to do."

Ímar leaned forward and a cruel smirk crossed his face.  "Now, why would I kill _you?"_   He snapped his fingers, and another guard came in with a struggling hooded figure—and Alvin's heart dropped into his stomach. 

The other figure was placed next to him and the hood on _her_ head was plucked free, although the gag on her mouth kept her from saying anything. 

Ímar expansively waved his hands at them.  "We caught her coming into the city yesterday.  I knew who she was, and figured it was time for us to have this talk."

Alvin tore his gaze back to Ímar and said flatly, "What is it that you want _us_ to do?"

"Why do you say 'us'?  She'll be staying here, as my insurance."

Alvin shook his head.  "We work together.  You want insurance?  You know who we are.  All it takes is a single word from you to exposure our cover, and my identity as Adalwin is gone."

"True…" Ímar mused.  "Well, what I want you to do is what you were going to do anyway.  You're going to make pilgrimage to Rome… full of the tales of the horrors of what the dragon-riders are doing.  And you'll get the Church to send aid on _my_ behalf.  And if you do well enough, I'll give you back Vedrarfjord… if you're willing to take oath and serve _me._ "

Alvin pondered for a moment.  He had his knife… but the king had a sword and three guards. 

And besides… he was being offered the chance to do what he'd already _planned_ on doing.  And if the king thought that he'd defanged Alvin… well, he'd learn.

Briefly. 

He nodded his head.  "I accept your terms." 

"Good.  Since the Hero has already come sniffing around, looking for more vassals, I don't know how much time you'll have… but don't dally."  He motioned to his guards, and back on went the hoods. 

A short while later, they were unceremoniously deposited back into the small inn where Alvin had been staying.  The guards gave Alvin a sour look when he handed them back the cut rope with a smile, but left without another word. 

Turning, he said in Latin, "Hullo, love."

"Hello yourself, you idiot," she replied in the same tongue.

"You say the sweetest things."

"You're the one that got outsmarted by a girl young enough to be your own daughter," she said, scowling.  "And then captured by one of our enemies."

"True, true.  And I look forward to getting some of our own back from them.  But you know as well as I do, dearest, that these sorts of setbacks are common in our profession."

She snorted.  "I still can't believe she had it in her."  She pounded a fist into her other palm.  "I thought we had her completely cowed."

"Aye, we did.  And I'll admit that I played right into her hands by revealing where her parents were.  It was my mistake, no question.  Ah, well.  If nothing else, that just confirms that her parents are _excellent_ tongs with which to manipulate her."

"Oh, yes.  But I found a better one."

"A better one?   Oh, please, do tell."

"She's found herself a _lover._   The big burly boy, Fishlegs clan Ingerman.  The one that we gave her to.  According to the gossip I picked up, they've been bedding each other since last autumn."  The woman snorted.  "Apparently, not _all_ of what I taught her about pleasing men went to waste."

"I know that that was a concern of your, dearest."

She snorted again.  "Aye.  And I remember our bet.  You won."

Alvin shrugged.  "Two young people thrown together like that?  I'm honestly shocked that it took that long.  But you're the one who took the bet of him being honorable in the first place."

She gave him a scowl and nodded.  "Aye.  I suppose I did.  So much for the decency of men."

"If more men acted in the way that they claimed to hold as ideal, and treated virtue as anything other than a suggestion to be winked at, we'd be paupers, love."

"And we aren't now?"

He mutely walked over to the room's thin bedframe, reached under it, and pulled out a small leather purse, from which the clink of gold coins issued.  Putting it back, he smiled.

She huffed.  "Fine.  Your point is taken.  So, _dearest,_ what are we going to do?"

"Well, once we get out of here, we do exactly as the king here ordered us to. We make our way to the nearest mainland bishop with our tale of woe, you, the escaped noble lady who witnessed and can describe the depravity and depredations of the deplorable degenerates…"

She gave a deep, long-suffering sigh at his alliterative articulations. 

Continuing on gamely, he said, "…will bear witness alongside myself, the deposed but still legitimate King Adalwin of Vedrarfjord, to the terrors currently being inflicted onto my loyal subjects.  This despite you and I having not a drop of noble blood in our veins, but we have something better—a piece of parchment that _says_ we do."

She snorted again.  "And what is our end goal, oh _king_?  Last time you said it was High Kingship of Eire, and I would be your queen, and not just your secret asset."  She shrugged.  "Even if training the girls was enjoyable in itself."

"Well, we still have the girl at Berk if what you heard is correct, plus our other assets in the other courts, milady.  And this time, the script does not have you playing the part of my brutalized and broken demonstration toy, but that of a wide-eyed noblewoman ingenue, come to tell the sophisticated leaders of Christendom what horrors you've witnessed."

She scowled, and then pouted affectedly.  "I almost prefer the old role.  I hate playing the airhead whose only knowledge of bedroom sports comes from naughty whispers with the chambermaids and attempts at seduction by lustful noblemen."

"Ah, but think of how much fun you'll have teasing and stringing along the priests," Alvin said with a smirk.  "And I'll still be available for scratching any itches you may have, so long as we're discreet."

"I suppose that's acceptable," she allowed.  "You know how I like to play, at least."

"That I do," Alvin said with a leer.  Smoothing it back down to a knowing smile, he continued, "Besides, you can always entrap a few of the priests who want to seduce you for our later use."

"That does sound tempting," she admitted with a smile.  "I haven't corrupted a priest in ages."

"Where we're going, uncorrupted priests will be rare as hens' teeth, love.  You'll have to settled for the pre-corrupted ones."  He snorted.  "I'm still debating on which method to use when we get to Rome.  On the one hand, we can act exactly as we present ourselves to be, and 'let' them take advantage of us, with proper steering.  On the other hand, finding some sympathetic soul who is already properly positioned, and letting down the mask slightly that we're not the overawed provincials that they think we are in order to speak terms more frankly, is also decidedly tempting."

"We'll just have to play it by ear, you old fool, as always.  You're the one that just reminded _me_ of the dangers of committing too deeply to a plan in our line of work."

"True, true.  So, how _was_ Vedrarfjord after their takeover?"

She snorted.  "Interesting.  I managed to accumulate some significant funds before I left the city; while Arailt's guards took what I had on me, the bulk of it is buried outside the city.  I could go retrieve it with little issue."

"Good idea.  How did you get the funds?"

"My usual ways, helped by those tenderhearted Vikings—and, yes, that is a phrase I never expected to say—pouring in funds for their takeover.  I take it you've heard who succeeded you, yes?"

"The Hero's in-laws, yes."

"Aye, and they're apparently spending their daughter's bride price-cùm-Harthacnut's ransom like water in order to 'help the city.'  It's certainly been very helpful for them in locking down their support with the people.  Classic carrot and stick for pacification.  I have no idea how long it will last, but coin was flowing through the city, and they were _growing_ in population, instead of losing it."

Alvin pursed his lips and nodded.  "That might make things difficult for retaking the city in the future.  Do we have any loyalists left?"

"Some… but your cover being blown there didn't help matters."  She crossed her arms and snorted.  "Or here, come to think of it," she added pointedly, and poked him in the chest.  " _Why_ did you respond to that jackass Fritjof?!"

Alvin sighed.  "Surprise and panic, honestly.  I messed up and I'll own up to it."

She turned away from him and gave a huff.  "Good.  Because you cost us so much in that moment."

"Ah, dearest Delilah," Alvin said to his wife, "where would I be without you?"

"Dead in a ditch in Saxony, or dead at the bottom of the North Sea being nibbled at by fish, or dead in a sewer in Paris, or dead…"

He laughed.  "Aye, and you'd be in some bordello with a collar around your neck or a pauper's grave without _me,_ dearest, so let's stop with the accounting there."

She sniffed overdramatically.  "Why?  It's fun."  Turning back to her husband, she said, "Regardless, conditions in the city are improving compared to your reign, at least at the moment.  I'm certain that we can meddle with things to our advantage when the time comes, but, for the moment," she scowled, "they're buying the loyalty of the populace with coin and bread, and already over a hundred thralls from across all of Eire have fled there to be freed.  They're fanatically loyal, and they've made oath of their own free will to the Hero."

"Seriously?  Of their own free will?"

"I was there in the crowd.  The few who knew me at all thought that I was just another freed thrall, thanks to my prior role.  So the day that they took over Veisafjord—"

"Argh.  That was a _mess._   I barely got out of the city in time."

"Well, he, his wife, and his concubine, as well as the girl and her lover, and _Fritjof_ ," she hissed the name, "overnighted with her parents that day.  The freedmen found out and practically stormed the place to get a look at the Hero.  He came out, waved at them, talked a bit.  And it wasn't being managed at all; I checked.  Completely spontaneous.  One of the freedmen in the crowd—named Fintan, couldn't find out anything of significance about him—offered his oath and knelt, and _everyone_ followed suit.  And it seems to have been his idea, as far as I could tell."  She scowled.  "I had to take a knee or stand out."

Alvin laughed.  "Well, you're used to going to your knees to men!"  He sobered.  "Could we use that?"

"I considered it, but the girl knows what I look like, and while I could probably spin some tale of woe and tribulations at your hands that would buy me access, I didn't see any long-term advantage to it.  Certainly I could probably have killed one or more of them in a moment of weakness or incaution on their part, but I would have gotten killed for sure."

"Aye.  Well, we can move on from here.  Besides," he pulled her to his side and gave her a kiss on the temple, "I'm pleased to have you with me for this."

"I suppose that I can say the same," she said in a mock-grudging tone and leaned up against him.  "But we have weeks before we can leave to find that helpful bishop you mentioned.  In the meantime…"

"Aye?"

"We have this nice private room, all to ourselves."  She grabbed the front of his tunic and pulled his face down to her eye-level.  "I say we make use of it."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Alvin said with a smirk.

###

**_The Broodery, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Fishlegs, his hands and hair covered in muddy rock dust, smiled at the trio of Eirishmen he'd just hired to help stoke the fires for the Broodery.  "Oh, and one last thing," he said, and walked over to the spigot that they'd set into the wall; it was made of metal, not wood, and there was a cup attached to it by a chain.  "We've had problems with people passing out from the heat down here."   All three of them nodded; they'd stripped to their waists and were speckled with sweat already.  "So Hiccup put this in." 

He held up the cup, and twisted the spigot, making a stream of water fill the cup, and then shut the valve.  "It flows from the cistern, so it's cold.  Drink as often as you need to, and then drink some more."  He shrugged with a smile.  "Trust me when I say that it sneaks up on you."  He drank and the three fellows grinned indulgently.  They'd be trading off shifts, but for the moment he was giving them orientation before handing them off to his kinsman Boarguts, who had been the chief—and occasionally _only—_ stoker for the fires since autumn. 

"So, sir…" said one—Caolán, if Fishlegs remembered right, who had to be twice Fishlegs' own age—pointing around the room for emphasis as he listed off each point, "Wood from the Broodery pile, keep the fire stoked, drink as we need to, and the pay is six pennyweights of dragon scales per day?"

Fishlegs nodded.  "Yep.  I'm sorry that the pay is on the low side but—"

"Low!?  Sir, that's more—three times more—what I'd get back in Vedrafjord for farm work!"

"Yes, but here, we don't have enough hands already, and a lot of scales and silver to go around."  Fishlegs shrugged apologetically.  "I mean… I'll understand if in a month or two, you three tell me that you found better jobs."

Caolán smiled.  "Didn't you tell me that we're helping keep the baby dragons warm in their eggs?"

Fishlegs nodded slowly, and said, "Yes…" a bit hesitantly. 

Caolán shared a grin with the other two men.  "Then I'm here until they hatch, for sure!"  The other two nodded in agreement. 

Fishlegs grinned at their enthusiasm.  "Well, I need to get going.  If there are any problems, tell me?"

They nodded, and set to work, chatting happily among themselves as Fishlegs made for the exit.  They'd cut in a fresh horizontal hole into the rock to meet up with the exterior ramp that led down to the Scauldron cove, and it gave access to the Broodery's fire chamber.  Walking up the ramp, he shivered; the difference in warmth between in there and out here was _stark._

He was pleased that his three new workers had committed to staying with him.  The fifty people that Astrid's parents had sent over had been pretty much immediately snapped up into Berk's labor pool.  His men were getting six pennyweights of dragon scales a day, while the tannery was offering _twelve…_

Of course, if his and Hiccup's plans worked out—and it looked like they would—they'd be able to partner with the baths and laundry soon enough, which would help free up some more hands. 

Arriving at the Chief's hut, he knocked.

"Enter!" he heard Stoick's voice call out.

Opening the door, he stepped in and paused, as his great-aunt Bladewit was there; she was standing nearby, as Stoick was looking over a sheaf of parchment with dense, neat handwriting on it.  Bladewit glanced in his direction and gave him an inscrutable look before turning back to the Chief. 

"Yes, Fishlegs?" Stoick asked.

"I, uh, I have those numbers you wanted, for, for the upcoming hatchings."

"Good.  Wait a moment?  Maybe get yourself something to drink?"

Fishlegs nodded and walked over to the barrel.  Pouring himself an ale, he tried not to let his grand-aunt's anger get to him.  She was _not_ happy about him and Heather, and had made that _distinctly_ clear.  As a member of the Ingerman clan now—even through Fishlegs' concubinage—Heather should have had access rights to the clan library, but she'd been preemptively banned. 

The worst part was that Heather was just sitting back and taking it.  She'd told Fishlegs that Bladewit just needed some time to warm up to her, and in a year or two, the ban would probably be rescinded. 

After he'd drunk half of his cup of ale, Stoick looked up from the sheaf of parchment.  "So far, it looks good.  Thank you, Bladewit.  I'll finish reviewing it later, and we'll bring it before a Thing for voting to adopt it."

She bowed.  "Thank you, Chief.  I'll see myself out?"

"Aye.  And thank you again."

After Bladewit left, Fishlegs stepped over to the table, and Stoick looked up at him.  "So?  How bad is it going to be?"

"Well… we can't candle the dragon eggs like we would a chicken egg, so we have no idea which of them are viable or not.  But we still have over sixteen thousand eggs… and given the problems we had last year with just a hundred and fifty hatchlings…"  He gave a slightly terrified laugh.  "Sir… we're going to have somewhere around a _hundred_ times more hatchlings this year.  I don't think keeping them in that little nursery we put together in the Broodery is going to cut it."

Stoick sighed and nodded.  "All right.  Talk it over with Hiccup.  I want you two to put your heads together and come up with some solutions."

"Yes sir," Fishlegs said.  "I'll go find him."

Stoick held up a hand as he turned to leave.  "Lad, before you go?"

"Yes?"

Stoick held up the sheaf of parchment.  "Could you do me a favor and look this over?  Your eyes are younger, and you're more used to reading than I am."

Fishlegs nodded.  "I can do that.  What is it?"

"Bladewit and Clodgall's proposed additions to the tribal laws, specifically for the dragons."

"Oooh.  Uh…"

"Fishlegs.  I'm not saying that I need a line-by-line critique.  But you can read it faster than I can," Stoick said reasonably.  "Please?"

Fishlegs swallowed and nodded.  Taking a seat, he took the sheaf of parchments and started to read. 

It was fairly basic, as far as the laws were concerned.  Clearly modeled on the existing laws for Bed Rights and Food Rights, it spelled out that the dragons would be supplied with a warm and dry place to sleep—or wet, in the case of those dragons who slept in water—and with the appropriate minimums for food.  Legally, a dragon bond would be like a child adoption—the rider would be responsible for the dragon's behavior and upkeep—and, interestingly, his grand-aunt and Clodgall had solved the issue of breeding and eggs by stating that eggs and hatchlings would _legally_ belong to the Haddock clan, to be hatched and raised as part of the wild flock (even if some dragons helped with nurturing the young).  It was a neat and elegant solution to that issue, especially when it came to tracking whose eggs belonged to who… but still, that was surrendering a lot of power to the Haddocks…

Then he looked at the next clause and felt his blood run cold. 

_Adoption of dragons from the Haddock Wild Flock, as the Wild Flock is legally a part of the Haddock clan, can only be done by those who are members of allied clans by blood, marriage, or adoption.  Such adoption will not require a_ mundr…

He must have gasped or something, because Stoick asked, "What's wrong?"

Speechless, he just passed the parchment over and pointed to the specific clause.

Stoick read it over, blinked, and then read it again.  "Lad. I'm reading this wrong.  Tell me that her proposal here doesn't make it impossible for anyone from Vedrarfjord to get a dragon?"

Fishlegs said, his voice slightly strangled, "I could, but I'd be lying.  Those clans there are vassals to _you._   Not allied.  Only the four clans here are your allied clans.  And the clanless…"

"Aye.  I follow."  Stoick ran his hands through his hair, looking upset.  "I need to talk to her, because this is an official draft."  He pointed to the signatures on the last page, with Bladewit and Clodgall's endorsements.  "But first, let's see if there are any other surprises in here."

Fishlegs nodded and bent his head back over the parchments. 

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

"Oh, the _looks_ on their faces!" Gudmund cheered, the words a bit slurred.

Snotlout hoisted his own cup, filled with strong, unwatered wine—the stuff was _definitely_ growing on him.  "Oh, it was great!  Did you see that one pirate who saw us coming and just jumped overboard!?"  They were sitting in the barracks, drinking, having returned from their first mission as dragon riders the day before.

An urgent message had arrived a few days before from some of the Roman Navy patrolling in the Aegean Sea; a group of pirates was preying on ships, and they had requested Varangian backup.  To Sigurd's surprise, it had turned out that the Varangians also worked with the Navy, hunting pirates in light ships called _ousiai._ Being mostly Norsemen, their skills with light craft were greater than that of the Romans, which made complete sense, but he'd never considered it before. 

But rather than dispatch a fleet of _ousiai,_ the Emperor had sent Sigurd and the small contingent of dragon riders that he'd managed to train—specifically, his core group of friends, who had been the first to get dragons of their own after the Emperor's personal bodyguards.  They had flown out, along with a dozen other Varangians riding second-saddle, with Jorn riding behind Sigurd being officially in command as the senior officer, and reported in to the shocked Navy commander later that day.

Then, yesterday, they'd found the hapless pirates.

Benjamin snorted and leaned up against Pelagia, who molded herself against him. "I missed it!  Tell, tell!" he said.

Snotlout waved with his cup.  "I saw the whole thing!  This guy was walking about on deck, and then the lookout screamed that we were coming!  And he freezes, looks up, sees us, and I swear I could _see_ the look of 'I didn't sign up for this!' run across his face, and he dropped his bow, ran and _dove_ into the water! _"_

The group burst out laughing.  They were getting rather drunk at this point.   After the surviving pirates had surrendered, faced with Gudmund and Thorred's Campes, which, like Nadders, could throw spines, it had turned out that the pirate ship had had a hold full of loot, including pots of wine—and they'd gotten to keep nearly all of it for themselves, after Jorn had paid the hundred marks per ship captured to the Empire.  A twenty-two-way split had given each of them a tidy fortune. 

At the moment, they were in the barracks, one of the pots of wine opened for the riders to enjoy, another three having been given to the rest of the Varangians to share.

Snotlout drank his cup of wine with a grin.  Thorred had tried to compose some verse to commemorate the victory, but he'd stopped his composition in favor of wine, thank the gods.  Instead, they had turned to a Norse drinking song that they _all_ knew, which had a seemingly inexhaustible number of verses, most of them obscene.  Set to a good beat, it was even better than a drummer for rowing!

Benjamin leaned forward a bit.  "So… uh… Gudmund… been meaning to ask… you're _Norse,_ right?"

"Aye.  I'm Swede, born and, _hic,_ raised," Gudmund said with a drunken smile.  "Lemme guess.  You're going to ask how, 'cause I look like an Ethiopian?"

Benjamin shifted a bit uncomfortably.  "Aye."

"M' father was a V'rangian, with Emperor Basil.  Came back home w' loot and three concur—conbu—co _n_ cubines."  He saluted with his cup.  "A Greek, an Arab and an Ethiopian—m' mother."  His face split in a grin to reveal white teeth.  "Been twenty years, and they all still complain about th' cold, but their beds 're warm enough."  Gudmund took a deep drink and, with his grin turning feral, slammed the empty mug down on the table as punctuation.  "Between a Swede wife an' those three, I got _lots_ o' siblings."

Thorred asked, curious, "How many?"

"I'm third o' fourteen," Gudmund said proudly.  "What 'bout you, Ben?  You and Pelagia are looking pretty… friendly."

Ben grinned.  "Younger son, not much chance to inherit, came down here for loot and pay.  Found a lovely lady," he said, and took Pelagia's hand and kissed the back of it.  She grinned and pulled him closer.

Sigurd toasted the pair of them, shoving Snotlout's jealousy to the back of his mind with an effort of will.  "Well, you two look pretty happy!"

"What about you, Sig?" Thorred asked eagerly.

Sigurd looked at the wannabe skald with a deadpan expression.  "Not telling."

"Why not?"

"Because Sigurd has realized, Thorred, that, for all of your many and varied strong qualities," Gunnar said, his words somehow even _more_ formal than normal despite having drunk more wine than anybody else, "not only did you get the wrong sip of the Poet's Mead, your meter is terrible, your rhymes forced, and while you can carry a tune in a bucket, it had best have a lid on the top to keep the poor song from escaping its torment."

"Annnd," drawled Hrafn, "you seem to have appointed yourself as Sigurd's personal skald."

"But if I don't set it to verse, in order to let Sigurd's tale disperse, and let others hear it and converse, things for Sigurd could get more adverse!" Thorred said earnestly, seemingly unoffended by Gunnar's critique.

Hrafn's jaw dropped open, and Ketilbjorn, who had mostly been quietly drinking, coughed, sputtered and choked.

Gunnar reached over and shut Hrafn's dangling jaw with a click, before turning to Thorred.  "How much of that perverse rhyme did you rehearse?"

Gudmund whimpered and said, "Oh no… he's corrupted Gunnar!"

"What?  No!  Oh dear…" Gunnar said as Thorred cackled.

They all laughed and clinked cups together, and then there was a knock at the door. 

Turning, Sigurd looked, to see Jorn and Kristoffer standing there, looking serious. 

They all stood and saluted the senior officers.  "Sir?" Sigurd said.

"At ease, all of you," Jorn said. 

They relaxed, but there was still an air of tension. 

"That was well done with the pirates," Jorn said.  "But you need to realize that this was a test."

"A test?  Sir?" Gunnar asked.

"To see what you could do.  Now that you've passed…"  Jorn sighed.  "The assignments will get _more_ dangerous.  And while the Emperor still needs Sigurd to tame and train dragons, as he hasn't found anybody to do the job for him yet, he hasn't forgiven you for standing up to him."

"Sir?" Sigurd asked, trying to clear his mind of the fog that the drink had given him.  "What are you saying?"

Kristoffer said softly, "We're saying that your fate is probably going to be a glorious death on the battlefield against impossible odds or an arrest like Harald's, as soon as he finds someone else to train dragons for him—assuming that he just doesn't order you killed in a fit of temper."

The mood in the room dropped.  "What can we do, sir?"

"Well, for the moment, keep training more riders.  You'll need them.  You just became the point of the Emperor's sword.  Keep yourselves sharp."

"And in the long run…?" Gudmund asked.

Kristoffer shifted uncomfortably.  "You've all started your terms of service less than a year ago, except for Axelsson there.  It's… going to be difficult.  Already the Varangians are seen as the Emperor's strong sword arm by the Army.  You've made that status that much stronger.  So there will be enormous pressure to deploy you for the most dangerous tasks… and the Emperor has no reason to hold you back."

###

**_Mead Hall Council Chamber, Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

As the clanheads entered the small council chamber, Stoick braced himself.  This was going to be a fight. 

"Thank you all for coming," he said politely.  "Please, be seated."

"What's this about, Stoick?" Rikard asked. 

Stoick looked to Bladewit and Clodgall.  "This afternoon, Clanhead Bladewit gave me hers and Clanhead Clodgall's official proposal for amending the laws to account for dragons.  Overall… it is a good proposal.  However, there is a problem."

Clodgall cocked his head quizzically.  "What _sort_ of problem, Stoick?"

Stoick resisted the urge to glare at Clodgall, and instead took out the specific piece of parchment, and placed it in the middle of the table.  He tapped the offending lines. "This sort."  He leaned back and said, "If we were to adopt this into law, it places excessive limitations on who can adopt dragons."  Rikard and Hardnut leaned in to look.

Bladewit quirked a gray-haired eyebrow as the two men read the lines.  "Excessive?  How so?"

Stoick gave her a flat look.  "Under this law as written, no one from Vedrarfjord or Veisafjord, and no freedman here on Berk can get a dragon, as they do not belong to an 'allied clan.'  That is a problem."

Bladewit pursed her lips and said, "I do not see how that is a problem.  We did that intentionally when we wrote it."

Stoick blinked as Rikard and Hardnut looked up.  " _Intentionally?_   Why would you—"

Bladewit fixed him with a steely-eyed gaze.  "Stoick.  Consider this.  Right now, those dragons are our tribe's greatest asset, and we've already seen that handing them out to those that are untrustworthy is a poor idea."  She scowled.  "My grand-nephew's choice of partners shows _that."_

"Heather is loyal!" Stoick protested.  Off to the side, he saw that Rikard and Hardnut seemed slightly skeptical of his statement.

"She's infatuated, not loyal!" Bladewit snapped back.  "I don't trust her!  She's sixteen, and betrayed her parents on the basis of an adolescent attraction!  It is only due to luck and your willingness to risk on her behalf that they are not _dead!_   So what happens when the infatuation fades?  Or when someone else finds a lever to hold on her?"  Bladewit stood and looked Stoick firmly in the eye.  "The fact of the matter is, whether she is loyal or not, trustworthy _now_ or not, _we made a mistake_ in trusting her too fast back then!"

Stoick scowled.  "So your solution is to prevent _all_ freedmen and all of the residents of Vedrarfjord and Veisafjord from gaining dragons of their own?"

"Yes," Bladewit said flatly.  "But it is not _prevention._   There is a way for them to gain access to dragons under this law!  Two, in fact—they can marry in or be adopted, much as how we have _always_ brought freedmen into the clans." 

"Like your own husband," Stoick said pointedly. 

"Aye.  And this was Frode's own suggestion!" Bladewit said, and Clodgall nodded in agreement. 

Hardnut shook his head.  "This would also prevent us from trading any more dragons to Norway!"

"And that is good as well!  With dragons, Berk stands equal to Norway!  With them having dragons of their own, we are again reduced to little more than a small village to be dominated, like how Echmarcach mac Ragnaill extracted such punishing tribute from us for all of those years!" Clodgall said emphatically.

Rikard spoke up.  "I can see the logic behind it.  This way, there is a period where they can grow to understand our ways and also, if they are adopted or married in, they have trustworthy members of the tribe standing surety for them, vouching for them?"

"Exactly!" Bladewit said enthusiastically.  "So you agree?"

"No, I don't," Rikard said flatly.  "All this does is send the message to those we have promised to bring into the tribe that _we don't trust them._   Not truly, and that they are not _truly_ part of the tribe!"

Bladewit shook her head.  "I'm not suggesting revoking Bed Rights and Food Rights for them!  No!  What do you take me for!?  All I am saying is that we need some way to guarantee their allegiance, rather than just give them a valuable asset like a dragon and hope for the best!"

Hardnut grimaced, but nodded.  "That's a valid point."

"Thank you!" Bladewit said, exasperated.  "And don't forget that the Old Tribe is outnumbered, what, _five to one_ by those in the Eirish cities!?  We need some surety that our ways won't be swamped and dragged under by their sheer numbers!  That they learn what it is to be Hooligans!"

"It's too restrictive!" Stoick protested.

"Is it!?" Bladewit replied.  "What was your comment only three months ago?  'Half of them want to kiss my arse, and the other half want to take a bite out of it'!?"  She leaned forward and scowled up at him.  "Does _that_ sound like the sort of people we should be trusting with _dragons!?"_

"And what about the clanless here?" Stoick countered.

Bladewit shrugged.  "They already have dragons of their own if they wanted them.  The law isn't retroactive—we wouldn't be taking their dragons away from them."  She pointed a finger at Stoick.  "But the ones that just arrived and have no idea how to be a Hooligan?  No, they need to wait and learn."

Stoick scowled. "I hear your points, and I agree that there's truth to them.   But could you relent at least somewhat and amend it so that we can give _some_ of those who have proven their trustworthiness access, as determined by my clan's judgment?"

Bladewit shook her head.  "No.  With this, we are giving your clan, as Chief, an incredible amount of power.  We trust _you_ and Hiccup with it, but there have to be some safeguards."  She nodded towards the parchment on the table.  "That is our best effort to create a measure that will allow us to bring in new riders and yet preserve our ways at the same time.  And it still has to be voted on by the Tribe Thing."  She made a wry face.  "And who knows?  Perhaps our suggestion will not be to their taste.  But if you want a different one, you will have to scribe it yourself, and put it to the same vote."

Stoick scowled again.  "There is no way to change your mind?"

She shook her head.  "No.  I've put much thought into this over the last month."  She gave a small chuckle.  "How is it that Hiccup describes us?  We have stubbornness in our bones, and, for the good of our people and our way of life, I have to choose this path."

Stoick nodded curtly and said, "Clodgall, you stand with her?"

"Aye, that I do."

"Hardnut?"

"I need to think on this, but I am unsure.  There is no way that Norway will not take this as an insult."

Rikard spoke up.  "Same with the Norse-Gaels in the cities under my grandson's watch.  This is a slap in the face to them.  I stand against it."

Stoick nodded.  "And I stand against it as well.  It is too harsh."

"Well then, bring it before the Thing for the vote!" Bladewit said.

"I shall… but not yet," Stoick said.  "You told me to scribe my own proposal?  Then I shall."

Bladewit bowed slightly.  "I can respect that, even if I disagree with it.  But!" she held up a hand with one accusatory finger raised, "until we have this resolved one way or the other, then I _must_ request that there be a stop on training any and all new riders!"

* * *

**A/N:** _So, there's that.  I'm expecting a lot of hate aimed at Bladewit and Clodgall for this, but the thing is, they have a_ point _.  They might not be going about it in the best manner, but there is no question that letting Heather have access to a dragon, to give one example, was premature, and that the system, such as it was up to this point, was primed for abuse.  It's very much "locking the barn door after the horse is gone" sort of mentality, combined with a overreaction out of fear, but it's not wholly baseless xenophobia.  Just a "Can we get to know them first before we give them that sort of power?" reactionary attitude, combined with a unimaginative approach to problem solving along the lines of "This method is how we used to bring people in fully, so let's just go with that."  Is it too restrictive?  Hell yes.  Does that make Clodgall and Bladewit evil?  Nope.  Just flawed, and their solution isn't anywhere_ near _ideal..._

_Next, I have a bit of housekeeping and some good news._

_Housekeeping first; A reminder that  I will be going on posting hiatus for the month of July; over the course of June, I will be posting through to chapter 55 on the 24th, and then resuming posting on August 5th with chapter 56._

_For the good news, I passed my German A1 exam and have my certification, so I will be able to get my permanent residency and work permits as soon as I can get the paperwork filled out._

_As a final note, yes, I have seen the poster for HTTYD 3 and the character designs.  For those interested in my opinion on them, I have this to say: I do not yet have enough information to be able to give an answer._

_Thank you all for reading and see you next week!_


	53. Blades Cut Both Ways

**Chapter 53: Blades Cut Both Ways**

* * *

 

 **_Trigger Warning:_ ** _Medically sensitive subjects, discussion of abortion, abortion practices, pregnancy death risk_

* * *

 

_Starting from the 1040s AD, the economic effects of dragons upon human society can only be described as transformative, to the point where the time period between 1040 and 1400 is described as the Dragon Era, in line with the Stone, Agricultural, Bronze, Iron, Steam, Industrial, Fission, Information, Space, Genetic, Nanotech, and Fusion Eras.  While most popular depictions of history focus more on the visually impressive aspects of aerial combat and the uses of dragons in warfare, such fixation overlooks the majority of the actual effects of dragons on human society.  Dragons revolutionized transport and communications within a decade, and the adoption of a dragon-scale currency neatly toppled the feudal systems of Europa that had dominated the region for centuries within sixty years.  Even in modern times, each class and breed of dragon is economically useful in some manner: Boulder-classes carve out both the terraurban spaces of modern cities and the subterranean arteries that tie the cities together, and smelt the steel that form the bones of the arcologies and skyscrapers.  Stoker-classes produce hydrocarbons in a variety of useful forms.  Many dragon venoms, especially those of Sharp-class breeds, can be processed into pharmaceuticals…_

_—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd._

**_March, AD 1042_ **

**_The Vatican, Rome, Papal States, Italia_ **

 

Viggo looked around the room as the various priests took their seats and the first witness was led into the small chamber for his questioning.  As the witness passed in front of him, Viggo sniffed and gave a small sigh of relief; thankfully, the fellow had been allowed to bathe, as well as rest from his travels, before being brought in. 

The witnesses—a party of eight men—had all arrived yesterday, having made good time in their winter travels, but had been understandably exhausted and road-worn.  Viggo had argued to let them rest and recuperate before today's questioning; despite what some of the more inquisitional members of the priesthood might think, an exhausted and temperamentally stressed witness was not a good recipe for accurate testimony.  Damning and self-incriminating testimony, yes, but finding out details?  Not so much.  He needed better information than what he had to be able to make a solid basis of analysis.

And it didn't help that the courier had known very little when Viggo had questioned him.  He'd been eager and enthusiastic—Viggo had never _had_ such a cooperative and honestly _keen_ person to question before!—but he'd been dispatched within a few days of Harthacnut's return, and hadn't picked up much.  Mostly rumor and hearsay, some of it _very_ wild.  For example, Viggo rather doubted that the riders had forced Harthacnut to sign a treaty in his own blood—if for no other reason, because that was the sort of lurid detail that would have _definitely_ made it into the dispatches. 

At least now he was involved in this set of questioning directly, rather than being dependent on the reports of others.  Very directly, in fact.  As part of his position as the official investigator into the whole matter, Cardinalis Giovanni had made a virtue out of a necessity and given Viggo the task of acting as the translator for the questioning, as he fluently spoke Latin, Norman, Norse, and Anglo-Saxon.  Viggo had accepted the job with a will, and arranged to have one of his cousins from his Hunter team assigned to take notes. 

Their first witness was the senior armsman from Harthacnut's retinue that had accompanied him—seniormost _survivor_ , at least, as most of the Thingmen had been wiped out, with barely more than a tithe of their number having been captured.  One of the Norsemen from the king's personal army, he was an imposing, well-built man who reminded Viggo of his own brother, scarred and hairless, although that looked to be due to burn scars on his scalp.  That being said, the similarity was only skin-deep; the fellow was staring at the number of senior priests in the room, seemingly awestruck, which was a marked contrast from how Ryker would behave. 

Viggo sighed and paid close attention to the man's body language as his cousin made notes and Cardinalis Franco walked over. 

"State your name for the record," Franco said, which Viggo repeated in accented Anglo-Saxon. 

"My name?  Anton Einarsson.  I am… was… am a member of the King Harthacnut's Thingmen, oathsworn to him, and his brother and father before him these fourteen years."

Viggo translated for the room, and hearing his own name in the midst of the Latin seemed to help Anton steady himself. 

Franco continued.  "Very good.  What were your duties to the King in your service as one of the Thingmen?"

"We was his personal oathsworn guard and army.  We protected the land against raiders, fought as our king ordered us… we were an army at his order."

"We are familiar with the Thingmen.  What were _your_ duties?"

Viggo sighed slightly to himself.  Treating the witness with that sort of aggression was not an effective way to get quality information out of him.  Still, he translated the question.

"I was a simple thane, milord priest."  Viggo corrected it to the proper 'Your Eminence' as he made the translation.  "I fought, I guarded, I executed my lord's instructions…" He shrugged, confused.  "There's not much to tell beyond that."

"I see.  Now, can you please describe the events that led up to your king's fleet being in the waters off of western Alba on the night of October the sixteenth, in the year of Our Lord ten-forty-one?"

Viggo translated, and made a quick addition of the proper honorific, which the fellow nodded at. 

"Uh, yes, Eminence.  We set sail from London on September—"

Franco made a chopping motion when the word September came out; he apparently had at least _some_ knowledge of the English tongue to understand the context.  Interesting.  "No, before that.  Why did your king assemble his forces in _autumn_ to fight against these pagans?"

"Well, uh, Eminence, back in early spring, the pagans came down on dragonback and burned and looted Brycgstow, one of the _burh_ on the west coast of England.  About twenty or so, by what I heard.  Took them an hour to raze the place, killed half of the garrison.  A hundred men and horses, gone like _that_."  He snapped his fingers.  "So my lord king started buildin' up the Thingmen to be able to repulse them.  The peasants didn't like it, and we had to raze Worcester when they killed two of his taxmen over it.  Then the king heard that the oathbreaker, Magnus the Bastard, was allyin' with the dragon-riding heathens.  I don't know how much you know about my king and Magnus—"

"Enlighten us, please."

"Well, um, Magnus is the son of old king Olaf of Norway.  Bastard born on his concubine.  Summer before last, milord and he met to discuss things; rather than go to war, they agreed whichever of them died first, the other got his crowns.  But… well, milord king is not well, and he has no wife or sons, and Magnus is younger and healthier.  And he went to ally with the dragon-riders.  Married one, actually, from what I heard when I was a captive."

"Get to that in a moment.  So, your king thought that Magnus of Norway would ally with the dragon riders and invade?"

"Aye.  I mean, they already _had!_   Brycgstow was one of our greatest burhs, and they cracked it in a mornin'!  With time for an early luncheon!  And Magnus's raiders were always a threat against the English shores.  Danegeld only managed so much.  The two of them together…" he shrugged helplessly, and Viggo considered.   Yes, that would be the sort of threat worth mobilizing against.

"So your king believed that there was an imminent threat to the realm?"

"Aye, Eminence.  And given what happened… I can't say that I disagree at all."

"And what did happen?"

"Well, we was on our way to the dragon riders' village to raze it.  We had a fleet of seven score and six ships, and fifty or so men per hull."

Viggo, having already read as much from the dispatches, still felt his eyebrows rise at the confirmation—and the additional information of the number of men per ship.  That was a substantial force. Others in the room were murmuring in shock as he translated. 

"And your king had raised this force specifically to destroy the dragon rider village?"

"Aye, Eminence."

"Why?"

"Before they could give the dragons to Magnus's raiders!  We heard that he and his army would be given dragons in exchange for alliance."

"Heard from who?  This source of your king's seems to be quite well informed."

"I don't know, Eminence," the Thingman shrugged helplessly.  "Not my place to ask such questions."

"Well, that's true enough. Continue.  Why did your king assemble such a force?  Such a large force seems to be perhaps excessive for dealing with a simple village of raiders."

"Well, Eminence, given what happened, I'd say it wasn't big _enough."_   The Thingman shrugged apologetically.  "Sorry, but it be the truth.  We was hoping that enough of us would get through to be able to raze their village and keep the scourge from spreading unchecked.  We knew we'd be taking losses against the dragons, but the King said that it was a risk worth taking, and we all agreed with him—especially when we stopped in Brycgstow to see the damage on the way."

"I see.  And what did Brycgstow look like?"

"As if the pits of Hell Itself had opened on the earth," the Thingman said, and Viggo could envision the scene well enough as the man described stone walls burned and melted, holes bored through the ground, and the grass blasted to ashes.  He translated it all, keeping as close to word for word as he could manage. 

The room was silent in the aftermath of the description, except for the scratching of his cousin's quill, and Franco coughed and continued. 

"Noted.  Now, what happened when the dragons attacked the fleet?"

"Well, we was spotted by two of theirs in late afternoon.  One dragon got in close to attack us and we shot it down.  The other ran for it and brought back a horde.  Call it a hundred dragons?  They tried to attack, but we fought them off.  Killed a dozen or so."

"How did you do that?"

Viggo, already knowing the answer, leaned in, curious to study the man's body language. 

"We had every man but the oarsmen armed with bows and crossbows.  Even if they were poor shots, they were to just shoot in the general direction of the dragons and try to fill the air with arrows.  It's the best tactic for takin' down regular dragons, and it worked!… at first."

"What happened next?"

"Well, they ran off and the sun went down, and we kept sailin' through the night to attack at dawn… and then, just past the middle watches, all Hell broke loose upon us."  He looked up helplessly at the room full of priests and said, "We heard the screams of the damned across the waters, and our ships kept explodin' and they were droppin' rocks on us from a thousand feet in the air and they were settin' our ships on fire and I burned when my ship got hit by one of those hellblasts and had to jump into the sea… and then one of them, the big black one, the one ridden by the chief devil-worshiper himself, the tribe's heir, came and plucked me from the water for my ransom."

Viggo raised an eyebrow.  Well well.  _That_ part hadn't made it into the dispatches…

"I got dropped off on their island and tossed into a cell with the king.  Well, I wouldn't call it a cell. They had dragon tunnels that they boarded up and made into dungeons.  But we were fed and given wash-water and parchments for letters and the like.  I met some of the riders when they was guarding the cells.  They seemed to be decent folk, aside from the devil worshipin', but they was still vikings, and they was still in league with the beasts."  He shook his head.  "Like the priest said, evil that looks evil is easy to spot.  Harder to see the ones that look normal."

Franco nodded.  "Indeed.  Now, earlier you mentioned that you heard things when you were a prisoner of the dragon riders.  What did you hear?"

"Uh… a bunch of things."

"Such as?  You were referring to Magnus before."

"Oh.  Right.  Uh, he married one of the dragon riders and was given one of the hell-beasts in exchange.  Calls it Brand.  Big yellow dragon, likes to set itself on fire."

"There are _women_ dragon-riders?"

"Yeah.  Uh…" he thought for a moment.  "Magnus's wife is a girl from the village, sixteen I think, blond, a little plain and thin for my tastes.  I did see her.  Hair was pretty, and long.  Not much in the way of meat on her bones, though, but the king seemed pleased enough.  Rides a two-headed dragon with her twin brother, one on each head.  Name…" he cocked his head.  "Ruff?  Buff?  Oh, wait, Ruffnut.  Apparently she caught on their weddin' night or somethin'.  Or maybe earlier."  He smirked and Viggo resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  "Milord king was not happy to hear it, in the cells.  He was even less happy with what the dragon rider hero did with his ransom."

"What did this…" Franco consulted his notes, for show, Viggo was certain, "Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third do with the ransom?  One hundred thousand pounds silver, yes?"

The Thingman gave the cardinalis a sardonic look that was quite out of place given the circumstances, in Viggo's opinion.  Such an expression was more suited for telling tales around a table in a bar. 

"He gave it _all_ as a bride price for his wife."

Viggo choked—as did Franco. 

Cardinalis Giovanni asked, his tone curious, "What did he say?"

Viggo got control of himself and translated.

The room went silent again, a reaction with which he sympathized.  The man couldn't be serious. 

"Repeat that?  I do not believe we took your meaning.  He used part of it to pay for his bride price?"

"Nay, milord.  He gave her parents the _whole thing._ "

"You swore an oath, Thingman, to tell the truth."

"And I _am!_   They was all abuzz about it!  Like somethin' out of one of the old sagas!  He gave her parents the whole ransom as a bride price, and the Eire city they conquered too!"

"Which city?"

"Vedrarfjord!  They conquered it while they was waitin' on milord Edward's reply!  Took them a whole afternoon!  And the Hero and his daddy gave it to his girl's parents!  I was there in the room when he proposed!  A hundred thousand pounds silver and a city!  All for the girl that he loved!  The two of them went off to bed that night singing!"

Viggo had to bite down on a laugh as he translated that last bit.  Oh dear.  Oh dear indeed.  The boy was a _romantic sentimentalist._   Oh, he was going to be such fun to play with.  Oh yes.  Grand gestures of love… that was exactly the sort of mushy-headed nonsense that Viggo expected at this point.  Most excellent. 

He pondered for a moment while Cardinalis Franco did his best to restore order in the room. 

"Who is this woman that is worth such a price?  A queen with an army at her beck and call?"

The witness shook his head.  "Nay, milord.  His woman from the village."

They all looked at him as if he was insane.  "His woman from the village.  And he just… not a couple of cows or something more typical, but a king's ransom?"

Viggo translated, but before Anton could say anything, he made a noise in thought.

Franco looked at him with a degree of irritation.  "Do you have something to add, Brother Grimborn?"

"Yes, Your Eminence, I do," Viggo said in Latin.  "I think that thinking of this _Hiccup_ as just another pagan warlord is a mistake.  He isn't.  Don't look at this as the actions of a battle-hardened raider or bandit king with an eye for loot and power."  He grinned humorlessly.  "Picture it instead from the perspective of a romantic-minded young boy who suddenly inherits a kingdom.  Grand gestures, romantic and otherwise, all over the place in the place of pragmatic sense.  That's what we're seeing here."  He shrugged as the room murmured, mostly in tones of agreement.  "He wanted to show the world how much the girl is worth to him.  Likely as soon as the blush of adoration wears off, he'll realize his own insanity, but look at what we already know—this is someone with a taste for the dramatic, writing his saga as he goes.  Which do you think would have the greater impact?  Purchasing his beloved with a 'traditional' brace of cattle?  Or the sort of grand gesture that will literally send tongues to wag all the way to Rome?"

Franco's expression was flat, but after a moment he nodded.  "Your point is taken and accepted, Brother Grimborn.  But please hold such comments until after we're done with the questioning of the witness and we do not need your services as translator."

"Of course, Your Eminence."

Franco turned back to Anton, and asked, "What is the woman's name?"

"Astrid, I believe.  She's another one of the riders.  I met her, but only a little bit, and it was mostly her holding an ax to me throat to make sure I behaved.  I saw her at the proposal, but I wasn't exactly able to do much."

"Describe her."

"Tall for a woman."  He motioned to above his eyes.  "Blond, very Norse in look.  Slim."

Viggo made a mental note to not make assumptions about anyone's identities when he arrived in the Norsemen's territory.  With descriptions like these…

"And this Hiccup?  Can you describe him as well?"

The Thingman looked surly for a moment and then sighed.  "I honestly feel embarrassed.  He's a thin _weed_ of a boy.  Tall, yeah, taller than me, but I could break him in two like a bundle of twigs.  Uh, red-brown hair, needs a haircut, beardless," Viggo could hear the disdain _dripping_ in that description and had to hold back a chuckle, "green eyes, and he's missin' his left foot."

"So that is confirmed?  He's a cripple?"

"Yes… and no, milord.  He supposedly made himself his own peg, and can walk on it with the same ease as a normal man would on his own flesh and blood.  It's all steel and wood and springs, and there was none of that," he waved side to side drunkenly, "like you would from a normal man who had lost his limb.  And their steward was such a man, too.  I'd say it was demonic pact, but what he traded for, I don't know.  But it was unsettlin' to watch a man with half a leg walk as well as a normal man.  It's not right."

"And how did you meet him?"

"Well, he came down to the king to talk with him every so often, and he brought medicines and salves for those of us with burns.  I didn't dare attack him for his heathen ways, because his demon and his woman was there as his guards.  Would've accomplished nothin'."

The priest nodded.  "Yes.  Anything else?  Perhaps about this chieftain father?"

"Only met him in passin', and saw him at the betrothal.  Proper Viking.  Giant of a man.  I didn't even come up to his shoulders.  If I broke his son in two, he'd break me into three, I felt.  Uh, red hair, big proper beard, wore a helmet with dragon horns.  Aside from the hair colour, couldn't see any resemblance between him and his son."

More scratching from the stenographer, and the priest nodded.  "Thank you.  You are dismissed.  If we have further questions, we will call you back in."

"Thank you, milord.  Glad I could be of service."

As the Thingman left, Viggo thought to himself.  Interesting.  Oh so very interesting. 

So the boy liked to make big dramatic gestures, hmm?  Well, Viggo could use that.  And, he was certain, looking at the worried priests, that they'd let him.  Sooner or later, they would let him. 

And Viggo was looking forward to it.  This would be the greatest challenge he'd ever faced, and it would be _glorious._

###

**_Saint-Brieuc, Duchy of Brittany, Francia_ **

 

Inga, tired, cold and hungry, tapped Dogsbreath on the shoulder and pointed.  "There," she said, indicating a small town on the coast.  Behind them lay the vast expanse of the sea between the Isles and Francia.

The time since they'd fled had been miserable.  Cold, wet, rainy and foggy, always hungry; their initial provisions had only lasted a few days—not helped by the fact that Redsnout needed a _lot_ of fish to eat.  They'd stolen food at first, but then, realizing that they'd be leaving a trail of angry fishing villages behind them that would alert Berk, they'd resorted to paying out of Rolf's coffer. 

And today they'd risked flying across the narrow sea between the Isles and Francia.  Two small islands lay behind them, but when they'd approached a short while ago, shouting villagers armed with bows had aimed at them and they'd veered off.

Hopefully this place would have someone willing to talk and trade…

They were noticed as they flew in, and people started to scurry about.  Inga fancied she could hear them shouting from way up here.

They landed on the outskirts, near the shore, tensed and ready to take flight again in an instant.  They watched cautiously as a dozen men carrying bows, axes and spears approached warily. 

Dogsbreath was nearly panting with fear, and Inga wasn't doing much better, as the villagers stopped a few dozen paces away and stared them down, their weapons brandished intimidatingly.  They continued to stare, for how long, Inga didn't know, until one man with an ax stepped forward and bellowed in heavily accented Norse, "Go away!  We have no booty for you to loot!"

Inga, trying desperately to calm herself with deep breaths, cupped her hands and said, "We're not here for booty!  We need supplies and directions and we won't cause you any more trouble than that!"

The man looked unconvinced, his eyes narrowed, and turned and spoke in whatever the local tongue was to his companions.  Even if the roar of the surf hadn't drowned him out, Inga was sure that she wouldn't have been able to understand a single word, especially at this distance. 

Finally, the man bellowed back, "And do you expect those supplies as tribute!?"

She shook her head.  "We have coin!  We can pay!  Please… we mean you no harm!"

The man scowled.  "Show us the coin, and swear on your gods that you mean us no harm!"

Moving cautiously, her heart pounding so hard she could feel her pulse in her throat, Inga took the small purse from her belt and shook out a few coins into her hand.  Holding them up, she called out, "I swear, by Frigga, Freyja and Sif, we mean you no harm!"

The men looked at the coins and, with one of them keeping an eye on her, Dogsbreath and Redsnout, they conferred.  She couldn't hear the particulars, but there was no question that the argument was intense, just from the intensity of their gestures and the raised voices carried on the wind, broken by the waves. 

Finally, the man with the ax said, "You can come with us.  We offer you hospitality in exchange for your coin."

Inga nodded and carefully slid down out of the saddle, followed cautiously by Dogsbreath.  A short while later, they were being escorted into the village.  The ax-wielder—named Christophe—was standing close by them, his ax slung over his shoulder as the people watched them warily. 

Suddenly, he asked, "Are you from the Dragon Rider tribe?"

Dogsbreath answered, "She isn't, I am."

"I see.  And what are you doing so far from home?"

Inga shared a glance with Dogsbreath, but he answered, "We're going to the Roman Empire to see my cousin, who has gone there."

Inga relaxed a bit as he didn't mention the actual reason that they'd left.

"The Roman Empire?"  Christophe glanced at Redsnout, and seemed to consider.  "Well.  I suppose that you could.  I've heard that it is very far off, though.  I had a cousin make pilgrimage to Jerusalem once, and it took him months of walking."

Dogsbreath nodded as if he understood whatever it was Christophe meant.  "But we can fly.  Do you know the way?"

"I do not.  Come, let us get you settled in."

He took their coin, and an hour later, they were in a small barn; it stank a bit, but it was reasonably warm and dry, and that was good enough for Inga.  With warm food in their bellies, they spread their furs on the hay and collapsed into sleep. 

###

 **_Saint Olaf's Hospital,_ ** **_Nidaros_ ** **_, Norway_ **

****

Ruffnut was working in the apothecary, crushing herbs for medicines, when Svanhildr burst in.  The senior midwife looked focused on something, yet also terrified.  She started searching through the shelves of jars, muttering urgently to herself without even a word to Ruffnut.  That was _weird_.  Svanhildr was unfailingly polite and courteous to her.

So she asked, "What's wrong?"

Svanhildr turned towards her, and said flatly, "Do we have any pennyroyal prepared?  Am I just not seeing it on the shelves?"

Ruffnut felt the blood drain from her face.  There was only one reason why the _senior midwife_ would be asking for that. 

And she shook her head.  "We don't."

"Damn it to Hell!" Svanhildr growled, and slammed her fist against the side of the shelves, making the jars inside rattle. 

Moving carefully, Ruffnut rose from her seat.  "What… who?"  She knew what.  And that was the problem…

"Alfhildr Knutrsdoittor.  It's her third babe.  It placed wrong in the womb.  And she's dying because of it."  She looked Ruffnut dead in the eye.  "Her only hope is pennyroyal."

Ruffnut inhaled as sharply as she could with her own baby inside of herself moving about and pressing on her lungs as two thoughts warred inside of her.  Her own solemn oath… or the life of someone else. 

But she'd sworn not to speak of it to anyone who ' _is not a healer without the approval of the elder healers_.'  Svanhildr was a healer… and Ruffnut was arguably the eldermost Hooligan healer in the city.  She was also the _only_ one, but that was splitting hairs.

At the same time… while this was hardly the first sudden life-or-death decision that she'd been faced with since starting her hospital—such things tended to come with the territory, after all—it was the first one that ran up against her own oaths.

The thoughts warred inside her head, and she swallowed hard against a lump of anxiety in her throat. 

She was here to heal… and to save lives.  It was one thing to slit Rasmus' throat when he was trying to kill her brother.  She'd done that without a qualm in order to save Tuff's life—and probably her own, given how he'd been berserking.  It was another to withhold medicine that would save a life simply _because._  

Biting her lip, she seized on the rationale that she was the Hooligan healer on the spot, and if Nanna, Gothi and the others were upset with her later, then that was their fault for _not realizing that this might happen_ and giving her instructions or guidance _._  

This was her job.

So she shook her head.  "No… it isn't.  But—"

"What do you mean, it _isn't?!_ "  Svanhildr marched up to her and grasped her arms, almost like she was going to start shaking Ruffnut.  "What do you know about herb-lore that I _don't!?_ "

There was a pause as Ruffnut swallowed, directed a mental apology to her teachers, and braced herself.

"Because it isn't an herb…" Ruffnut finally breathed out quietly.  "It's a secret."  A secret that had been ferreted out by the healers and herbalists of Berk during the Dragon War, when they had noticed the pattern behind the tribe's lowered birth rate, and held in close confidence among themselves ever since.  Ruffnut had been told only two years ago, despite having been training since the age of ten.

Svanhildr stared Ruffnut dead in the eye from a hand's-length away.  "If you don't share that secret, Alfhildr's death is on your hands.  Or…" a horrified look grew on the midwife's face.  "Oh gods, you don't have it here, do you?  It's back on Berk, isn't it?"

Ruffnut shook her head.  "No… it's here.  I, um…"  She pulled Svanhildr's hands from her arms.  "I will go and get it."

"You _will?_   Just like that?"

Ruffnut took a deep steeling breath and nodded. 

"I'll come with you then."  Svanhildr glanced at Ruffnut's swelling belly.  "I can't ask that you risk your own babe from whatever it is."  She scowled.  "God knows I wouldn't ask you to prepare pennyroyal right now either."

Ruffnut shook her head.  "No, unless you're willing to be sworn to secrecy—"

"Lass, I've been holding sworn secrets of herb-lore since before your mother was born.  I swear that I'll hold whatever the dire secret is to myself until they lower me into the ground.  But I need to _know,_ in order to save a life."

Ruffnut nodded, a rueful smile on her face.  It would have to do.  But, oh, the healers back on Berk were going to be _furious_ with her, and once the thaw arrived, Ruffnut was going to have to get Svanhildr over there as soon as possible for a _long_ talk with the other healers.  "Follow me."  She grabbed a pair of heavy leather gloves from one of the benches; normally, she used them to protect her hands when holding toxic plants, especially ones with spines. 

They left the hospital and made their way to the fort—and to the stables where the dragons stayed.  Barf and Belch were ecstatic to see her, and she took a moment to pat her dragon on the heads as Svanhildr looked on in awe at the dragons. 

Nearby, the dragon she had come to see was here and not out working somewhere.  Swift, her brother's hot-tempered dragon, was snoozing in the corner of the stables on a bed of warmed rocks.  She swallowed nervously; the Nadder wasn't exactly a morning person.  But she had no choice.  First, though, she went and got some fish from the nearby smoker as a bribe. 

Then, moving cautiously and gently, she patted Swift on the nose.

Swift's eyes popped open with a startling suddenness and he growled in irritation.  She immediately and wordlessly offered him the fish, which disappeared down his gullet nearly instantly, and he calmed a bit. 

Then she leaned in and whispered, "I'm sorry I woke you… but I need one tail quill.  One with venom.  Please don't throw it."

Swift considered that for a moment, and twitched his tail; a single quill the length of Ruffnut's hand stood up. 

She handed Svanhildr the gloves, and nodded towards the spike. 

Svanhildr, staring at the dragon, gingerly walked over while putting on the gloves.  Almost convulsively, she snatched the quill off of the tail and then held it like it was a red-hot coal. 

"Thanks, Swift," Ruffnut said.  "Go back to your nap now."

Swift grumbled, stepped around in a circle and curled back up to sleep.

She and Svanhildr left, Svanhildr holding the quill as if she was afraid that it might bite her.  "This…?  This is…"  She glanced around to see if there was anyone in earshot.  "This is an abortifacient?"

"The venom is," Ruffnut said quietly.  "And I only know that it works.  I don't know what the dose is or anything else.  I was just warned when I started my women's courses during the war that Nadder quills could make me miscarry if I was wounded by them."

"How…?"

"A scratch, enough to get the venom in," Ruffnut said tonelessly, watching the quill as if it were a snake ready to strike.  "Not all of them have venom… I think.  And it's still _venom_ —enough will make you sick or kill you if you get too much of it.  But…"

"I understand."  Svanhildr sighed. 

They walked perhaps another ten or twenty strides before Svanhildr asked another question.  "Do the men of your tribe know?"

"No… and we keep it that way.  Most of the women don't even know."

Svanhildr nodded.  "I see.  Thank you.  Wait.  Doesn't… doesn't the Hero's wife ride a Nadder?"

Ruffnut nodded, her face in a pained half-grin with no humor in it.  "Yeah.  She does.  And she doesn't know."  Or if she did, Ruffnut hadn't been told that Astrid knew.  But it wasn't as if Stormfly would hurt Astrid with a quill.  Since Hiccup had killed the Green Death, nobody in the tribe had gotten so much as scratched—which was the rationale that the elder healers used when they'd insisted on keeping the secret. 

They returned the rest of the way to the hospital in silence.  Ruffnut followed Svanhildr to the ward where Alfhildr lay dying from her pregnancy; she was feverish and barely conscious.  Her husband was there, looking distraught, wetting a cloth to put on her forehead from a soapstone pitcher.  He looked up as they entered.

"Oh, thank God you're back!  You were gone for so long—"

"There's a hope, don't worry," Svanhildr said.

"Oh, God, thank you!  Will she be okay?  I know that you said there was no chance for the babe, but can you save my wife?"

Svanhildr nodded.  "But you have to leave now, just for the moment."

"Why?"

"Please, trust us," she said to the distraught man.  It took more convincing, but he eventually left and returned to the main room.

Svanhildr held the quill up to her eye, examining the sharp tip.  With a gentle sigh, she looked up, breathed a prayer, and scratched Alfhildr's arm, right at the big vein in the crook of the elbow.  Blood welled up, and the venom sacs in the quill shrank.  Quickly, Svanhildr pulled it back, and set it aside.  "We'll see if that did it or not.  Do you know how quickly it works?" she asked as she bandaged the wound. 

Ruffnut gave a small, pained shake of her head.  "Hours?  A day at most?"

Svanhildr took a deep sigh and nodded.  "Then we wait.  I suppose, then, this is the perfect time to instruct you on what can go wrong in a pregnancy…"

Ruffnut gulped, but nodded, and bowed her head as Svanhildr began to discuss symptoms and treatments—what the problems could be, and what treatments to use.

Hours later, they walked into the main room, where Alfhildr's husband—Ruffnut still didn't know his name—sat waiting anxiously. 

He saw them and ran over. 

Svanhildr nodded and smiled.  "She'll live.  She'll be weak, and needs to stay under our care… but she'll live."

The man began to weep and, uncaring of rank or protocol, embraced them both before Svanhildr gave him leave to go to his wife. 

As he left to find her, Svanhildr turned to Ruffnut.  Speaking quietly, she asked, "Are there any other dragon-derived medicines that I should be aware of?"

Ruffnut nodded.  "Yes, there are… but I've given oaths for those as well." 

Svanhildr scowled.  "All right.  But I'm expecting to be told someday."

Ruffnut winced and nodded again, anticipating the storm of shouting and yelling that had suddenly appeared on her horizon.  "When the thaw arrives, I'll send a letter to Berk first thing."  And there were quite a few dragons whose venoms were medically useful, ranging from the Scauldron's, which, when diluted properly, was an essential treatment for people whose hearts beat irregularly, to the three different varieties of Triple Stryke stingers, each with their own uses, to the numbing and pain-relieving effects of the Snaptrapper's. 

Gothi had a separate Book of Dragons, listing the medical uses of the various dragons, and, as far as Ruffnut knew, Hiccup and Fishlegs had no idea of its existence…

###

 **_The_ ** **_Vatican_ ** **_, Rome, Papal States, Italia_ **

 

Viggo looked over his notes from the witnesses and frowned slightly.  It looked to him as if there were only a few major pagans of consequence in this whole affair.  However, that conclusion was based entirely on inference and supposition, and Viggo knew better than to rely on that, as did the Church.  Which was why he was being sent out to gather further information in the first place. 

However, being able to collate and organize what he could point at with some degree of firmness was still a significant advantage.  He would have to be careful to avoid filling in holes with less firmly supported extensions of his existing extrapolations, however.  That way led to the rejection of evidence in favor of conviction, and he'd just as soon leave that to the priests. 

Instead, he was formulating those holes as specific questions that he would seek out answers for, denying himself the closure of having an easy but incorrect answer.

It was taking some doing, especially solo, but he simply did not trust the priests to be able to maintain any degree of dispassion in this so as to be able to operate as a sufficiently detached sounding board—and, even more to the point, he simply did not trust them to avoid the temptation of trying to spy on him.

Ah, well, skill demanded certain sacrifices. 

As he dipped his quill in the inkwell once more, he pondered his current line of inquiry.  He was fairly certain, admittedly completely based on inference and deduction, that the weapon used to set at least twenty ships aflame was not actually dragon-fire.  Or, at least, not technically. 

The Romans used Greek Fire in sealed pots as siege weapons and as man-portable throwing weapons, and Viggo had, on one occasion, 'enjoyed' the experience of being in a fortress under siege by such weapons.  It seemed likely that Hiccup or the others in his tribe had hit upon the same concept and had simply filled earthenware vessels with one of the varieties of liquid dragon-fire, sealed them, and dropped them from above.  It was, admittedly, a guess, and one that he had still not shared with the priests, but it held up well under analysis.  All it would take was a small amount of a flammable liquid hitting a candle or lantern aboard ship and the entire vessel would shortly be in flame, turpentine and wood being the fuel that they were.  Of course, that didn't quite match the reports, so one of his questions was to determine _how_ they were igniting on impact.  He _expected_ the answer to be a simple point of "dragonfire that ignites upon touching air," but refused to commit that to parchment. 

Humming to himself, he kept collating his notes as the afternoon passed and cold rain tapped against the roof. 

###

 **_Mead Hall, Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

Wulfhild tried to keep her scowl to herself as Spitelout argued intently with Hiccup over dinner. 

"Look, I can see why you're wanting to just give every person under our domain a dragon," the marshal said.  "You're seeing so much untapped potential there and you're the kind of person who can't resist that!"

"Uncle Spite," Hiccup said tightly, "It's not just that.  We need the additional riders!"

"I agree!  But we need to be more careful about who we give them to!  And not just for our sake, but for the sake of the dragons!" Spitelout said intently.

Hiccup quirked an eyebrow.  "What do you mean?"

Spitelout reached out and clasped Hiccup on the shoulder.  "Hiccup.  Lad.  You're a trusting, _welcoming_ fellow.  And it's changed our lives for the better."  He nodded towards where his dragon, a Nadder named Kingstail, was snoozing in a pile with several other dragons by the hearthfire like so many oversized cats.  "And while your instincts have generally been good, you've made a few mistakes!"  His eyes flicked towards where Fishlegs and Heather were sitting nearby. 

Wulfhild caught it and protested, "Heather isn't a traitor!  You said so yourself!"

"Aye, but only by sheer dumb luck and youthful love!" Spitelout replied agreeably.  "And while I don't hold it against her… what about her friend, the other freed spy?  Can we trust _her_?  We know little about where she came from, who her family is, and where her loyalties there.  And we know even _less_ about anyone else coming in from outside." 

Hiccup grunted and bowed his head over his plate, clearly trying to ignore his uncle. 

Wulfhild surreptitiously walked her hand over to him and squeezed his thigh supportively.  Since the official proposal for the new laws had been announced, _everybody_ who supported Bladewit's proposal was trying to convince Hiccup to side with them.  Meanwhile, it was pretty obvious to her that a large number of the people against the very exclusionary law were against it because _Hiccup_ was against it. 

Spitelout, undeterred, leaned in.  "Hiccup.  This isn't just for _us,_ it's also for the good of the dragons."

Hiccup twisted his head and gave his uncle an irritated look.  "How so?"

"Well, which would you prefer?  Getting to know someone before they can have a dragon… _or…_ giving them a dragon, having the dragon get abused, and then having to help the poor thing after you take it away from them?" Spitelout said reasonably. 

Hiccup seemed to freeze, and Wulfhild recalled that had actually _happened_ last spring, with the perpetrators being a few of Steinn and Mildew's dragon-hating cronies. 

His hand squeezed her thigh in response, seemingly grateful, and he replied to Spitelout, "So then we'll be a bit more careful.  Maybe we make the class six months long, and write into the law that anyone who abuses their dragon will have it taken away, or that people who are learning how to train a dragon have to prove to me and the rest of Clan Haddock that they'll treat their dragons with respect.  There are a lot of ways to handle that risk without just…"  He waved his hands in exasperation, "…just saying, 'If you weren't born here or married in, no dragon for you!'"

Spitelout shrugged.  "And what do you do if they pull a disappearing act like Dogsbreath and Inga did?  I trust Dogsbreath to treat Redsnout properly… but Inga?  I don't know her.  Why should I trust her with one of Kingstail's kin?"

Hiccup scowled.  "That sort of vanishing trick will be harder to pull off when we get the Dragon Mail up and running."

"Harder… but not impossible," Spitelout said reasonably.  "And on the topic of the Mail…"

Hiccup groaned.  "Uncle, can you just let me eat in peace?!"

Spitelout shrugged.  "All right.  I'll leave you with this thought then."  He patted Hiccup on the shoulder, stood up from the bench, and said, "How can you trust your mail-riders from just flying off?  To be trusted by people to carry their mail… _we_ have to be trustworthy."

Hiccup scowled at him, and Spitelout sighed.  "I'm not trying to be cruel, boy-o.  Just cautious, for all our sakes."

He left, and Hiccup continued to scowl at his retreating back.  Wulfhild put her arm around his back supportively, and he turned to her.  "I hate this.  I hate this so much!"

She hugged him and patted his shoulder.  "It's okay.  We'll make it work."

He hugged her back, his arms wrapped tightly around her.  "Everyone keeps _looking_ at me _,"_ he said softly into her ear.  "Those people back in Vedrarfjord… here…"

She squeezed her arms around him tighter for a moment and then released.  "Will you be okay?"

"I… yeah.  I just want to help people and build things.  Why is this so complicated?"

She pulled back and smiled warmly at him.  "Because they want the same things, but they don't agree on how to do it."

Hiccup sighed, gave her a peck on the cheek and turned back to his plate, but he only poked at his meal. 

Not that Wulfhild could blame him; she'd been feeling off for days, and Astrid hadn't been much better, to the point that she'd skipped breakfast this morning.  Wulfhild eyed the vegetable stew in her own bowl as her stomach roiled.  She'd wondered if they'd caught something from the locals while they'd been visiting Erie.  Determinedly picking up her spoon, she made herself eat. 

"You okay?" she asked him.

"Yeah.  Leg hurts a bit, though."

She nodded, and got back to working through her own food.

She'd made it through half of the bowl when Astrid sat down on Hiccup's other side, another bowl of vegetable stew in hand.

"Well, that was _fun,"_ she said sarcastically. 

"What happened?" Hiccup asked.

"I was on my way back from the Rookery with Cami when we got ambushed by Rolf.  He's still furious about the whole thing with Dogsbreath and Inga, and wanted to know why we weren't doing more to 'hunt them down'."  She let out her breath in a long exhalation.  "At least it wasn't another 'Please convince Hiccup to change his mind on the law'."

Wulfhild snorted.  "No, we got that one.  Spitelout paid us a visit," she said as Hiccup sighed, his elbow on the table and his cheek leaning into his palm as he dejectedly swirled his spoon in his own bowl.

They ate, feeling down, and eventually Wulfhild stood, took her empty bowl, collected Hiccup's and Astrid's, and said, "You two head home.  I'm going to take these to the kitchens." 

They nodded, and Wulfhild took their dishes over to be cleaned.  Lopsides smiled hesitantly at her as she took the bowls and put them in the lacquered racks for the trip down to the Scauldron cove, but didn't say anything.  Shortly afterwards, she walked into the chief's house, only to hear Hiccup laughing upstairs. 

"What is it?" she called.

"Come on up, you have to see this!" Astrid replied, chortling. 

Wulfhild mounted the stairs, curious, and paused at the door to their room—while technically she still had her own separate room, for the last month she'd spent most of her nights in here with Hiccup and Astrid. 

It looked as if the dragons had taken every single bit of soft bedding in the house and piled them in the shape of a bowl on top of Toothless' old stone sleeping slab.  And, just to make it even stranger, all three of their dragons were standing by, clearly watching the three people. 

Wulfhild stepped over to the bed—which had been stripped down to the straw-filled mattress—and sat down next to Astrid as Hiccup examined the pile of furs and pillows.  After a moment, he looked over at Toothless.  "Bud, is your slab not good enough any more?"

Toothless chuffed in the negative. 

"So then why did you three do this?" he asked, waving with his hands to indicate the bowl-like pile of soft things, and the trio of watching dragons.

Toothless murbled and pushed him in with a prod of his snout.

"I think it's for us?" Astrid said, amused.

Hiccup hauled himself to a sitting position in the shallow part of the bowl and looked at her, looking baffled, and Wulfhild suppressed a snicker.  Then Mistletoe nudged her, and she turned and looked into her dragon's green eyes.  "I guess so!"

She got up and hopped into the bowl, landing next to Hiccup—and then seated herself on his lap. 

He rolled his eyes as she chuckled and kissed his cheek.  Astrid giggled.  "You should see you two—hey!" 

Stormfly was poking her with the tip of her tail, and nudging towards the nest.  "What gives?"

"I'm not sure, but do you want to come in here and join us?  It's cozy, and I saved you a seat," Hiccup quipped, shifting himself under Wulfhild so that his other leg was free.

Astrid smirked and hopped off the bed.  Cuddling in a moment later, she sighed.  "This is nice."  The three of them wriggled to make themselves more comfortable as the dragons left the room, clearly pleased with themselves as they chittered to one another. 

Astrid pulled off her shoulder spaulders in short order, followed by her _pteruges…_ and then, after a moment's additional consideration and an epic smirk, her shirt. 

Hiccup grinned at her.  "Is it a bit warm in here?"

"Nah, more chilly.  See?" Astrid said, grinning.  "But you can help with that, can't you, babe?"

"I guess I could.  First, let me get this off," he motioned to his leg, "and I'm all yours—you know, what's left."

Wulfhild snorted.  It had taken her some time to get used to just how casual Hiccup was about his false foot. 

He reached down and started to unstrap the buckles, and hissed.  "Uh oh."

"What's wrong?"

"Usually it's a relief to take the buckle off…" Hiccup said, looking at his leg with concern, and then he bit his lip.  "And I've been down working in the Broodery all day."

"Let me help," Astrid said, and she bent down without another word.

Wulfhild watched anxiously, holding Hiccup's hand in her own, which he clenched tightly as Astrid carefully unstrapped the false foot.  The skin around his eyes was tight and white, and she gave him a supportive kiss as Astrid undid the last buckle.

But as Astrid peeled back the lambskin stocking that Hiccup wore over his stump, she hissed—and Hiccup bit back a scream. 

"What's wrong?!" Wulfhild asked, her worry shifting to near-panic.

Astrid looked up at her, wide-eyed and worried.  "Go get Nanna!  Now!  It's infected!"

Wulfhild hopped to her feet without another word, stumbling a bit on the edge of the furry nest, and ran for the stairs.  "Mistletoe!" she bellowed.  "I need you!"

Her dragon came bounding up, and Wulfhild took a moment to thank God that she hadn't started to undress, as memories of her mother's death from an infection ran loose behind her eyes.  She grabbed her cloak and slung it on around her shoulders as she and her dragon ran out the door.  They were at Nanna's hut in a matter of moments. 

Dismounting with a panic-fueled fluidity, Wulfhild pounded on the door, praying that Nanna was home. 

A moment later, the door opened, to reveal Sorcha, Nanna's wife.  "Princess Wulfhild?  What is it?"

"Is Nanna home?"

"No, she's out at Badgerwit's place—"

Wulfhild blurted, "Thank you!" and without further ceremony jumped onto Mistletoe's back again.  A quick hop—not even what she'd call a flight—and they were at Badgerwit's house.  The sound of children playing inside reached Wulfhild's ears, and she pounded on the door. 

It opened, and a short little girl—Ase, if Wulfhild remembered the name rightly—looked up at her.  "Hi!  Who are you?"

"I'm Wulfhild.  Is your cousin Nanna here?" Wulfhild asked, her heart pounding.

"Yep!  She helping Mama with something," Ase said cheerfully.

"Can I come in?" Wulfhild asked, trying to keep her fear from spilling over onto the little girl.

Ase looked her over and gave her a beaming grin.  "Sure!"

Wulfhild stepped over the threshold.  "Where is your Mama and Nanna?"

"Mama!  Nanna!" Ase called out.  "Wilfhild is here!"

Badgerwit's voice called back from the back room.  "Who?"

"It's me!" Wulfhild said, managing to barely keep herself from shouting.  "Is Nanna here?"

"I'm here!" Nanna's voice confirmed. 

Wulfhild went over to the door.  "Come quick—"

Inside, Nanna was pressing probing fingers to Badgerwit's bare belly—which obviously contained a baby.

"Uh, sorry, sorry…" Wulfhild babbled, averting her eyes and feeling her cheeks burn.

"No worries," Badgerwit said cheerfully.  "We were just getting ready to make the announcement anyway." 

Nanna looked up to Wulfhild.  "What is it?"

"Hiccup's stump is infected," Wulfhild blurted. 

Nanna sighed.  "I was wondering if that was going to happen.  How bad is it?"

Wulfhild swallowed, and pushed away those horrid memories of her mother's end.  "Uh… bad but not terrible?  There were no red lines along the leg, and he could still walk on it…"

"All right.  I'll be there shortly with what we'll need," Nanna said firmly.

Wulfhild nodded and gave a deep sigh of relief at the healer's confidence.  Turning and leaving, she went back to her home, to find Astrid dressed again, with Hiccup seated in a chair downstairs, Astrid haranguing him for not letting his skin dry before putting the stocking on and him protesting that he had, and it must have been from the dampness in the Broodery.

Nanna arrived shortly, and what followed was disgusting.  Wulfhild and Astrid both ended up throwing up when the infection was opened and drained, and Hiccup didn't look much better.  And then both of them held one of his hands each as Nanna, looking apologetic but resolute, doused the stump in both vinegar and a salty brine.  Hiccup screamed, the muscles of his neck standing out like cords under his skin, but eventually slumped back into the chair, panting. 

Nanna continued to clean the stump as Wulfhild patted Hiccup's arm, and finally said, "All right.  That should do it."  She looked Hiccup dead in the eye.  "We caught it early this time, but it'll happen again if you don't keep that stump clean and _dry_ when you put on the foot."

"I was working!" Hiccup protested, still panting heavily, sweat dripping down his skin. 

"Well, you need to stop letting the damp accumulate, or you're in for more pain like that," Nanna said without sympathy, getting to her feet.  "For now, I want you to stay off it for at least a week, and I'll be by daily to clean it."  She looked back and forth between Wulfhild and Astrid.  "You two, you keep him off of it, okay?"

Wulfhild and Astrid shared a resolute look and nodded.

Hiccup shook his head.  "But I've got so much to do—"

"Then have someone _help_ you with it.  But you _don't_ go walking on that leg for at least a week, or I'll have these two tie you to your bed!" Nanna said bluntly.

Astrid smirked, clearly relieved.  "Could be fun!"

Nanna chuckled.  "What you three get up to is your own business.  Just make sure he keeps off of it, all right?"

Hiccup sighed as Wulfhild and Astrid gave him a joint look.  "I'll be good, promise."

Nanna snorted.  "I'll believe it when I see it."  She pointed her finger accusingly at him.  "I still remember the old days of yelling at you to get inside, only to find you out in the middle of a raid."

Hiccup gave a sheepish smile and scratched at the back of his head.  "Yeah…"

"Don't worry, Nanna, we'll keep him out of trouble."

A concerned murble from nearby made them all look at Toothless, who was standing near the stairs with Stormfly and Mistletoe.  All three dragons looked worried, and Astrid said, "Hey, you three, Hiccup doesn't go anywhere until he's healed, got it?"

Toothless gave an affirmative chuff, and Hiccup sagged back into the chair.  "Well.  I guess that's that."

Nanna snorted and tostled his hair affectionately.  "Ayep.  But you'll live.  Now rest and heal."  And with those orders, she turned and left.

It took some doing, but they managed to get Hiccup back up into their bedroom.  Then it took much _less_ doing to convince him not to leave it. 

Eventually, Wulfhild got out of the bed, dressed, and went to the mead hall to explain the situation.  Twiglet was sympathetic, and said that she'd let Magnhild know so that Heather could bring by food for them. 

Then Wulfhild's stomach rumbled. 

"Didn't you just eat earlier?" Twiglet asked, cocking an eyebrow. 

"Yeah, but I threw up when Nanna…"  Wulfhild made a slicing and spewing motion, and Twiglet shuddered. 

"Got it.  I'll get you another bowl of soup then."

"And one for Astrid.  She had the same problem."

Twiglet quirked an eyebrow.  "Astrid threw up?  Astrid never throws up.  She has an iron stomach."

Wulfhild shrugged.  "Right next to me, for the same reason."

"Huh.  Well, two bowls of soup, coming right up," Twiglet said with a small smile. 

###

 **_Monte Vulture, Overlooking Melfi, Roman Catepanate of Italias,_ ** **_Roman Empire_ ** **_(Disputed)_ **

 

From his spot atop the mountainside, Sigurd looked down at the town in the valley below, and the army encamped around it. 

And swallowed in fear.

He must have made a noise, because the Roman officer who had been put in charge of their expedition, Protospatharios Katakalon Kekaumenos, turned towards him.  "Is there a problem, Topoteretes Trondsson?"

Sigurd looked up the tree-swaddled mountaintop towards where their small camp had been hidden.  And then looked back down the hill. "There are two thousand soldiers down there.  We have twenty riders and dragons, and another fifty fighters."  He waved his hands.  "That's _it."_

Kekaumenos chuckled.  "Ah, but you're forgetting that these are _Lombards_ _."_

"Meaning?" Sigurd asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.  "I'm sorry, but I'm just a dumb barbarian here."

"True," Kekaumenos said with a nod, and Sigurd sputtered as he continued.  "But we've fought Lombards for centuries, and we know how to deal with them."

Sigurd scowled.  "So how did the Army already manage to lose against these guys a few months ago?"

Kekaumenos snorted.  "Because Exagustus Boioannes and Dokeianos were glory-hungry fools who did the worst _possible_ thing when fighting Lombards—they faced them in a single pitched battle.  That is _not_ how you defeat Lombards and Franks.  Their cavalry is powerful, possibly the equal of the old Cataphract, and charge with devastating strength.  But they fight with little discipline or battle order—they are much like you and your fellow Varangians in that regard.  You are not so much directed as _unleashed_ in the appropriate direction."

Sigurd gave Kekaumenos a flat look.  "Thanks," he said dryly. 

"Think nothing of it.  I'd rather have you worrying about other issues.  But I see that the _Tactica_ was accurate.  Look."  He pointed down below.  "They haven't fortified their camp for the night." 

Sigurd looked, and saw a lack of moving torches.  "All right.  What's your point?"

"Well, the _Tactica_ 's advice in dealing with Lombards is simple.  Ambushes.  Night attacks.  We can swoop down now, set their supplies ablaze and cause confusion and fear."  He waved towards the encamped army.  "They look fearsome when they're piled all together like that.  But they won't be nearly as impressive when they're broken up into small foraging parties gathering whatever food they can from the countryside.  Our seventy versus their two thousand?  No, we would die.  But our seventy versus thirty, laden with food?  Yes… I think we can manage defeating them in detail, one small packet at a time."

Sigurd winced.  "That sounds exhausting." 

"It will be, but more for them than for us.  And it is not as if we have to destroy that entire army.  Our specific goal is to capture or kill the ringleaders of this rebellion, which should weaken them enough that the survivors can be bribed back to our side or dealt with later on."  He rubbed his hands together almost gleefully.  "In five days, Topoteretes, that army will be gone.  Mark my words."

An hour later, a column of smoke lit by flames filled the night sky above Melfi.  Sigurd watched as the rebels' food supplies and many of the buildings burned.  It had been a one-sided slaughter in the darkness, and he had no idea how many of the Normans and Lombards lay dead on the slopes of the hill where they'd gone to get water from the valley stream for dousing the blazes.  Dozens, at least.  Probably hundreds. 

Kekaumenos had ordered them to break off from the attack when the army below had realized it was under assault.  Rather than tangle with archers in the night, they'd returned to their camp on the mountainside. 

Sigurd sat, his legs tucked up under his chin, and watched as the townspeople and soldiers fought the blaze.  The smell, of both woodsmoke and other… _things,_ burning drifted up to him, conjuring up memories. 

Kekaumenos had set watches, but he was confident that they were in little danger.  They were hundreds of feet in the air, nearly four miles away—and the rebels were busy. 

Gudmund came over and sat next to him. 

"You okay?" he asked, concern clear in his voice.

Sigurd grunted in the affirmative. 

"That… that was a hell of a thing.  It… it felt almost dishonorable, just how _easy_ it was," Gudmund said softly. 

Sigurd, still looking down the mountainside, said softly, "I grew up like this."

"Like what?"

"Dragons coming in the night, stealing food, burning houses…"  He inhaled deeply and then let it out in a long sigh.  "And we knew what we were doing.  We had torches, weapons for fighting them, training…"  He pointed his chin down towards Melfi.  "They've got none of that."

"You don't talk about your home much," Gudmund said quietly. 

Snotlout stiffened and looked at Gudmund; his dark skin was nearly invisible in the night, but he could still make out an outline. 

Finally, he sighed again and said, "No, I don't."

They sat in silence as the fires burned below.  Snotlout watched, but he wasn't really seeing the fires.  Instead, he was lost in memories…

Every single house on Berk had been rebuilt since he could walk.  He remembered dropping a toy when his home's turn had come, and he'd screamed in his mother's arms for it… and his father had lectured him afterwards.

He'd been seven.

The _burh_ had been different; there hadn't been children underfoot. 

As the fires started to go out below, he wondered how many children had just lost their toys… their homes… their _lives…_ because of what he'd just done. 

He spoke, almost startling himself.  "My home is a small island up in the Alban Hebrides, called Berk."

Gudmund made an encouraging noise.  "Go on."

"We've been there for… three hundred years, almost?  Something like that.  And for that whole time, we'd been fighting off dragons stealing our food… because this was our home, and we weren't giving it up."

Gudmund snorted.  "Typical."

Snotlout scoffed, and continued.  "Then… last year… well, did you hear the saga?"

"I did.  So did my brother.  When we parted ways last summer, he said that he was planning on finding this blacksmith's apprentice who tamed a dragon," Gudmund said quietly. 

Snotlout snorted and said, "He's my cousin.  Mother's brother's son.  We… we didn't get along w-well—" 

His throat closed on the words.  The memories of that last embrace back in Nidaros, and Hiccup watching from the rooftop as he and Hookfang left, both suddenly hit like a ton of cobbles, and he gasped and sobbed.

"Sigurd?  Sigurd!?  Are you all right?"

Gudmund was suddenly hugging him and rocking him back and forth, and the tears flowed for a moment in abject homesickness. 

He missed his mother, his sister, his brother… his father.  Hiccup and the rest of the gang. 

He even missed Astrid.

He was so _far_ from home and he hadn't seen them in so long and now he was burning homes…

But he was trapped by his oath of service… and trapped by the dragons that he'd endangered. 

So Sigurd fought down the tears, and eventually managed to stop shaking.  "I'm… I'm all right.  Just… just homesick."

"Aye, I get that," Gudmund said.  "Want to talk about it?"

"Yeah…" he said, and started telling his friend about his home… what he missed, and what was on his mind.  About the beautiful sunsets, and going hunting in the forest.  About the deep blue seas around it and the mountains above it.  About the dragons that had been his enemies and were now his friends.

Finally, the words ran dry, and they sat in silence for a while, until Gunnar came over and more or less dragged them off to their bedrolls. 

Tomorrow was going to be a busy day…

* * *

 

 **AN:** _Okay, first off, I know that the scene with Ruffnut is going to be controversial.  Before anyone starts yelling at me for putting in "modern" politics into this fic, I just have to say this: The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from ancient Egypt, in 1550 BCE, and we have Assyrian records from 1000 BCE, along with those from many other ancient cultures across the planet.  Abortion has always been something that human society has done, with the only difference being the attitude towards it and the rhetoric against it.  Hippocrates advised against it (along with surgery, due to the risks of both), but the Greek Stoics found no problem with it, as did Aristotle.  The Romans had no problem with it, to the point that one plant--silphium--was such an effective abortifacient that it formed the basis of the economy of Cyrene, where it grew, and was eventually harvested into extinction.  The Norse, likewise from what we can tell, had no problem with it, to the point where sickly or deformed infants were left out to die of exposure or dropped in a well._

 _But this is my in-story explanation on_ why _Berk has such a skewed population pyramid.  Six kids in one cohort in a community with an adult population in the hundreds?  Iceland's population pyramid in this era had_ half _the population under the age of adulthood just to keep the population growth stagnant, due to high mortality rates.  With the hundreds of adults seen fighting the Green Death, that would mean an equal number of children.  We don't see them, but Hiccup's class of dragon fighters should have been anywhere from 10 to 25, simply based on math (~400 children/16 years, or ~400 adults/40 years).  This is why I set immigration of freedmen as being so fundamental to the society's structure (which ties into the laws proposed last chapter), as they're_ missing _anywhere from half to three-quarters of their natural replacement population.  I've been foreshadowing this since literally chapter 8, when Stoick yells about how skewed their population is ("More elders over 50 than children under 10!")._

_So I've said my piece on that, and I'll leave it be for the moment.  Also note that, if you feel the need to leave me angry or hateful reviews, I will delete and report them as soon as I get them, and my betas and I have a betting pool on how many I'll get._

_In other news, because multiple people have asked: Yes, I have seen the trailer for HTTYD 3.  Yes, I have seen the Light Fury (a.k.a. Nubless).  No, I have no plans at this time to include her or plot elements from HTTYD 3.  I already have plans for Toothless's offspring, and I'm hoping to reach those chapters before the movie is released._


	54. We Are Who We Are

**Chapter 54: We Are Who We Are**

_Many modern students of the history of science and engineering have bemoaned Hiccup Haddock's apparent "near miss" of the development of the steam engine.  As the argument typically goes, he had all of the necessary components with which to construct such a device—boilers, pipes and tight-fitting valves with which to make pistons, and mechanical apparatuses with which to harness the power—and with his experimentalist and pragmatic predilections, he would have_ surely _seen the potential of the device, especially as he had access to books describing Hero of Alexandria's Aeolipile, the first primitive steam-powered device, which predated Haddock by a millennium.  Such speculators often envision what route history might have instead taken if Haddock had access to railroads and steamships in addition to dragons._

 _What such individuals forget is that it still took centuries of progress to develop steam power into the sort of practical forms of energy production they envision.  From Brendan Mac Brian's first introduction of a primitive steam-powered mining pump in AD 1381, it took over two hundred and fifty years until the first triple-expansion steam engine and steam turbines were developed (by Mishra in AD 1633 and Cohen in AD 1642, respectively).  Not only was Haddock missing many essential parts for the construction of steam engines—precision-bored piston-cylinders, for one example—he had no economic_ reason _to invest the time and effort into developing steam power.  He had already made significant strides in developing wind and water power in his teen years, which amply served his industrial power supply needs.  Also his early boiler designs, while far superior to earlier approaches, were still extremely primitive and wasteful of heat, fuel and water (some of which were recaptured by other processes, including the famous Berk Baths).  Finally, what many people overlook is that_ Haddock had recently acquired the aid of dragons. _The early steam engines were only economically viable as they filled a small niche in a developed and mature dragon-based economy, allowing for more efficient pumping of water from terraurban environments.  In Haddock's era, only the earliest potentials of dragon labor and construction had begun to be explored…_

_—The Genius Has No Clothes: An Alternate View Of Innovation, 1818_

**_March, AD 1042_ **

**_Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Ruffnut watched as Tuffnut hobbled on the crutches, Marte at his side ready to catch him if he stumbled again.

Leaning her chin on her fist as she sat at the table, Ruffnut wondered how long it would take Tuff to realize that Marte was sweet on him.  She doubted that it would go anywhere, between Marte's age and her still technically being in mourning, but she hoped to see the expression on his face when he figured it out. 

Karin came over with a bowl of stewed greens and set it in front of Ruffnut.  Ruff gave Karin a grateful look.  She'd been having cravings for days, and was practically _inhaling_ pickled cucumbers. 

"How are you feeling?" Karin asked. 

Ruffnut took up the spoon from the bowl and shoveled in a mouthful.  "All right. Svanhildr is sure it's a boy.  Magnus cheered, so I threw a pillow at him."

Karin laughed and sat down next to her.  "Boy or girl, he'll be happy.  He loves you."

Ruffnut felt her cheeks heat and ducked her head to hide it.  "I know."  Just then, the baby—who Ruffnut was sure was a girl—scored a solid hit on her stomach, and Ruffnut groaned. 

Karin's eyes twinkled, and Ruffnut gave her a glare.  "What?"

"Nothing.  Just memories." 

Just then, Tuffnut stumbled, letting out a curse in the Rus' that Vladimir had taught him over the last few months.  Marte caught him before he hit the floor again. With his ankle healed and the broken leg still in a splint, he could walk with the crutches, but his month as an invalid in the bed had made him surprisingly weak.  

His jaw set, Tuffnut pulled himself back upright with Marte's help, and resolutely started to walk across the floor again.

He'd almost made it—and Ruffnut had almost finished the bowl—when the door opened and an unwelcome voice intruded.

"Excuse me, milady," Einar's oily tones came from the door.  "But I need you to look at this."  He proffered a sheet of parchment with close, dense writing on it.

She grimaced.  Einar and his games.  Ever since Magnus had started actually administrating his own kingdom, Einar had been fighting back, subtly.  Against her, his tactic was to to come to her with anything and _everything_ to do with her dowry dragons, no matter how little.  She'd realized quickly that he was trying to push her into formally giving up control over them—perhaps just simply by having her say something like 'You take care of it.'  She'd almost fallen for it, too, but she'd paused and asked herself _why_ he was coming to her over something so _minor_.

But now she had to deal with his harassment every couple of days.

"What is it today, Regent?" she asked, painting a false smile on her face.

His own smile equally false, he came over to her and handed her the parchment.  "The miners up in the mountains want to use Deep Grinder and Slag to pursue a rich vein of ore," he said charmingly.  "It's a minor issue—"

"So a minor miner issue?" she interrupted, smirking.  He didn't like it when she did that.

"Yes," he said, his tone slightly strained and his eyes drawn together.  "Exactly."

She smiled at him and proceeded to read over the parchment.  Carefully.

And, as usual, his summary was almost too brief.  "Iron and copper ore?  I thought that they'd only found lead." 

"They did at first," Einar said, his face admirably even, although she could see a very small muscle tic in his jaw. 

She turned back to the parchment to hide her own smile.  While it didn't look like there were any major surprises in this one, she hadn't forgotten his earlier attempt to sneak in a fee setup which would have given him control of half of the coin the dragons were earning.  He'd begged that one off as a mistake and 'corrected' it. 

Making him wait when he bothered her like this was turning into a contest of wills, and she found that she enjoyed it every bit as much as her usual pranking.  Eventually, she finished reading over the suggestions, and signed it, having found no surprises. 

This time. 

"Anything else?" she asked with a false smile.  Despite his fondest hopes, she wouldn't grow complacent.

"Not at this time, no," he said, turned smartly on his heel, and left.

As the door closed, she scowled—only to laugh as Tuffnut, having tumbled, let out a flurry of profanity in three languages. 

###

**_Melfi, Roman Catepanate of Italias, Roman Empire (Disputed)_ **

 

"Go, go, go!"

The dragons dove out of the cloudy sky towards Melfi.  After losing most of their food supply to the fires four days ago, the rebels had done exactly what Kekaumenos had said they'd do: they'd foraged. 

Or, in other words, they'd done exactly what the dragons had done to Berk up until a year and a half ago. 

Stolen food.

The riders had taken out foraging party after foraging party over the last three days, and the desperation of the Lombards was becoming clearer.  They'd tried attacking the dragon riders on the mountain, but rather than engage, Kekaumenos had ordered the forested slope set on fire behind the mounted knights and the riders had retreated to the city of Bari for the day.  There, Kekaumenos had clashed with the Catepan, Georgios Maniakes, who had been furious that the Emperor had sent them in without putting them under his command, and had tried to assert control over them.  Sigurd had mostly just stared.  Maniakes—or Gyrgir, as Thorred called him in Norse—was _huge,_ nearly the size of… of his old chief.  But he hadn't managed to start ordering Kekaumenos around.

They'd returned yesterday after getting supplies at Bari, and had resumed harassing the foraging parties. 

Now more than half of the surviving Lombard army was out of Melfi, desperately hunting for supplies—and Kekaumenos had decided that it was the time to strike at the head.

In a loose formation, they dove towards the small city of tents and small buildings that the Lombards bivouacked in, aiming straight for the cluster of buildings that Kekaumenos had identified as being the likely residence of the rebel leaders Argyrus and Arduin.  

Then the trill sounds of a brass horn reached Sigurd—and below, an entire arc of tents suddenly rippled.

Sigurd's eyes widened in terror as he realized that the Lombards had set a trap for them. 

"PULL UP!" he bellowed, and the entire formation struggled to pull out of the dive…

Just as the archers below loosed their arrows.

They hissed through the air around the dragons, and there were shrieks and bellows from men and dragons alike.

He looked back over the formation as they sped away from Melfi.  "Everyone all right!?" he yelled, and people shouted in confirmation.  Sigurd sighed in relief—until he saw the limp figure dangling from the belaying lines, his dragon trying to both keep pace and check on their rider.

"THORRED!" he shouted, terrified for his friend. 

Gunnar, atop his Colchia, immediately yelled, "Ketilbjorn!  Hrafn!  Get him back to our camp!  Now!"

Both of the other two thanes saluted and maneuvered their dragons up next to the dangling Thorred.   Sigurd could see the skald bleeding freely; there was an arrow stuck through him, although he couldn't tell where; all he could see was the fletching, waving in the wind.

As the three dragons and riders turned away and left the group, Sigurd felt his fear for his friend turn to fury.

"Follow me, and prepare to fire on my command!" he ordered, and turned Hookfang around. 

They dove again, and instead of flying in from hundreds of yards above the ground, they flew at top speed right over the hillside, the bellies of the dragons only a handful of yards above the tents and buildings.  Sigurd could see the opening in the field of tents ahead and aimed them straight at the gap. 

"Ready! … FIRE!"

Hookfang breathed out flame right above the archers, and screams erupted behind Sigurd, followed by more as the rest of his group overflew the archers—of which there were only a few dozen—and breathed fire as well.  The archers hadn't seen them coming, not when the dragons had been shielded from their sight by the rim of tents and buildings.

As soon as they cleared the gap in the field, Sigurd pulled them into as tight a bank as they could manage and they overflew the archers again.  A few of them managed to fire arrows, but none hit.

The buildings in the center of the blaze, their original targets, were on fire by now.  Men were trying to organize to fight the fire, and Sigurd ignored them; they weren't a threat. 

As he and Hookfang landed on the rough wooden building, it crackled underneath them, and part of the roof caved in. 

"In there!" he said, and Hookfang breathed out flames into the structure.

A moment later, the doors burst open and a crowd of men came running out, some of them beating the flames on their bodies—but they didn't get far, as the other riders swooped in and snatched them up.

There was a bellow from Gunnar's dragon as the well-dressed man he'd grabbed slashed at the dragon's claw with a knife—and fell free a moment later.

Unfortunately for him, they'd already flown high above the burning tents, and he plummeted, vanishing into the smoke and flames a hundred and more feet below. 

The riders made for their campsite, and dropped off their captives one at a time. 

Kekaumenos openly gloated over the prisoners.  "Ah, look who it is!  Arduin!" he said to the most fancily dressed man, whose rich silk tunic and half-closed arming jacket both featured scorch marks.  "And where is Argyrus?"

"Dead.  One of your demon riders here dropped him," the ringleader said in curt Greek.

"Ah, what a shame.  Well, we'll take you straight home so the Senate can decide your fate," Kekaumenos said with a grin.  "Don't worry about Iron Arm and the rest of your Normans; we'll be back to clean them up later."  He turned to Sigurd.  "Make preparations to break camp."

"Aye sir.  But first, is Thorred all right?"

Kekaumenos shrugged.  "He's unconscious, with an arrow through his shoulder, and he apparently managed to whack his head on his dragon, judging by the lump.  He'll probably recover."

Sigurd sagged in relief.

"But he'll recover faster in Constantinople," Kekaumenos hinted heavily.

"Aye sir!" Sigurd said, and saluted, and turned to break camp. 

###

**_Saint-Brieuc, Duchy of Brittany, Francia_ **

 

Inga woke with a start as strong hands grabbed her and pulled her out of the warmth of the furs and straw she'd been sleeping on.

As she screamed and kicked, her hands were bound, and she heard Redsnout howling and the shouts of more men, along with the straining of ropes. 

A man went flying, and she heard Dogsbreath shout, "Yeah!  Come at me!"

And they did.

A moment later, Dogsbreath was grappled by half a dozen men his size, fighting to get free.  He was shortly bound as well.  The two of them were hauled outside of the barn and forced to their knees in the cold mud.

Redsnout was still howling, and trying to get free—and then Inga heard the sound of a blade being pulled from a sheath behind her. 

"Norseman!  Order your dragon to stop fighting, or your woman dies!" a man bellowed behind her in accented but clearly understandable Norse.

Inga saw the blade between her and Dogsbreath… and Redsnout slowed and stared.

The blade drifted over to Inga's neck, and Inga could hear Dogsbreath panting in fear.  "Well?"

Dogsbreath called out, "Redsnout, stop!"

Redsnout hesitated, and the villagers pounced.

Inga recognized them, having been here for over a week now, as they set about methodically trussing up the Nadder with rope and chain. 

Christophe walked over and she spat at him.  "You offered us hospitality!" she screamed in rage at him. 

He looked down at her, his expression cold and callous in the pre-dawn light.  "And you swore on false gods.  No such oath can be held as valid.  So we called our lord for help."

"And here I am on my father's behalf," the other voice spoke.  The man standing behind her stepped forward, sheathing his blade as he did so.  As Redsnout, bound in who knew how much rope and chain, was carried out of the barn by the villagers, she looked at their captor in the light of the torches. 

He was standing over the fruitlessly struggling Redsnout, his posture clearly gloating and satisfied, even from behind, his shoulders held high, one hand on his hip, one foot stepping on Redsnout's nose-horn.  Something about him and how he was standing, though, struck her as odd. 

Then she noticed that his sword sheath was on his right hip.

Apparently satisfied, the man said, in a tone just loud enough for her to hear, _"Finally_.  A dragon of my own."  Then he said something else in Francian, which Inga still didn't understand, before turning to Christophe and asking something. 

The backstabber produced Rolf's coffer, and the lord reached up to open it—with his right arm, which ended in a wrapped stump.

Scowling, he reached up with his left hand, opened the coffer, and rooted around inside it for a moment, before taking out a generous handful of coin and dragon scales, dumping them in his own purse, and closing the lid.  He said something to Christophe, who bowed and left with the coffer. 

The villagers loaded Redsnout onto a cart, and then put her and Dogsbreath onto a second one.  She turned to Dogsbreath and muttered quietly, "Now we know why they were telling us to wait for better weather before moving on…"

He snorted angrily.  "Yeah, no shit."

"That's enough out of both of you," the Francian said.  "Be quiet."

"And who are you?" Inga asked, giving the ropes a try and frowning.  They weren't well knotted, but there were a lot of them.  And even if she escaped, she'd be stuck in a place with no money, no tools, and where she didn't speak the language. 

But this man spoke hers.

He snorted.  "You don't recognize me?"

She gave him a nasty smirk.  "No, not a clue."

"I am Sir Henry of Brittany," he said pompously, "and I have a debt to settle with your brutal heathen tribe."

Dogsbreath inhaled sharply.  "Oh shit.  _You_."

"Ah, _someone_ recognizes me.  But we'll have plenty of time to talk… later."  He waved with his stump, and someone pulled a cloth hood over Inga's head.

As the carts squeaked and bounced along through the dim morning grayness, Dogsbreath quietly told her about how their captor had lost his hand…

###

**_Maritime Republic of Genoa, Regno d'Italia, Sacrum Romanum Imperium_ **

****

Viggo looked out over the bustling harbor of Genoa, a cup of wine in hand, and smiled.  They'd left Centumcellae five days ago, and made good time.  Despite the attitudes of the hidebound shipwrights back south, they'd made this short testing voyage to Genoa with panache. 

And not a moment too soon, either.  The senior churchmen had been growing impatient.  Before setting out on this trip, he'd carefully hedged things so that if there was a problem, they could turn around and return for further attention, but thankfully, it looked like he didn't need to.

Nursing the wine, he allowed a genuine smile to grow across his face.  Even now, days before the Spring Equinox, the harbor was full of ships and humming with activity.  Viggo loved it.  The merchant republic of Genoa, nominally under the auspices of the Kingdom of Italia, itself a component of the Holy Roman Empire, was one of the grandest ports that Viggo had visited in his far-flung travels across the known world.  A hundred years before, it had been sacked and burned by the Fatimid Caliphate to the point that the city had lay abandoned.  And now…

Viggo could count nearly a hundred ships from across the Mediterranean standing at anchor in the shelter of the harbor.  While many of them were local Genoese ships, the remainder were from the other maritime republics, including Pisa, further south down the coast—Viggo's ship had stopped there overnight two days earlier—Venice, Ancona and Amalfi, along with several other vessels from other parts.  Given the traditional rivalries between the merchant republics, Viggo was certainly amused at seeing the foreign ships at anchor; he would be willing to wager that _their_ port fees were significantly higher…

His eyes suddenly narrowed as he saw the distinctive figure of his brother talking animatedly with someone by the Amalfian ship.  Ryker was gesturing with increasing agitation, as was whoever it was that he was speaking with. 

Finishing his wine regretfully, Viggo returned the cup to the tavern he'd gotten it from, and went to join his brother.

"Oh, good, Viggo.  I was just about to go looking for you," Ryker said as Viggo walked up. 

"What is it?" Viggo asked curtly.

Ryker turned to the Amalfian—probably the purser, now that Viggo got a closer look at him, judging by his clothes—and said in Latin, "Tell him."

The purser nodded and turned to Viggo.  "According to several fleeing Lombard soldiers, a flock of dragons under the control of the Romans attacked them at Melfi, killing hundreds and capturing the Lombard rebel leaders, about two weeks ago."

The words entered Viggo's head, and promptly jammed the mechanisms within. 

Shaking his head to try to get his thoughts in order, he asked curtly, "How many dragons?"

"Not many.  Two dozen?  But they fired the granary of Melfi, and picked off the foraging parties.  The group I heard it from were survivors from one of those."

Viggo considered the man's words for a moment, and then stepped back.  Clasping his hands behind his back, he paced along the length of the dock for several strides and then back.

"And you are sure they were not just saying it as a grand tale told to impress you—perhaps for free drinks?" he asked.

The purser shook his head.  "I would have thought it, but I heard other rumors about dragons being seen, and everyone's talking about the attack on Melfi."  He chuckled darkly.  "Supposedly, the Roman catepan is furious that they jumped his command and stole his glory."

"I see."  The gears started to turn once more, and he held up his hand.  "One moment.  Brother, pay him."

As Ryker gave the purser some coins, Viggo paced in thought.

To begin with, he was going to assume that the purser's gossip was accurate—which meant that the Roman Empire now had somewhere between a handful and several dozen tamed and trained dragons for the purposes of warfare.  If the Church was frightened before, it would be terrified now. 

However, the relatively low number of dragons pointed to their taming being a recent development—especially given that it was the Roman Empire, justifiably famous for its armored horse cavalry, which they deployed in the hundreds and thousands. 

In all likelihood, it was not an independent event of domestication, but instead derived from Berk's own taming event in some manner.  While such a statement was a supposition, it was one that he felt confident in making, as two individuals both taming dragons in the space of two years on opposite sides of Europa would be highly improbable.  That being said, the tales were spreading widely, and it would only take one person attempting such a feat and succeeding by sheer luck. 

However, while there were undoubtedly hopeful dragon-tamers combing the wilds looking for dragons to tame, their chances of success were… slim.  If for no other reason, because dragons were rare—a fact that Viggo both intimately knew and had contributed to.  Any such hopeful tamer would have to expend significant effort, which cut down on the pool of potentials, notably reducing the probability of a second successful taming event.  Rather than some random peasant lucking their way into a tamed dragon, it would instead be someone driven enough to successfully seek out a dragon.  So while someone re-deriving the domestication based on the saga was unlikely, it was not impossible, and he set the point aside for later consideration.

However, a more direct connection from the original domestication point by Berk was more likely, simply due to the numbers reported by the purser.  A single individual lucking into a single tamed dragon was certainly possible, but repeating that multiple times, as opposed to being derived from a source known for multiple tamed dragons?  No, the latter was far more likely. 

But how had they gotten there…

Viggo grimaced and almost slapped his forehead in exasperation at himself.  Of course!  The Varangians!  The Norsemen served with distinction in the Empire—and in the aftermath of the post-Basil collapse from mismanagement, they made up the core of the Empire's current army.  Clearly the riders in question had left Berk and gone to the Empire as Varangians, taking with them their dragons.

Yes… that made sense. 

He turned to Ryker.  "Prepare the ship.  We sail out with the tide."

"Shouldn't we go back and see if they want us to investigate Constantinople?" Ryker asked.

Viggo shook his head.  "In all likelihood, the source for those dragons is the place where we are being sent to investigate.  Additionally, they already have spies in place in Constantinople; we'd be doing duplicate work, whereas we can discover original information by following our initial orders.  Furthermore, I believe the Roman dragon-riders are Varangian mercenaries.  As such, there is no way that the Church will not want information on how to hire more of them."  He pointed northward.  "Our goal and our mission still lie there."

###

**_Berk Baths, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Astrid yawned and stretched as she sat in the steaming pool in the new bathhouse. Wash Day was _always_ nice in winter… And even better when one had a genius for a husband to completely redesign the bathhouse. And even if one was taking one's Wash Day on Tyr's Day, well past nightfall.

From the next seat over, Wulfhild chided her, "Don't fall asleep over there! I'm not getting out of here if you start drowning!"

Lazily, Astrid made a rude hand gesture at her friend, and they both laughed.

Heather, sitting nearby, gave a deep appreciative sigh. "I love our boys. Especially mine," she said smugly, and sank into the steaming water until just the tip of her nose and her eyes were above the surface.

"Well, yours is the one who found the idea. Hiccup just ran with it," Wulfhild said, sounding both proud and contented.

"And what a run…" Cami said languorously from her spot in the pool.

Astrid had to agree with that. The design was simple, but worked wonderfully. A dragon-carved cistern collected rainwater and snow and was warmed by the heat of the main fires via a vent. It had also become a handy place to dump the excess snow shoveled from the walking paths around the village. In addition to helping with fire prevention and keeping a supply of drinking water available, it slowly dripped into the new underground bathhouse.

Hiccup had designed a system for refilling the pools that had made Astrid hit him affectionately when she saw how simple it was. A heavy wooden float in the water was attached to a chain; if the float sank far enough, it pulled a lever that opened a valve.  From that, more water from the cistern would pour into the pool until the float rose high enough for the counterweight to shut the flow off, just below the lip of the edge of the pool.  When people entered the hot pool, the water level rose until it reached the lip of the pool and overflowed, running down channels that ran through the walls and into the next room, which Fishlegs called the _tepidarium,_ from the Roman book that he had taken the idea from, which apparently meant 'warm room'. Then, as people used _that_ pool and made the water rise and flow out in the same way, it went into another room where the water was cold, called the _frigidarium._ After that, it then flowed out into another cistern, but it didn't sit there. One of Hiccup's wind-powered chain-pumps slowly lifted that water up and out to a third cistern above the village, where it could be used for watering gardens, laundry, putting out fires and such.

Another cluster of rooms, consisting of a dry sauna, a changing room, and an entrance room, rounded out the underground bathhouse complex. Heating the entire thing was an exhaust tunnel from the Broodery furnace and boiler; the tunnel ran underneath the stone floors of the pools, warming the rock, which warmed the water in the pool to the point of steaming.

A similar system of metal pipes now warmed the Broodery as well, the old metal sheet that they'd used before having been taken out and remade, with the end result being that the Broodery was more evenly warmed, using the heat which radiated off of the pipes. Hiccup had even figured out some way to make the water flow back down to the boiler in a second pipe to be reheated after it got cold.

But as for the bathhouse… It was _wonderful_. The underground design kept the heat in and the drafts out wonderfully, a significant improvement over the old above-ground bathhouse. Fresh pine planking covered the bare stone, letting people walk without chilling their feet—or burning them in the hot room, where the stone was heated from below—and adding a wonderful resiny fragrance to the air. Candles and Nightmare-spit lamps sat on carved stones, giving a flickering light to the steaming space. The pools themselves were carved straight from the bare wavy-patterned rock that made up most of Berk's underground, with seats for the bathers; they could seat two dozen or more people at once per pool, but right now, having gone in for a late night dip, the four women had the space to themselves—by design, as they wanted to avoid getting dragged into discussions about the proposed laws.  Ever since Fishlegs had finished his draft version a week ago on Stoick's behalf and submitted it for consideration, the debates were at high boil and some tempers were already running hot.  And it would get worse; as per tradition, they had one month of formal consideration before calling it to a vote, meaning that they would be holding the Thing a few weeks after Thawfest—right at Astrid's birthday.

They _could_ have used the old bathhouse for a daytime bath, as it was still kept stoked during the sunlit hours.  That would have allowed them to avoid most of the crowds which would be using this place during the day, although Astrid saw no reason to, not when the new baths were just as free of crowds at this hour.  It wasn't as if a late night dip was objectionable, and the new baths were worth the wait—although some people still seemed to prefer the old baths.  While Astrid couldn't understand them in the slightest, she appreciated them not cluttering up the space.

Despite the preferences of that minority, however, they'd be converting the old place to other use soon. According to Fishlegs' accounting, it used something along the lines of three or four times as much wood per bath—and that _wasn't_ accounting for how the new baths used what their boys called "waste heat" from the Broodery's furnace, meaning that it was essentially free warmth.

Hiccup and Fishlegs had proudly unveiled their new creation to the village the week before, after Hiccup's stump had healed from the infection. While there had been some murmurs at it, in general the tone had been positive. Astrid still remembered the looks of glee on Braun and Hilda's faces. Not only was the new place nicer, it needed fewer staff, and they'd been losing people to poaching from other job offers. Once the old bathhouse was decommissioned—Braun was making comments about turning it into a brewery—they'd be able to get by with fewer hands for the baths.

Cami sighed in a tone of contentment, dragging Astrid out of her thoughts. "Do you think that Hiccup would be willin' to build one of these back in my village?"

Wulfhild chortled. "Feeling pampered, Cami?"

"Yes, I am," she said, and slid deeper into the water. "You two are lucky to have him."

Astrid grinned. "No kidnapping our husband. Get your own!"

Cami touched her hand to her breastbone, her expression mock-incredulous. "What, you think that I'd steal Hiccup and have my way with him? Just because he's a handsome genius that apparently knows how to please a woman, given how I hear you two at night callin' his name?"

"Not helping your case there, Cami," Heather said with a chuckle.

Cami cackled. "I _know."_

Astrid gave her cousin a mock-glare, which made Cami laugh harder, but finally, she calmed down and gave Astrid and Wulfhild a more serious look. "Seriously, though, you two are okay? I didn't miss that you said 'our' husband."

Astrid shared a glance with Wulfhild and they both nodded.

"We've had some rough spots here and there, but we've gotten some advice and help in getting past them," Wulfhild said, and Astrid made a noise of agreement.

"And you haven't had any problems about…" Cami hesitated, "rank?"

"What do you mean?" Wulfhild asked. "She's the wife, I'm the concubine. Hiccup likes me and enjoys being with me, but he loves her."

Cami nodded. "But the fact that you're a princess and Astrid is just a shieldmaiden…?"

Wulfhild shrugged, and gave a silly evil grin before saying in a humorous voice, "Well, Astrid keeps somehow missing the poisons I put into her food.  I expected her to keel over a month ago."

Heather snorted and said, "You don't cook," as Astrid laughed.

"True! You found the hole in my evil scheme," Wulfhild said with a chuckle and Cami giggled.

Astrid rolled her eyes and poked Wulfhild in the side. "Hiccup's a better cook than either of us."

"Or both of us, put together," Wulfhild said. "Remember that steamed milk drink you tried making back during Yule?" She made a face.

"Hey, it was fine!" Astrid protested half-heartedly.

Heather rolled her eyes. "You overheated the milk, and it scorched, curdled and soured all at once. And _then_ you added… other things."

Astrid scowled and crossed her arms. "Fine! So I'm not a good cook."

"Nope. But before we all ganged up on Astrid, Cami, you asked if there's been any problem of 'rank'," Wulfhild said seriously, and glanced at Astrid before turning back to Cami. "I can honestly say 'no, there hasn't.' They're both my friends, and I'd rather be _here_ as a concubine than a queen anywhere in Europa." She motioned as if to indicate the baths and everything else.  Astrid grinned at her, and Wulfhild smiled back. "And anytime we do have a problem, we follow Rikard's advice and _talk._ " She shrugged. "It's worked out just fine so far."

"And have you two… _been_ with each other?" Cami asked carefully.

"Figures the Bog Burglar would ask that one," Heather commented wryly.

Cami shrugged, making the water slosh slightly. "It's not uncommon in my tribe, although not as much as some people fantasize and gossip about."  She rolled her eyes.  "Same story wherever we made port; either they believe that we're desperate to get laid because there are no men, or that we all prefer women."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "And what about you?"

Cami smirked. "We were talkin' about you and Wulf there, but, hey, sure, I'm not ashamed. Yes, I like both men and women and have been with both." She shrugged. "Just not at the same time. So I _am_ wonderin'…" she trailed off significantly.

Astrid glanced at Heather, who looked amused.

"Oh, don't mind me," she said, her face barely above the surface of the water. "I'm happily monogamous. As much fun as it would be to tease you two with more advice, when it comes to threesomes, I have to use my imagination just like everyone else."

Astrid snorted. "Still shameless over there?"

"Yep. I'm only _not_ sharing details because I don't want to embarrass Fishlegs, not because I care personally about what you think of me doing with him," Heather said.

Cami chortled. "That's the spirit!"

Wulfhild gave a small exasperated sigh. "But you don't care about our embarrassment? Or Hiccup's?"

"I'm not asking for _details._  That's your own business—even though I'm curious," Cami said.  "I was just wonderin'."  She came to a sitting position and said, "But, if you want, I'll go out and sit and steam for a bit in the sauna, or take a dip in that cold pool."

"You don't have to," Wulfhild said.

"All right," Cami said, smiling.  "And I _am_ glad that you two are doin' well."

"Thanks, Cami," Astrid said.  "And… to answer your question, no, we haven't."

Wulfhild nodded.  "At least, not without Hiccup there."

Cami nodded.  "Thanks.  Oh, by the way… I brought this."  She stood up, grabbed a small bottle from the array of bath products that they'd brought with them, and poured out the contents on her hands. 

"Oooh.  That smells nice," Wulfhild said, and there was something of a collective sigh of enjoyment among the four of them at the scent.  "Lavender?"

"Yep.  One of the few things I saved from the ship," Cami said, and she passed the bottle over.  "It's great rubbed into the skin."

There were few minutes of them doing just that, punctuated by advice and sighs of enjoyment.  As Wulfhild massaged the oil onto Astrid's back, Heather spoke up.  "I have a dumb question."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "Coming from you, I'm expecting to either laugh or scream at the end of this."

"Thank you!" Heather said mischievously.  "So, dumb question is… how is it we have _two_ female Razorwhips, and no males that we've found _anywhere_ in the region in over a year and a half?  Are our dragons going to be old maids?"

Astrid sighed and said, "I've been wondering the same about Toothless, really.  Or the Skrill.  We've been bringing in wild dragons for more than a year now; sometimes they follow the Dragon Mail riders in, others are brought in by tamed ones that seem to have gone out and collected their friends, a few we've gone out and brought in when they caused trouble. As far as I can tell, nearly every dragon in Eire and Alba has come to Berk. And we've got one Night Fury, one Skrill and two Razorwhips." She held out her hands helplessly. "You just can't have a species with so few members! How can we have over two thousand Gronckles and _one_ Night Fury? Even if the other Night Furies were in hiding somewhere, we'd at least have _heard_ of them by now!" She dropped her hands back under the water with a splash. "But it doesn't make any sense! If there were only, say, twenty Night Furies in all of Alba and Eire, then they'd all be siblings, or cousins, or something! And too much inbreeding is bad for cows, horses, sheep, _or_ dragons!"

Everyone nodded, and Wulfhild sighed. "Maybe something managed to wipe them out?"

"Maybe, but I looked over the old records a few months back; going back a hundred years of raids and losses, we never were attacked with more than one Night Fury… we think. But definitely not more than two or three at most at a time," Astrid said. "And you'd think that with that kind of firepower, the Green Death would send more than one of its best dragons against the people who were killing the rest of the flock."

"You're assuming it was intelligent," Heather said.

"I'm assuming that it has… _had_ at least as much brains as any dragon."

Cami shuddered and Astrid looked at her.  "Sorry, but I'm picturin' a giant version of Skuggi and how much trouble he'd get into."

Astrid snorted; the Changewing had a low and wicked sense of humor. 

"Well, if we can't find more Night Furies or Razorwhips…" Heather said leadingly.

"Yes?" Astrid prompted. 

Heather shrugged. "Maybe we should see if Toothless is interested in Stormfly or Mistletoe, at least?"

Wulfhild and Astrid gave her confused looks in unison. "What? They're not Night Furies," Astrid said, as Wulfhild said, "But they're not the same…"

"Yeah, but he _is_ a boy. I remember the dragon mating frenzy from last year. Fishlegs was running around trying to log it all, and I got roped into helping record it.  And there were a _lot_ of dragons mating out of their kind.  At least let the poor dragon get laid, even if it won't lead to anything. I'll even volunteer Windshear.  She doesn't have a boy, and I sympathize with that," Heather said reasonably.

Astrid looked at Heather with an expression somewhere between appalled and impressed.

"You're seriously suggesting that we have one of our dragons mate with Toothless this year?"

"Yep."

"You're either insane, or a genius."

"I think that they said that about your husband, ladies," Heather said with a grin.

"Nope," Astrid said tartly. "They… _we_ all just thought he was useless."

Wulfhild patted her on the shoulder sympathetically.

"Oh, I know, I know, he's forgiven me for it. But… yeah. I still cringe sometimes, looking back at it all.  Even if it's been more than a year."

"Well, that took a turn for the morose," Heather said. "Let's steer this back onto happier topics. Let's see… you two aren't getting ready to murder each other over jealousy, you both get laid regularly and so do I…"

"And what about me?" Cami asked, mock-petulantly.  "Don't I get the same consideration as a dragon?"

"Well, I won't volunteer Fishlegs.  Aside from the fact that he's _mine_ after everything we've been through there, I think you might eat him alive," Heather said with a smirk, and Astrid made a noise of agreement, echoed by Wulfhild.

"Sorry, cuz, but while we _might_ be interested in sharing Hiccup for a single night—if he was even interested—if you're looking to get laid regularly, you'll have to go hunting on your own," Astrid said firmly, although she was grinning as she said it.

Cami made a face.  "Fine."

Heather smirked.  "At least being interested in both men and women doubles your chances, right?"

"You'd think so…" Cami said with an eyeroll.  "But it doesn't work out that way."

Heather gave her a sympathetic look. 

Cami sighed.  "Well, I don't want to drag things down either.  So, let's see… other good shit going on… while there's the whole argument over the law, the newcomers are still being welcomed into the tribe; I haven't seen anybody sayin' they shouldn't be here, which is good."

Heather nodded.  "And the village is flourishing and growing.  And, well… if you'd told me last year at this time just how good of a chief Stoick is, I'd have called you a liar."  She blushed.  "I know this sounds extreme, but if he told me to jump off a cliff, I'd do it.  I trust him."

"Stoick tends to have that effect," Wulfhild commented dryly.  "Let's see… we're freeing people from bondage and thralldom… bringing prosperity to thousands…"

Heather nodded.  "I'll admit, that last bit… well, hanging around Christians for two years is actually making me wonder a bit about all of this."

Wulfhild gave her a deadpan look and said with a humorous air, "Oh? How so, milady pagan?"

"Well, Lady Cross, your husband is doing a pretty good job of bringing peace to the warring and I think the verse about lambs and lions could be viewed allegorically for Vikings and dragons."

Wulfhild blinked, her amusement vanishing like the summer dew under the sun.

Astrid glanced at her, confused. "I don't get the reference."

Wulfhild leaned forward and waved a finger at Heather. "Hiccup is _not_ the Second Coming!"

Heather smirked.  "Nope, but I'm just sitting here, being amused at the signs and portents that someone less cynical might get confused by."

Wulfhild was staring at Heather, appalled.

Astrid, feeling annoyed at not understanding the joke, shared a glance with Cami, who shrugged, clearly equally mystified.  Leaning forward, Astrid asked, "So… clue a girl in? What's the Second Coming, and why might people think that my husband is it?"

Wulfhild shook her head in a clearing motion. "It's the return of our Lord Jesus Christ to earth. He comes again to finish the job of bringing peace that he started the first time."

Astrid considered that for a moment. "Oh." Considered it some more. "I see." She looked at Wulfhild. "Is… is that going to be a problem?"

"I hope that it won't, and that Heather is just being crass," Wulfhild said tartly.

Heather just gave her a sunny smile.

"It's not a joke, Heather! That's the sort of thing that gets people executed for heresy!"

"All right, all right, sorry!" Heather held up her hands.

Wulfhild calmed down after a moment, still glaring at Heather.  Astrid just looked at her friend, surprised. Wulfhild was usually the very definition of easygoing and calm.

Grabbing a comb from the tray on the lip of the pool, next to the ball of soap, Astrid leaned over and started brushing through Wulfhild's hair, making the other woman sigh in relaxation.

After a moment, Heather, speaking softly, said, "Sorry for killing the conversation. Didn't mean to touch a nerve."

Eyes closed as Astrid combed her hair, Wulfhild just said flatly, "It's all right. I'm still getting used to being one of the only Christians in a village full of pagans. It's weird for me too."

"How are you going to handle confession and all of that?" Heather asked, making Astrid cock her head in curiosity… and Wulfhild tensed under Astrid's fingers. 

Several increasingly brittle moments passed, before Wulfhild said curtly, "I'd rather not talk about it."

Heather seemed to shrink in on herself a bit and said, "Okay.  I'm sorry for offending you."

"Apology accepted," Wulfhild said, and leaned into Astrid's ministrations to her hair… and Astrid made a mental note to inquire later as she worked out a tangle.

They sat in silence for a while.  Astrid finished combing Wulfhild's hair and helped her clean it, and her friend did the same for her. Heather and Cami came over to their bench to use the comb as well.  As she started to work on Heather's hair, Cami quipped that the comb was clearly for blonds only, which made them all snort. 

They sat, soaking in the heat, with only the gentle lapping of the water and the guttering of a few of the candles making noise.  Astrid was so relaxed that it was difficult to resist the urge to just float on the water.

After a while longer, she spoke up lazily. "So… I don't know about you three, but I'm starting to get a bit wrinkled in here," she observed nonchalantly.

"Yep," Heather said. "Feels nice. I'm wondering how it'll feel when I have my monthly next week."

Astrid shrugged. "I've been wondering the same, honestly. With the water flow system, the water should stay fresh, instead of getting all gross. And it would just get washed away. Well, we'll find out sooner or later," she said, grimacing, but then turned at a noise from her side.

Wulfhild was just looking at her, with the air of someone holding a vat of Nightmare spittle in a room filled with lit candles.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Astrid…" Wulfhild said slowly, "your last monthly was back when the eggs were exploding… _over two months ago._ " She looked at Astrid with an air of dropping the vat. " _So was mine._ "

Cami and Heather both inhaled sharply as Astrid felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.  She started counting furiously as well, and then gave Wulfhild a look of shock. Almost seventy days for her, and seven less for Wulfhild.

"I didn't say anything because I wasn't sure…" Wulfhild said, "but…"

Heather looked stunned, while Cami exhaled slowly.  "Whooo boy. So am I offerin' congratulations or condolences?"  She looked at the pair of them assessingly.  "But I'm gonna shut up now and not say anythin' else."

"Thanks, Cami," Astrid said, still stunned at the realization. She'd been so _busy_ all winter and had apparently lost count. And she was usually so good about keeping track, which irritated her… but at the same time, deep inside herself, she felt a sense of bubbling excitement at the thought.

"It could just be late. It happens, sometimes," Heather said, apparently recovered from her surprise.

"To _both_ of us?" Wulfhild rebutted.

"I don't see what difference that would make," Heather said, and then winced.  "But… I… I don't know.  So… um… I think it's my turn to actually shut up now."

"Good idea," Astrid said numbly. She turned to Wulfhild. "What do we do?"

"Well… I think we either start with telling Hiccup, or wait another week until we're sure," Wulfhild said. "I wasn't going to say anything until then."

Astrid shook her head. "Tell him. We tell him now."

"No. Tell him when we're sure," Wulfhild said. "It could just be… late. It _could_.  Heather is right.  Cycles do skip sometimes."

Astrid shook her head, clearing it, although the sense of excitement filled her gut like fluttering flocks of butterflies. "Okay. Yeah. Wait another week?"

Wulfhild nodded. "Yeah. Or two. But we might want to go have a talk with Nanna or one of the other midwives…"

Heather snorted. "Yeah, because people won't notice _that_." She shook her head. "Best option is to wait at least a few days or weeks to be sure. Then tell Hiccup. I'm going to keep my mouth _shut._ I swear."

Astrid glanced at Wulfhild, who was looking at her, and they both looked at Heather.

"Okay. Oath accepted."

Heather smiled and nodded as Cami suddenly burst out in laughter.

"What?" Wulfhild asked.

"If you two _are_ pregnant together, I pity Hiccup in a few months!" Cami said, grinning, which then shifted to a smirk.  "And, please, please, _please,_ don't let him name them!"

###

 **_Oile_ ** **_áin na gCaorach, Fifteen Miles East of Vedrarfjord_ **

 

The pack of eight young men huddled around the fire in sullen silence.  The crackle of the burning logs, the sound of the ocean waves against the nearby shoreline, and the call of cormorants were the only things that kept the scene from being one of silence.

Looking around the group, one of the men stirred and then, as everyone else shot him a hostile glare, he fell quiet and still again. 

Another young man walked up, shivering, and moved in close to the fire. 

"Any luck?" one of them asked.

He shook his head.  "I managed to clip one, but it fell into the water."  He looked disgusted with himself.

"No food, no water, no shelter…" one of the men huddled by the fire said disgustedly.  "This was a _great_ idea."

There was a harsh murmur of agreement around the fire. 

"Hey!  We all agreed to it!" said one of the men, the oldest at twenty-two. 

"What _you_ said was 'let's go raid the Viking town!  It's filled with cowed thralls and cowardly Vikings, but they're rich and spending silver like mad.'"

"Aye.  'We got a purse of dragon-scales off of that one man just for catching him in the woods,' you said.  'He ran off like a coward and left it,' you said."

"'So _clearly_ the whole town is full of cowards,' you said," another man groused. 

"'Easy pickings,' you said," bemoaned a fourth. 

"Don't blame this on me!" said the oldest man with a scowl. 

"Why not?  It was your idea!" said the man who had just come back from unsuccessfully hunting cormorants.

"Well, at least we ain't dead," said the leader desperately, feeling the lack of his ax rather keenly.

They all gave him mute glares. 

"We be out on the middle of a _rock_ in the middle of the cold water, with naught to eat, naught to drink, and night coming on fast," one said after a moment, summarizing what they'd all been thinking.  "We ain't dead _yet,_ brother."

"Well, they ain't planning on killin' us," said the leader, with an air of grasping at straws.

"Why d'you say that?" demanded the youngest at fourteen.

"Because we ain't dead!" he said.  "They wanted us dead, they coulda just dropped us to go splat on the rocks when they first grabbed us.  Instead, they dropped us here and gave us a fire."

That made a positive murmur around the group. 

"Didna think of that," said one of the others.

"What they want us alive for, then?" another one demanded.

"Do I look like a Viking to yeh?  I have no idea!"

"Probably sell us as thralls," one said morosely.

"Or feed us to the dragons.  Bet they like their meat fresh," suggested another in a dispirited tone.

With that, they got back to huddling around their fire.

The day drew on, the sky grew darker, and the fire burned down more.

Night had long since fallen, and the fire was little more than flickers of flame on black logs with white ash along the edges, when there was suddenly the sound of leathery wings, and then they were surrounded by dragons.

They all cringed back, their sense of defiance and lust for glory and treasure in battle having been _thoroughly_ quenched by an winter's day sitting on the Keeragh Islands to the east of Vedrarfjord.

A cheerful voice called out of the gloom.  "Now that you've all had time to reflect on your behavior, boys, I have a question for all of you."

They just stared back mutely and sullenly at the blond woman mounted on the yellow dragon as she and her mount approached the fire.  There were more dragons and riders flanking the remains of the bonfire, vaguely visible in the dim firelight. 

"Are you all willing to behave yourselves if we take you off of this rock?" she continued.

"What if we say no?  Will you leave us here?"

"Well, no.  I'd rather not give Aegir anything that I don't have to," the woman said.  "No, we'll just drop you off—alone and unarmed—outside, say, Dubh Linn or some other place, where you can feel free to tell other young men like yourselves exactly what a bad idea it is to try to attack my cities."

They all looked at each other, and then, finally, one of them spoke up hesitantly.  "And what if we say aye?"

"Well then, we'll take you back home, give you something warm to eat and a dry place to sleep, and then, tomorrow, if you're so desperate for coin that you'll pull a stupid stunt like this, we'll see about finding you a job where you can earn it.  Or you can leave, if you want."

"So, wait, we won't be made thralls?" one of them asked, as their bellies all rumbled at the mention of warm food. 

"Now why would we do that?  We've outlawed thralldom already.  We'd be breaking our own rules, if we did that," she said primly.

"What's the catch?" asked the leader, trying to keep his wits—what there were left of them after a day of cold sea spray, at least—clear.

"No catch.  If you want, you can come in, settle down, learn a trade or do some other _honest_ work for good pay.  Or," she cocked her head, "you can go back to trying your hands at the raider life."

"Why're you being so nice?" one of them asked.

"I didn't know that leaving you all out here to cool your heads for a day counted as _nice_ by Eirish standards," said the woman.  "I'll have to make a note.  I was trying to make a nastier impression.  Should I come back in the morning?"

Her dragon started to flap its wings, and they all suddenly started making protesting noises.

With a guileless expression, she looked at them all as her dragon settled back down.  "What was that?  I shouldn't leave?"

They all nodded mutely; their tough-as-nails raider personas had long since dissolved into the reality of being a bunch of cold, wet, tired and hungry boys out of their depth.

"Well then," she said, and waved her arm in a beckoning gesture.  A few moments later, a cart, carried by more dragons, came into view above the waves.  "Climb in and we'll get you those meals."

###

Less than an hour later, back in Vedrarfjord, Gunvor and Hákon watched the young men, spread out across several of the mead hall tables by 'accident', proceed to inhale the food put in front of them.  They'd been purposefully broken up to keep them from staying in a tight knot of young petulance, and it seemed to be working at getting them to open up. 

"Well, that worked," Hákon said, shaking his head in amusement.  "What's to keep them from backsliding, though?"

"Work, and pay.  And punishment if they break the laws.  We'll treat them just like anyone else," Gunvor said.  "For now, though, I think their only risk of breaking any rules is snoring too loudly in the barracks tonight.  A more pitiful bunch of sad, wet puppies, I have rarely seen."

Hákon snorted.  "Is that including me?"

She shrugged and gave a little laugh.  " _That_ night was a special circumstance, husband dearest."  She waggled her eyebrows.  "But, no, while you were more pitiful by yourself, they made up in numbers what they lacked in quality."

He laughed.  "Well, that's our first group of bandits with more guts than brains, so far.  I think that this bodes well."

She nodded and they turned and left the mead hall. 

###

**_Saint-Malo, Duchy of Brittany, Francia_ **

 

Inga wiggled the little knife in the keyhole of the shackle around her ankle, her tongue held between her teeth as she focused intently on the internal mechanism. 

A soft _click,_ more felt than heard, issued from the lock, and she whooped in glee—and then flinched, looking around the small room she was confined in as if she could see whether anyone had overheard her.  But the room was as empty as it had been when Dogsbreath had been taken out this morning for another one of Henry's attacks on his neighbors.

Carefully opening the shackle, nerves on edge in case of anyone overhearing her, she slipped her ankle free of the metal ring, and gingerly lowered the attached chain to the floor. 

Standing cautiously, she went over to the door and examined that lock as well.  Looking at the metal plate set in the thick oak, she scowled.  The keyhole was, unsurprisingly, on the outside.  She'd already known that, but she'd hoped that she'd overlooked something.

Well, at least she was free of the damn shackle!  Aside from occasionally letting her out occasionally to exercise and bathe, her captors had made her wear it almost constantly for the last three weeks.  She'd been imprisoned in this little room as Henry's leverage on Dogsbreath.  The chain was long enough to allow her to walk around about two-thirds of it, letting her sit at the table, look out the small, barred window, use the chamber pot, and lie on the bed that she shared with Dogsbreath.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and massaged her ankle as she pondered her next move.  Clearly, her best option was to keep practicing so that she could get the shackle off quickly, but the thought of putting it back on at the moment literally made her nauseous. 

At least it wasn't morning sickness.  She'd had her monthly the week before, which had irritated Dogsbreath when she'd said that she _couldn't_ engage in bedsports that night.  But that irritation had evaporated when he'd seen the blood and started panicking, calling for a healer at the top of his lungs and begging her to be okay.  She'd honestly been touched by his fear for her afterwards, although at the time, she'd mostly been exasperated and in pain.

She pulled her thoughts away from Dogsbreath and her anticipation of his returning.  She had to get out of here or go insane from lack of things to do.

If nothing else, he was only one of a handful of people in this fief that spoke her language, and they'd gotten into the habit of talking with each other after lovemaking at night…

She bit her lip and _shoved_ the thought aside.  Now was _not_ the time!

Not that she didn't have time in abundance at the moment.  They'd given her embroidery materials, and having little else to do, she'd already finished a shirt for Dogsbreath, embroidered with an image of Redsnout.  Now a pillowcase sat half-finished on the table.  She had the embroidery needles, but she'd already discovered that they weren't strong enough to work as lockpicks.  That was why she'd taken the risk and stolen the knife during her last brief walk. 

All right.  The window was too small for her to get out of, and she was much more slender than Dogsbreath was.  So that escape route wasn't an option.  The room wasn't searched—or at least it hadn't been so far—but that didn't mean she didn't still have to be careful.  The table, chair and bed were all of sturdy construction, but short of trying to make a battering ram out of them and having Dogsbreath break down the door, she was at a loss there.  The chain was attached to a bolt set into the wall; Dogsbreath had already tried to pull it loose with no success, so that wasn't going to be useful either.

She stood and walked over to the door again.  The plate covering the lock was clearly new, much like her chain and shackle, and solidly embedded in the wood.  She might be able to pry it open with the knife, given time and effort, but the damage would be so obvious that there was no way she'd be able to conceal her efforts from the servants who came to deliver her meals and empty the chamber pot. 

Likewise, the door opened inwards, so she couldn't even try to slam it into their faces…

She paused.

The door opened _inwards._

She squatted and looked, and softly squealed in excitement at the sight of the wonderfully vulnerable _hinges_ on her side of the door…

* * *

 _ **AN:**_ _Okay!  In case anyone was wondering, the first draft of that scene in the baths was written December 2, 2016, the fellows out on the rock were first drafted in February 2017, and Viggo's deployment was first drafted December 13, 2016.  They've been edited since them--some of them extensively--but we're_ still _not caught up with that first burst of outlining I did over a year and a half ago.  Also, yes, congrats to everyone that picked up on Astrid and Wulfhild's pregnancies last chapter :D_

_Just a reminder that there is one more chapter before my July hiatus!_

_Beyond that, as of this past week, I have now been living here in Germany for one year.  It's been quite the experience, and I'm glad that I have had this story to help me have a sense of continuity through the change.  It has been my privilege, both in telling this story and in seeing the energetic response to it, and I hope to continue on from here._

_From my perspective, the first_ third _of the story I have planned is nearing completion, to conclude with Book II, which has been fully laid out and is undergoing final revisions before being given over to my beta readers.  Books III and IV are being drafted now from my outline, much like how the scenes above were drafted so long ago, and those two books should comprise the middle third._

_Once Book II is fully posted, I plan on posting Books I & II as stand-alone entries here on AO3.  That way, I can tag them appropriately, and include them as part of a series, with an attached chapter-appendix of terms, names and maps for each, and then doing the same for the remaining books as they're completed.  That way, people can download the individual books using AO3's function for that.  Meanwhile, the story will continue to be updated on this entry (likely to be renamed "A Thing Of Vikings Omnibus") according to my Sunday schedule.  _

_Again, thank you all for reading my story.  It means so much to me that so many are enjoying it._


	55. And Who We Make Ourselves To Be

**Chapter 55: And Who We Make Ourselves To Be**

_…with all due respect to my esteemed colleagues, the specific metaphor they used to describe the pull that Berk had upon merchant traffic is inaccurate and inadequate, as a magnet will only attract iron filings within a certain short distance, and the pull rapidly drops off from there.  In contrast, it appears that the seagoing merchants across all of Europa in the era attempted and typically succeeded in making their way to Berk for trade within two years of the domestication of dragons._

_According to the bills of sale, lading, and customs declarations recorded by Ingerman's archives, merchants from across the Mediterranean were flocking to Berk by April of 1042, hearing of the riches of the tamed dragons.  Previously, Berk had been a hazard port, where only those who were willing to risk being attacked by wild dragons went—although the demand for dragon-derived materials was such that some still made the journey, especially due to the near-total depopulation of dragons from the Mediterranean region over the previous two thousand years.  In the aftermath of the demise of the Green Death, the danger had evaporated, and this new opportunity for profit without major risk caused a significant draw to head to Berk with all possible haste.  Over the course of 1042, over a hundred merchant ships from as far away as the Fatimid capital of Cairo visited Berk—and, two years earlier, there had been only two such visits._

_As such,_ magnetic _seems to be inadequate as a metaphor to communicate the depth of the impact upon the commercial traffic of the era, as the draw became even more intense as the distance grew.  While I acknowledge that Historians Paulson, bat Rivka, and Larson prefer to focus on the religious aspects of the subsequent conflicts, their consistent downplaying of the economic factors does them a disservice…_

_—Dr. Dame Karolina Haddock, PhD, Professor of Norse History, Vedrarfjord University, Debate during the 89th Annual Symposium on Imperial History_

**_Saint Olaf's Hospital, Nidaros, Norway_ **

**_March, AD 1042_ **

 

Tuffnut leaned on his crutches, groaning, as he put weight on his broken leg for the first time in almost two months, and the pain shot through him.

Marte was there in an instant, and he waved her off.  He had to do this himself.

She nodded, and backed off a pace. 

Tuffnut took another step, and grimaced as pain radiated out from the healing wound; he was going to have an impressive scar to brag about, but his sister's healers were sure that he'd manage to recover without a limp.  At least Isak and Marte had both recovered fully, and Tuff had made good friends with Isak over just how much their splints had _itched._   And Marte was helping him with his recovery.  She and her kids had moved into the city after selling her husband's farm, and were now employed by his sister as aides at the hospital.

He took another step, and hissed at the pain. 

At least he'd had plenty of time to practice his Rus' as Vladimir had come by regularly.  His first visit had featured him scolding Tuffnut for his foolishness, and then giving Tuff a backslapping hug.  Tuffnut had been very confused.  But aside from the language lessons, he'd also gotten lots and lots of sagas out of the skalds.  As winters went, it could have been much worse.

As he stumbled again, Marte caught him.

"Thanks."

"You carried me.  I can carry you," she said simply.

He smiled at her and took another few steps before nearly falling again.

"It was the right thing to do," he said.

"I just… I want to thank you for it."

Tuffnut shrugged, and then regretted it as he nearly fell again.  "This is all of the thanks I need.  Help me walk again and I'll carry you any time."

She leaned in and said significantly, "Are you sure that this is all of the thanks you want?"

Tuffnut almost replied flippantly, and then realized what she was saying.

He looked at her.  Marte was in her mid-late twenties, ten years and more older than him, with long blond hair.  Four children had stretched out her figure a bit, but she still was a beauty.  Tuffnut swallowed as images came to mind… and… no.

He shook his head to push them away and drew on as many sagas as he could think of for his reply… and then discarded them and spoke earnestly.  "Marte… thank you.  But no.  You're my friend.  Any debt between us is settled, as far as I'm concerned.  You're nice and you're my friend.  But, as much as I appreciate that… I wouldn't be a hero if I did it.  I'd just be… well…  I lean on you enough already."

She nodded, an inscrutable look on her face, and then smiled at him.  "You are a better man than you think you are, Tuffnut.  I am honored to have known you.  And we will stay friends, yes?"

He nodded.  "Of course we will!"

"Good!"  She beamed at him, and, before he could even react, quickly leaned her head forward and brushed a gentle kiss on his temple, before pulling back.  "Now, take another step…" she said, helping him lift his foot and move it forward, the muscles weak and protesting.

But, for some reason, Tuffnut felt stronger.

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

Sigurd walked through the marketplace to the spice merchant's stall, Gudmund, Gunnar, and Benjamin at his sides.  People were giving them a wide berth, but the tone of the murmuring was different from how it had been before.  Still respectful, but there was something else to it.

Shrugging, he arrived at the merchant's stall and paused at the door.  There was another merchant inside, and the spice merchant and the other man were speaking in some harsh tongue which he didn't recognize.  The other fellow was much more tanned than the spice merchant, and was dressed in rich, brightly colored robes.  He wore an oddly shaped hat, like a cap with a cone on the end, and had a neatly trimmed beard whose density and curls made Sigurd a bit jealous.  The two of them were clearly arguing back and forth, loudly and aggressively. 

Just when Sigurd was certain that they were about to pull knives and have a go at stabbing each other, they cheered and embraced, pounding each other on the back with gusto and laughter. 

Sigurd was a bit startled, and blinked.  He hadn't seen that coming, and shared a look with Gudmund, who returned it, equally baffled.

Some bags were weighed and exchanged.  The other man examined his, which clinked of coin, and bowed deeply before leaving the stall.

Watching him go with a sidelong glance, Sigurd said, in his improving Greek, "What was that about?"

"One of my dearest friends and oldest competitors," the spice merchant said, a smile on his face.  "His family has managed to bring in a shipment of exotic spice, and he was letting me know.  Offered to sell me some.  Ah, that was a hard-fought battle, but I respect him for his skills!  Pity that he has not accepted the Lord as his Savior."

Sigurd's eyes narrowed at that.  It had been explained to him, at length, that non-Christians were outlawed in the Roman Empire.  Why that didn't apply to whoever that fellow was, he didn't know. 

Shrugging, he held out his own bag of spices to the merchant, and got his coin.  He was planning on keeping at least a few of the bags, though; they made the clothes in his trunk smell wonderful, and he had noticed at least a few of the women around the city sniffing at him appreciatively. 

As they walked through the marketplace—Gunnar wanted to get some fruit and Benjamin was getting some cloth for Pelagia, Gudmund was going for some oil for their dragons, and they were all joining in on a gift for Thorred while he recovered—he noticed people were talking furtively among themselves, and those conversations ceased as they drew near.  People were looking at them with expressions that he couldn't interpret, but they definitely weren't respectful in the way that he'd gotten used to.

While Gunnar was pondering what to buy at a fruit stall, Sigurd peeled off from his friends—although he kept them in sight—and approached one group of furtive talkers.  They were standing near one of the fountains and holding urns for carrying water.  Approaching them, he said, in his most formal Greek, "What seems to be the problem?"

They all stared with wide eyes, until one of them stammered out, "Sir Varangian, I don't know what you're talking about…"

"You were all talking about something, and then stopped as I was walking down the street as soon as you saw me," he said in slow, patient Greek.  "What were you talking about?"

"Nothing, Sir Varangian, nothing!"

"Well, if it was nothing, then you could tell me?"

A boy's voice, smarmy and full of resentment, piped up from behind him.  "They've been whining about the new Emperor, and nobody wants to tell you because you work for him."

Sigurd turned around to see a boy, maybe four or so years younger than him, looking at him with his chin up. 

"What?" he said, walking over, barely noticing the people at the fountain leaving quickly. 

"The Emperor.  My big brother has been talking about it.  They're saying that he's not _really_ a Macedonian, not like Zoe or Theodora are!  They're the last two _real_ Macedonians!  But he isn't!  He's the Eunuch's nephew!  But he sure showed the Eunuch!"

Sigurd looked at the kid with an eyebrow raised.  "So why are they all getting quiet when I get close?"

"Because they're afraid that you'll tell on them!  Duh!  You're a Varangian!  You work right for the Emperor.  You've _talked_ with him!  If you wanted to, you could pull your ax right here, lop off some heads, and the city militia would go, 'very good, they deserved it, the traitors.'"

Sigurd laughed.  He knew that Varangians were occasionally made to help out the city militia, as a form of punishment duty.  "Tempting… but I think I have better things to do.  And getting the blood out of my uniform would be a pain."

"Really?  Why?  Because I know that if it was me, I'd have them all rounded up and tossed in the dungeons—or fed to the dragons!"

"Why?"

"Because they're being disloyal to the Emperor!"

Sigurd shrugged and smirked.  "I'll see what I can do.  Thanks for telling me, kid.  I'll talk it over with my superiors and see what they think."

The boy beamed at him and walked off, puffing out his chest.  Sigurd watched, amused, as the kid strode up to a girl about his age across the courtyard, and said something in distant, rapid-fire Greek, and the girl…

Huffed, rolled her eyes, and walked off.

And, for a moment, Snotlout was watching Astrid from a few years earlier do the same.

He blinked.

What… no… why… Shaking his head to clear it, Sigurd rejoined his friends at the fruit stand, Gunnar having finally settled on what delicacies he wanted. 

"What was that about?" Gudmund asked.

"Apparently people don't like the Emperor because of the 'Eunuch'," Sigurd said quietly.  "I remember hearing a little bit about it all when we first got here, but I didn't pay that much attention."  He shrugged.  "I'll make a report to Kristoffer when we get back to the barracks."

###

**_Carn tS_ ** **_óir Monastery, Carn tSóir Headlands, 10 Miles South of Veisafjord, 30 Miles East of Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

"I think we should be just about there!" Gunvor called to Hákon, who looked down at the white clouds underneath them with disfavor.  Sighing, he nudged Cloudfox into descending, and the Nadder made a noise of complaint, but did so. 

The sun vanished within moments and Hákon shivered as they passed through the chilly and wet rain cloud on their way down to the surface.  They emerged through the bottom of the cloud shortly, and Hákon could see their destination easily—a cluster of buildings a few hundred strides from the beach of the Carn tSóir Headlands, the extreme southern and eastern tip of the island—and firmly behind the line drawn between Veisafjord and Vedrarfjord.  The lands between the two cities and behind that line had essentially fallen completely under Hooligan influence—and, as much as the idea made him quake in his boots, that made him and his wife responsible for them all.  So they were going around introducing themselves—and this visit promised to be distinctly thorny, as that cluster of buildings was a Christian monastery. 

They landed, and slid off of their dragons.  Sunflower and Cloudfox looked up at the rainy sky with irritation and, with a pair of annoyed chittering noises, they went and huddled under a group of nearby trees.  Hákon was starting to see _why_ the native Eirish made the comment that a blue sky was a blessing from the gods, or from their singular one, although apparently there was a second one that was out to corrupt them—some kind of jotunn lord?  He still didn't understand it, but that was part of why they were here. 

Walking into the monastery's courtyard, where the walls were sheltered by an overhanging cover, he looked around.  It was a nice enough place, he supposed, but the idea of giving up everything in your life to pray six times a day to your god… well, good on them for that, but he couldn't imagine that sort of thing for himself. 

The few monks out and about in the fields were all giving them leery looks, and Hákon sighed inside.  Their fears were certainly justified, given what usually happened to monasteries when Vikings arrived for a visit.  This place alone had apparently been looted six or seven times in the last three hundred years. But that wasn't what they were here for.  At the moment within the region between their cities, there were something along the lines of two dozen monasteries, if not more that he hadn't heard about yet, and while he wasn't interested in looting them, he _did_ want to figure out how to govern them.

Presenting themselves to the door warden, they bowed respectfully.  "I sent word ahead,"  Hákon said to the dour-looking man.  "We're here to meet with your… abbot?"

"You can.  But no women are allowed in the monastery.  She'll have to wait outside," the man rumbled. 

"I'm sorry, but that wasn't mentioned before," Hákon said firmly.  "She's coming in with me."

"The Lord's rules of conduct for His monks does not allow it  There are no sinful women allowed within the walls of this holy place."

Hákon quirked an eyebrow at the man while Gunvor scowled.  "And, how, exactly, is my wife 'sinful'?"

"She's a woman," the warder said, as if that was self-evident. 

As they both stared at him, incredulous, he added after a few moments, "Men will be tempted to the sin of lust just from her presence."

Hákon blinked and looked at his wife in surprise; she was looking back at him with much the same, too startled by the man's statement for her impressive temper to assert itself yet. 

Gunvor blinked herself back out of shock, and then her eyes narrowed.  "I don't believe that I quite follow.  I, a matron of nearly thirty-seven winters, and married for nineteen of them, draped from head to toe in an oilskin cloak, with my hair covered as a married woman should, am enough to _tempt_ you to try to attack me in a lustful manner?"  She pulled out her knife from under her cloak.  "Here's my answer to that.  If your monks are so ill-disciplined that they'll attempt to assault me, I'll make sure that they don't complete the deed."

The door warder, having looked at her for the first time, said, with an air of quotation, "'But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.'"

Both Hákon and Gunvor blinked again, and, after a very long pause, the only sound being the patter of rain on the roof and flagstones, Hákon said, in as level a tone as he could manage, "So let me see if I follow _that_.  It's not the _act_ that you find to actually be the sin, it's the _thought itself?_!"

"Exactly, sir Viking.  And that is why she," he nodded slightly in the direction of Gunvor, who seemed like she wanted to be both startled and furious and couldn't decide on which, "cannot be allowed onto the premises of this holy ground.  Our monks are holy men, dedicated to God and the furtherance of His Works and His Glory, and tempting them to sin—"

Hákon held up his hand in a holding motion.  "Stop."  He turned to his wife.  "Love, what should we do?"

She bit her lip and said levelly, "Well, I'll admit to temptation for removing the obstacle."  She shrugged.  "If the building isn't there anymore, then there's hardly any reason for me to not be able to go where I please."

The door warder's eyes widened.

"Buuuuut…" she gave the man a flinty stare, "I don't think doing so will be productive.  So," she said in a very hard tone, "If _I_ can't go inside to meet with the abbot, then I suggest he come out here to meet with us.  Promptly."

The warder nodded and slipped inside without a further word. 

Hákon looked at his wife, who shrugged.  He nodded and gave a resigned shrug of his own.  They had come to talk.  If the Christians were so determined to treat them without respect, then they'd register their own displeasure in response.  Like it or not, they were now under his and Gunvor's authority by all measure that mattered, and they were here to see how they could coexist peacefully.  Stoick didn't want to give the Christian lords of other kingdoms any reasons to want to come after Berk again, and neither did Hákon or Gunvor, for that matter.  They'd only come through the fight with England due to their son-in-law's genius, but it was unfair to Hiccup to demand that he keep saving them.

All that being said… This was _not_ a good sign for mutual peace and understanding. 

But allowances had to be made for history.  Hákon could see the scorch marks on the stone walls of the building, and he rather doubted that they had been left there for no reason. 

After a few more minutes, a rather severe, almost cadaverously thin man, his liver-spotted skin stretched out over his skull, dressed in the same dark brown robes of the other monks, stepped out under the overhang in front of the door. 

"You wished to speak with me?" he asked in accented Eirish.

Both of the Vikings nodded and bowed respectfully to the elder.

"You are the abbot?" Hákon asked.

"I am," he said in response.  "My name is Father Berach, and you are the Vikings who have threatened to once again destroy my monastery."

Gunvor sighed.  "I only said that because I was having a rather difficult time getting a thought through the head of your door guard here," she nodded at the man, who had resumed his post next to the door, "that I was here to talk, not to raze the place or 'tempt the monks to lust.'"

"Then speak," said the abbot, his tone flat.

"Father Berach," Hákon said with a nod, "your monastery is now effectively within the territory patrolled by our people.  We wish to be good neighbors.  I know that your experiences with Vikings in the past have been…" he glanced at the scorch marks along the walls, "less than positive, but we hope we can show our peaceful intentions."

The abbot just looked at them with a flat expression that managed to communicate his disbelief. 

Hákon simply nodded.  "I know I am asking much, and you have no reason to trust me, or believe me, so I will ask you one thing, and then I will go: would extending our protection over your home here, and acting to defend it, be something that you would see as proof of our good intentions?"

The abbot continued with his flat expression, and then, after a very long moment, gave a single curt nod.  "If, as you say, you are sincere in your efforts, then, yes.  A year, minimum, of good behavior on your part will at least show you have some degree of sincerity in a desire for peace." 

Gunvor gave him an equally curt nod in response.  "Well then.  I guess we had best be going.  If you have need of anything—food, medicine, building supplies—call on us at Vedrarfjord or Veisafjord.  We'll see what we can do."

"Perhaps," the abbot said with a bow, and, with that, turned and went back into his monastery.

Hákon turned to his wife.  "I think that that's our invitation to leave," he said, deadpan.

She nodded and they headed for their dragons. 

###

**_Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Heather groaned as she sagged into her chair in Fishlegs' room.  Well, _their_ room now.  All of her stuff was here now, and her old room back in her parents' house was now Toiréasa's.  Sleeping behind a locked door gave her a sense of security that Heather could completely sympathize with. 

Fishlegs looked up at her sympathetically from his writing desk and put down his quill.  "You okay?"

"Feet.  Hurt. Ankles.  Hurt.  Knees.  Hurt.  Legs.  Hurt."

He smiled softly at her, got up and went over to his chair next to hers.  As soon as he sat down, she had her legs in his lap, and his scribe-callused hands started to massage her feet by her toes and working his way upwards.

She grinned tiredly at him.  Some days, this was foreplay.  Other days, like today, it was just him being the most awesome partner ever.  Oh, sure, Astrid liked to boast about Hiccup, but he was the Hero.  He was supposed to do things ten times better than mere mortals.  Fishlegs… was the most awesome mere mortal she knew. 

She glanced over the bookcase.  Case in point—literally…

"I still can't believe you can read all of those," she said, looking at the books. 

He shrugged as he worked over her ankles.  "I got taught by my grandfather, who got taught by his father.  Admittedly, I'm pretty sure that I have an accent that would make Bragi cringe, but…" 

She grinned at him.  "And now you're teaching me Latin and Greek."

"Well, it helps that you already know some bits from those, as well as already having Norse script down yourself," Fishlegs said logically. 

She nodded towards the old book on the top shelf.  "So, you haven't told me much about your great-grandfather," she said.  "Apparently he was pretty impressive."

Fishlegs shrugged.  "I never met him—he died over fifty years ago—but, yeah, that's what I've heard.  He's supposedly the reason everyone in Berk knows how to read and write," he said. 

"Oh?" Heather asked, enjoying the feel of his hands as they rubbed her feet. 

"Yeah, he was a thrall who escaped here, and it turned out that he'd been a scribe before he'd been taken in a raid.  He started doing scribe duties around the village when he got here, and giving classes to all of the children, and people saw how useful it was, and, well, we kept it up after he died."

"What was his name?"

"Dror Ezrasson… wait, no, he had some special way of doing it… Dror ben Ezra.  Right.  That's it.  The 'ben' means 'son of' in that other language."

Heather shrugged.  "It's not a language I'm familiar with.  Can you teach me it?"

Fishlegs shook his head.  "We lost it.  Bladewit and her brothers—my grandfather and granduncles—knew how to speak it, a bit, but she's forgotten it mostly, just from lack of use after they died.  And, well… My vocabulary for it is maybe a hundred words.  That's how much we've lost."

Heather frowned.  "That's sad."

Fishlegs shrugged and continued to work over the arches of her feet.  "Well, maybe now that we're starting to spread out a bit, I can find out where he came from, and who knows?  Maybe I have family out there who can read it?" 

She grinned.  "I like that thought.  So, Greek?"

He nodded.  " _That_ one I know.  I think.  I can read and make sense of the books that Johann brings me, at least."

"Excellent."

A few minutes later, as they were working on the Greek vocabulary and he was massaging her calves, Fishlegs said, "And _thálassa_ means 'sea'—"

There was a knock at the door.

"Fishlegs?  Heather?" Tyyni's voice came through the wood.

They both sighed, and Heather said, "We're not decent!"

"All right then, but Gobber is here and looking awkward, and he has some Eirishman with him who he says knows how to make glass."

Heather and Fishlegs looked at each other and sighed in unison. 

"We're coming!"

"Thought so."

A few moments later later, they were in the main room of the house, Gobber and an anxious Eirishman sitting in chairs.

"Hey, Gobber," Heather said, waving.  "Something about glass?"

"Aye, lass.  This here is Fearghas mac Flann, and he's a glassmaker.  Astrid's parents sent him over with the mail."

The man looked at them a bit uncertainly.  "It was… amazing, and when they mentioned that you were making glass… well, I don't know much, but I can do something."

Fishlegs shrugged.  "Well, you'll know more than we do.  We're lucky not to have hurt ourselves yet."

"Well, um… can I see your workshop?"

Heather looked at Gobber.  "You didn't show him the workshop yet?"

"First rule of workshops, Heather—you _never_ let someone else into a man's shop without their permission.  That there is yours and Fishlegs' space.  I can go in, because it's my stall, but I don't get to bring in other people without your permission.  People get maimed when others wander into a smithy and move stuff.  Why do you think Hiccup and I have people stand in specific spots when they come in?"

Heather blinked and nodded.  That made sense, and it bothered her that she hadn't realized that. 

"Well, let's show you around," she said, forcing a smile.  "I doubt that we'll be able to get started tonight, but we can put together a list and start making a real shop before either of us hurts ourselves."

Fearghas nodded, and they stood and walked off.

Twenty minutes later, Heather looked at the Eirishman, impressed that he was keeping from swearing in front of a lady.

"I… how did you… no… why…" he was sputtering, looking at the vat of solidified glass in anguished dismay, and at the crude workshop. "How _did_ you keep from hurting yourselves?!"

Fishlegs shrugged.  "Paranoia and being careful?"

"And the grace and active intervention of God Himself!" Fearghas said, looking at the shards of glass along the edges of the wall, appalled. 

"Also, we have dragons that can help with melting things," Heather said.

"That would almost make it worse!" Fearghas moaned.  "The heat has to be even or the glass won't cool properly!"

"We know!  We figured a _few_ things out.  When quenching didn't work too well, Hiccup designed that—" Fishlegs pointed to the large stone-lined furnace, "for what he called annealing.  And it worked!  We were able to make a few things out of glass, which helped."  He shrugged.  "But it was really hard and I could tell that we were going to hurt ourselves at some point if I tried to blow the bubbles too big, so we stopped experimenting."

"Wisest thing you did," Fearghus said, looking at the equipment in dismay, and Heather wanted to roll her eyes, but instead paid attention.  It turned out that being trained to hear something once and remember it perfectly had more uses than spying. 

"Well, what do we need?" Fishlegs asked.

"Two furnaces, possibly three.  Depends on how well you have those dragons trained to breath fire on command."

Fishlegs bristled.  "Pretty well."

"Well, it will be both heat and spots, so we'll see.  We'll need more pipes.  Shears.  A marver—"

"A _what_?"

"A marver.  It's a table used to roll out the glass.  A smooth stone slab will do, used as a table, although iron would be even better.  Blocks.  You have a small annealer already, but we'll need a good melting furnace.  Cutting tools."  He turned and looked at them.  "Who is paying for all of this, anyway?"

"I am," Fishlegs said resolutely.

"You?  You're naught but a beardless boy!"

"Yeah, and he's training to be the village steward and works directly for the chief's clan," Heather said tartly.  "If you need it, we can pay for it—within reason, obviously."

Fearghus looked at her and started to laugh.

"What?" she asked, feeling irritated at him.

"I was the low man in my old shop!  I lost the job because we weren't making enough coin!  And now… I'm the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind!"  He was laughing deeply now, leaning on the table for support.  "Oh, I hope I won't regret this.  When they said they needed a glassmaker… I didn't imagine I would be the first one!"

"Well, you are, and don't let the grass grow under your feet," Heather said acidly.  "We're still going to be looking for others."

"Oh, of course.  I'm just laughing because I'm trying not to scream.  I mean… I only worked there for two years.  My old teacher would look at this and faint.  And he knows so much more than I do."

"Maybe we can get _him_ to come here?" Heather asked.

"Probably not.  He works over in England these days for the Saxons, making glass for the churches.  I doubt he'd want to move here at two score and ten after having put down roots in his current shop."

Heather grimaced.  "Fair enough."

"But I can see what I can do," he said.  "So, now, I see the furnace here is isn't what we're going to need.  Do we have any stone?  I can see if I can remember the shape of the one at my master's hut…"

Heather leaned in as Fearghus tried to describe the tools of his craft to them, and started taking note after note.

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

Sigurd and the other riders from the dragon unit sat in the audience chamber, surrounded by dozens of officers from the Roman Army; the rows of benches resembled, on a much smaller scale, the audience seating in the Hippodrome, which Sigurd had overflown so many times by now that he'd lost count.  On either side of him were Gudmund and Gunnar, with the rest of their cohort seated either behind or below. 

Kekaumenos, Jorn and Kristoffer stood at the bottom of the room, where there was a large writing slate on the wall, a rough diagram of Melfi already sketched on it, and a table of books at the center. 

Kekaumenos tapped the table, bringing the murmuring discussions in the room to a halt.  "We've analyzed the engagement at Melfi and come to several conclusions.  First and foremost, there is no longer any question that dragons are now the great weapon of this Empire, making Greek Fire seem almost antiquated.  Twenty dragons and seventy soldiers routed a force of two thousand men, half of them heavy cavalry, in less than a week.  The tactical advantages that dragons offer are numerous and potent.  They strike with the force of heavy cavalry, using either their innate projectiles or fire-breath or both, and have speed and agility that dwarf that of light cavalry."

He motioned to the writing slate, indicating the looping path that the dragons had taken over the Lombards' encampment.  "Furthermore, due to the ability to fly, they can deny engagement to land-bound forces and attack command structures directly, which will force enemy armies to redistribute their forces to protect such groups.  This will allow our own ground forces to take advantage of their relative weakness." 

He pointed to the small drawn circle that represented the Lombard counter-attack.  "Massed archers seems to be the primary—if not only—effective counter-strategy, which means that there will still be a use for heavy infantry in open battles.  Using the _testudo_ formation to counter their arrows, and with directions and support from dragons aloft, they can close and press archer formations, denying them the unit cohesion needed for an arrow storm.  That being said, I do think that investigating the potential of armoring the riders, dragons, or both would be valuable as a future refinement.  At present, the dragons and riders are essentially unarmored to save on weight and increase in speed, a fact that has already resulted in injuries rendering riders combat-ineffective.  A heavy variant of dragon-rider cavalry, emulating the old cataphract as closely as possible in terms of fully enclosed armor, has the potential to offer significant striking power and arrow resistance, if a satisfactory offset between weight and speed—and, in the case of dragons with their own projectiles, access to their weapons—can be found." 

He stepped away from the writing slate and towards the desk.  "Two things, however, are now certain.  First, we will need to create and refine a combat doctrine for the use and inclusion of dragons, both by themselves and in combination with our existing forces, in order to achieve maximum impact of their potential.  And second… there is no doubt that control of the skies by means of dragon-power is the future of warfare."  He looked around the room.  "Questions?"

Sigurd took a deep breath as the various members of the Roman army asked Kekaumenos about specific points on the engagement and his projections on the use of dragons in warfare.

He had caused this… and now it had taken on a life of its own.  He couldn't _stop_ it any longer.  The memory of that pillar of greasy smoke above Melfi wafted through his thoughts, and the room seemed to grow distant. 

Then someone called his name, and he jerked in his seat. "Yes!?"

"Topoteretes Trondsson," Kekaumenos repeated patiently.  "You were asked a question."

Sigurd blinked and shook his head slightly.  "Repeat it, please?"

From further up in the room, an elderly officer spoke tartly—and with a sort of insulting slowness, as if not trusting him to understand Greek.  "The question was about _where_ to find _more dragons._   Right now, we have forty, and half of those are assigned to the Emperor's personal guard.  Which means we will need more.  Where can we _get_ them, Topoteretes?"

Sigurd inhaled deeply and said, "They live in nests in hollow mountains.  We found a small one in the Aegean Sea, and there might be more, but from what I've heard, here in the south they've been hunted almost to being wiped out."

"And what about your dragon?  Which nest did he come from?"

Snotlout's eyes grew wide and for a moment, he remembered Berk burning from a dragon raid…

But before he said anything, Kekaumenos spoke up.  "An envoy on behalf of the Emperor has already been dispatched to open diplomatic relations with Trondsson's home tribe in Thule.  Despite the distance, it is hoped that they will be amenable to trade and perhaps the hiring of additional riders to augment our forces."

Snotlout felt the room swim… and hoped that the rest of the tribe was more obedient to Stoick than he'd been.

Because if one of the other Hooligans showed up to train dragons, he was a dead man.

The elder soldier was less than impressed, though.  "That will take time!  And we'd be coming as supplicants!"  He snorted.  "We should find some more nests in the Empire and tame them before we try to import more barbarians!"  He scowled at Snotlout. "Besides, how many riders could they possibly have?"

Snotlout didn't say anything, but then Kekaumenos cleared his throat.  "Yes, that is a good question.  Trondsson, how many riders and dragons does your home have available?"

"I… sir, I would prefer not to answer that question," Sigurd said formally.

Everyone in the room looked at him, and Kekaumenos' eyes narrowed.  "Preference _noted,_ Topoteretes Trondsson.  Now, I am _ordering_ you to tell us how many dragons and riders your tribe has available."

Sigurd swallowed, bowed his head, considered lying for a moment, realized that they'd find out as soon as that envoy returned, and said, "When I left last summer… in the Rookery—the barracks for them that we'd built—there were over ten thousand dragons—"

The room erupted.

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Hiccup stood over the wooden vent cover and enjoyed the stream of warm—if humid—air coming up from below, as Stoick shook his head in amusement.

"Son, I've got to hand it to you, I take back _every_ time I'd ever called your creations daft or pointless before. The baths are amazing, but this…" he motioned to the door set into the hillside nearby, which had a constant stream of people going in and out at the moment—to see and use Hiccup's latest creation.

Berk's new laundry.

Before, people had taken their clothes to the river to wash, and it was a hassle and a mess, and frigid in the winter. Hiccup had taken some of the hot water coming off of the Broodery boiler, made some pipes and valves, carved out a new side chamber with various small pools filled with the hot water, and made that the place to wash clothes, putting hand-cranked churns and paddles into the pools. For drying, he'd taken one of his smaller roller-presses and set it up on a crank so people could literally squeeze the water out of the clothes, and then finish by hanging them in a long vent that allowed the hot air at the top of the Broodery to escape—and dry the clothes in the process. The external vent cover to keep animals out was what he was standing on, and the escaping warm air felt _nice._

"Thanks, Dad," Hiccup said, grinning—and then he yelped as a scaly snout nudged him aside. "Hey!"

Toothless murbled and proceeded to turn in a circle on top of the vent, warbling, before settling down on top of it with a silly, wide-mouthed grin of happiness on his face. With his teeth retracted, he looked _absurd,_ and both Hiccup and Stoick laughed at him.

Stoick turned to Hiccup. "So this is what you were working on when Wulfhild and Astrid came home soaked that day?"

Hiccup gave a sheepish shrug and rubbed at the back of his head while looking off to the side. "Yeah… after the thing with the infection, they were feeling a bit… overprotective." And there'd been a _slight_ problem with one of the valves… soaking both of his lovers before he could shut the water off.

And, of _course_ , the drying room hadn't been operational yet.

Stoick laughed. "Aye, not that I can blame them." He smirked and tousled Hiccup's hair. "So, son, how many does this make?"

Hiccup gave his dad a sour look. "Three. And I _almost_ had it, too." And would have, if not for that one misplaced valve…

Stoick's booming laughter echoed across the village and Hiccup rolled his eyes.

Toothless joined in on the laughter, and Hiccup turned and gave his best friend a light glare. "Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile."

Toothless's laughing warble grew even more mocking.

"Aye, Toothless, let him be. It's not like he hasn't been trying at this for… over a year now," Stoick said, chortling and waggling his eyebrows.

Hiccup gave them both an exaggerated scowl.

"And have you decided yet what your prize will be if—" Hiccup gave his father a _look,_ and Stoick corrected himself, "— _when_ you succeed at Astrid's challenge?"

"No, I haven't," Hiccup said. "Probably a forfeit of some kind."

"Aye, but for what, he has no idea," Gobber's voice intruded from behind them, and Hiccup turned, to see Gobber and Fishlegs standing nearby, looking amused, Meatlug walking along behind Fishlegs. "It's not like both of his lasses won't do anything he wants in bed anyway!"

Hiccup flushed, as did Fishlegs, as Gobber cackled. "Well, come on, we have the Rookery to talk about!" Gobber said, motioning them in the direction of the Rookery.

Relieved—a bit—Hiccup followed after Gobber, and behind him, he heard Toothless hop off the vent cover and gamely follow along.

"So Hiccup and I talked things out, sir," Fishlegs said formally.

"Good," Stoick said. "Now, do we have enough room?"

Hiccup and Fishlegs shared a glance. "Probably. As you know, there are a bunch of extra tunnels under the Rookery proper. We'll probably end up filling those, and we will need to carve more side chambers. And it'll be crowded for sure. But we can—probably—make it work. Keeping the hatchlings corralled will be a bigger problem, but there are a couple of chokepoints in the tunnels where we could put in double doors to keep the hatchlings from getting everywhere."

Stoick nodded. "Sounds good."

"As for how many… well, the eggs have started rocking and making little noises. Assuming that the ones that aren't doing either aren't viable…" Fishlegs took a deep breath.

"Aye, lad, don't hold us in suspense. How many?"

Fishlegs exhaled the number in a rush. "Twelve thousand, six hundred and sixty-eight eggs are presumed to be viable."

Hiccup already knew the number, and took the moment to appreciate the shocked and flabbergasted look on his father's face.

Fishlegs continued, "About five out of eight of what was originally laid, back in the autumn."

Stoick blinked and nodded. "Aye. That's… well… all things considered, while it's sad that we lost so many, we _did_ bring through most of them… assuming that they do hatch." He shrugged slightly. "And this is only our first year doing this, so we'll get better."

"That's… that's a nice way of looking at it, sir," Fishlegs said. "Anyway, assuming that they hatch on the same schedule as they did last year, we have about three weeks to get ready."

Stoick nodded. "So a week or two after Thawfest."

"A few days after they shed their scales, assuming that they keep to the same schedule as last year, yep," Fishlegs said.

Stoick paused and then barked a laugh. "Oh!"

Hiccup shared a look with Fishlegs, who shrugged, clearly just as in the dark. "What is it, Dad?" he asked.

Stoick was laughing slightly to himself. "Hiccup. Don't you see?"

"See what?" Hiccup asked, confused.

Stoick leaned in. "Hiccup… the dragons shed their scales all at the same time _so they have fireproof nesting material._ "

Hiccup blinked.  "Oh… for… I… _how_ did I not _see_ that!?" He glanced to Fishlegs, whose mouth was hanging open.

Stoick chuckled. "Ah, don't feel bad, son. None of us realized in the last _year_."

Hiccup nodded, blinked and then grinned at his father.  "Well, Dad, I'm impressed that an old stubborn Viking managed to figure out a new trick on his own." 

Stoick grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.  "Thank you, son.  I have my moments.  Occasionally."

Hiccup snorted.  "So I guess now the question is, can we take the shed scales safely if they need them for the nests?"

Fishlegs quirked an eyebrow in thought. "Probably? If nothing else, we can design some permanent coops for the hatchlings, and we had a _lot_ of scales last year. Even if each individual nest needs the shed scales from an entire adult's body, we'll still have some left over, and I really doubt that's the case. That would be excessive."

Stoick nodded. "Good. But they get first call on that, not the treasury, all right?"

"Of course!" Fishlegs replied.

"Good. Now, Hiccup, you mentioned that you had something to show me?"

"Yeah, Dad. I mean, it's nothing like dragon-scale nests, but—"

"Stoick!" a voice called out, and they all turned to see Aodh, looking windblown, her dragon keeping pace behind her. "News from Vedrarfjord!" She took in a deep breath. " _Urgent_ news!"

"What is it?"

Aodh swallowed. "We're going to have lots of visitors for Thawfest—the good kind!" she clarified upon seeing their expressions. "But a _lot!_ "

"Explain," Stoick ordered curtly.

"There were already three _dozen_ ships at Vedrarfjord when I left this morning—most of them merchants, but also a lot of envoys and heralds—coming this way for Thawfest. And more had been sent on ahead by Gunvor and Hákon. At least _five hundred_ people. We're going to have a _fleet_ of visitors." She flapped her hands anxiously. "I mean, that's just at _Vedrarfjord!_ Who knows what's coming from everywhere else!"

Stoick blinked, took a deep breath and turned to Gobber. "Can we offer hospitality to that many?"

Gobber inhaled sharply. "I… have no idea." He turned to Fishlegs. "Come on. We have work to do."

Fishlegs nodded and walked off with Gobber, the two of them already comparing notes, Meatlug ambling behind them.

Stoick turned to Aodh. "Lass, thanks for finding me as quick as you could. Go get some rest."

"Thanks Chief," she said, and left.

Stoick turned to Hiccup. "Hiccup. I know that you were about to show me something, but I need to you find Wulfhild and start organizing where we're going to put everyone while Gobber and Fishlegs work on feeding them."

Hiccup nodded. "Okay! It can wait, I promise." He touched the small horn dangling from the rawhide strap. It could wait… even if he really did want to show off to his father. But his dad was already impressed with the laundry, so that would have to do for today.

He stepped over to Toothless. "Ready, bud?"

Toothless murbled and nodded. Hiccup hopped on his back and with a gust of air and the flapping of wings, they were airborne.

"Let's start at home, see if she's there, okay?"

Toothless snorted in acknowledgment and within a few moments, they were at the house.

Dismounting, he entered the house. "Wulfhild?! You home?!" he called out as he shut the door behind him.

"Hiccup!?" Astrid's voice came from the side. "What's wrong?"

He turned to see both Astrid and Wulfhild sitting at the table, each of them holding a mug of something steaming in their hands. Both of them looked a little wide-eyed.

"That sounds like that should be my line," he said, taking in their stunned expressions. "Uh… Dad told me to find Wulfhild. We're going to have _hundreds_ of visitors for Thawfest and we need to figure out where we're going to put them all. But… are you two all right? You look… upset."

The two of them shared a look, and Astrid put down her mug and stood. Walking over to him, she took his hands in her own. "Nothing wrong, Hiccup. We're just… we just had a talk with Nanna and…"

"With Nanna? Wait, are you sick?"

Wulfhild snorted. "No, we are most certainly not."

"So… what's going on?"

The two shared another meaningful look, and then Wulfhild nodded with her head, indicating to Astrid to go on with _something._

Astrid nodded, took in a deep breath, sighed it back out, and smiled at him. "Hiccup…"

"Yes…?" he asked, growing both worried and impatient.

"You're going to be a father."

The room suddenly spun and if not for her holding his hands, he probably would have fallen over. Gasping, he managed to ask, "Who… which…"

Astrid smiled at him softly. "I'm pregnant," she said.

He latched onto her with his eyes wide, just as she turned to Wulfhild, who said quietly, "And so am I."

"Both… both… of you?"

The room spun again for a moment, and he started breathing short, rapid breaths for a moment, before she and Toothless caught him.

"You okay?"

"I… I… _How?_ "

Astrid rolled her eyes and her more usual snarky humor returned as the weight of what she'd said seemed to leave her shoulders. "You've been loving with either or _both_ of us every night all winter and you need to ask _that_ question?"

"I…" Hiccup could feel that his eyes were as wide as saucers and an insane glee was starting to bubble up from deep inside him, displacing the shock and surprise. Dear gods. He was going to be a father.

Toothless murbled inquisitively from off to the side, and Hiccup turned to him. "Bud! I'm… I'm going to be a dad!"

Toothless cocked his head and then nodded.

"Wait, you _knew_?"

Toothless nodded and gave a short bark, followed by a little warble, and a moment later, Stormfly and Mistletoe wandered out into the main room. Toothless warbled and made a few chuffing noises, and both of the other dragons started to chuff and warble in response. Then Stormfly walked off and returned with a pillow, which she set on the floor.

Hiccup blinked. "That bowl… it was a _nest?"_

Astrid choked. "Hang on, you three knew for _that_ long?!"

The three dragons glanced between themselves, and then looked back at Hiccup, Astrid and Wulfhild, their expressions clearly reading, _Wait,_ _you didn't?_

Wulfhild was making incredulous noises, and there was the sound of wood scraping on wood as she stood and walked over to Mistletoe.  "You could have said something!" she said, hands on her hips.

Mistletoe snorted and tossed a pillow at Wulfhild.

"I think she's saying that she did," Astrid deadpanned, and then she started giggling almost maniacally as Mistletoe nodded.  She then gave a shriek of surprise as Hiccup pulled her into a hug, and then pulled Wulfhild in as well.  He kissed both of them on the cheeks, the sense of absurd glee growing inside him.

He was going to be a _father._

He kissed the spot below Astrid's ear that she liked and she giggled, and then turned and nibbled on Wulfhild's earlobe in the way that _she_ liked, making her give a happy sigh, and the pair of them turned and pulled him tight.

Gods.  He was going to be a _father._  

He kissed them both, one after another, feeling his heart bursting with love… for them both.  And, in the intensity of the moment, he realized that he _had_ fallen in love with Wulfhild.  While Astrid was first in his heart, Wulfhild had settled in there as well, quietly as was her preference, but still undoubtedly there, a comforting rock to lean on, a hearthstone for Astrid's blaze, a shield paired with Astrid's ax.  The three of them together had become a _family,_ in more ways than one.

Speaking of which…

"Have you told my dad yet?" he asked, breaking the kiss. 

They both shook their heads, massive grins on their faces.  "Nope," Astrid said.

"Wanted to leave that to you," Wulfhild added. 

"Think he'll be happy?" Astrid asked with a knowing smirk.

Hiccup grinned, still on the ecstatic high of _by the gods, I'm going to be a father!  Me!_   "Are you kidding?  He'll blow the horn, run up on top of Raven Point, and shout for the whole village, 'I'm going to be a grand-dad!  Twice!'"

Astrid and Wulfhild laughed, and they all danced around each other. 

He was going to be a _father._   He'd gone from being the end of a chain to another link.  It was exhilarating and terrifying and his world had just shifted between one step and the next.  Some little people were going to look up at him and call him _dada._  

Protective and paternalistic instincts started to make themselves known.  The house would have to be expanded.  The village would have to be protected.  Threats would have to be chased off or dealt with or made peace with. 

He was going to have children with the two people he loved best in the whole world. 

He was going to have to give them a world suitable for them.

###

**_The Great Steppe, North of the Khazar Sea, Near the Itil River, Pecheneg Khanates_ **

 

The dragon hunter sat in the yurt as the sun reached fully above the horizon.  Around him, the Pechenegs had finished their morning prayers and were going about their business, preparing to move with the spring thaw.  

Meanwhile, he was preparing for a hunt, to finish the dragon that he had wounded during the winter.  He had searched extensively for the thing's hiding hole, and he was certain that he had found it now. 

And today, he was going to set out to kill it.

The sound of hooves coming into the temporary village sounded from nearby, and an unintelligible gabble from one of the young men speaking energetically sounded through the thick felt of the wall.  He blocked it out as best he was able, centering himself for the hunt to come, doing his best to ignore all distractions, attempting to attain a purity of focus that would allow him to fight and live against a demon that would slay him if he erred, even with all of his skills and advantages. 

Then the cloth covering the entrance was pushed aside. 

"Hunter!  Please come!  You will wish to hear of this!"

He sighed as his sense of focus vanished like smoke in a high wind.

Scowling at the man at the tent flap, the hunter rose to his feet, brushing the thick locks of his hair out of his face.

"What is it?"

"A messenger came!  He has amazing news from the Rus' and the Romans!"

"And this concerns me, why?" the hunter asked brusquely. 

"They… they've tamed dragons!  They ride them!" the man said in a sudden rush.

The hunter looked at the man, uncomprehending.  One could not tame a dragon.  A dragon was a beast, a slavering monster whose jaws dripped with fire and lust for flesh.  One could prove one's mastery over such beasts only one way—by slaying them. 

"Nonsense," he said, scoffing. 

"No, it's true!"

The hunter just scoffed again.  "One does not simply tame a dragon!  Or train one to be ridden!  They are monsters who threaten all of us!"  He stepped fully out of the yurt and looked around.  A young man atop a horse was speaking energetically to a crowd, and he stepped forward, pointing his spear at the man.  "What nonsense is this?" he asked brusquely. 

The messenger shrugged at him.  "I speak truth, not nonsense."

"You speak of dragons being ridden by men.  That _is_ nonsense," the hunter rebutted. 

"Oh?  And you, an outsider, are the sole arbiter of truth and nonsense in the world?"  The messenger spread his arms wide and spoke in a ringing voice, "A Norseman came from their lands of ice riding a dragon last autumn!  He traveled through the Volga River, and many saw him and his beast as they made their way to the Imperial City!  They have taken service with the Romans!  I saw him!  He and his dragon rode through the sky and clouds as I could ride my horse here across the steppes!  I traded with him, and was given these!" He held aloft a handful of black and red dragon scales.  "His beast had a saddle, and was tame!  It is possible!  Through skill or sorcery, I know not, but it is possible!"

Every eye turned to the hunter, who scowled.  "Possible?  I _hunt_ the beasts, boy," he said, displaying the black dragonhide cloak that he wore about his shoulders.  "They are not horses or other beasts of the field!  They are monsters that would take the world for themselves from man if we let them!  We fight to either our deaths, or theirs!  There is no middle ground!"

The messenger looked at him with disgust.  "I have no need to argue with a man who is told of a wonder and speaks as though it is impossible!"

The hunter scowled.  "On your own head then," he said, and walked off, away from the village. 

He had focusing to do, and a dragon to slay—regardless of what flights of fancy and insanity young men came up with. 

Behind him, the messenger was describing the dragon and rider to an eager crowd. 

Hours later, the sun having moved past noon, the village elder came up to him. 

"He has moved on, if you are worried," the old man said.

The hunter grunted in irritation and acknowledgment. 

With a sigh, the elder sat down next to the hunter.  "There was other news as well.  To the east, we are pressed by the Torks, and to the west, the Rus' and Romans stand ready.  The Kagan has called for a meeting of all of our people to discuss what to do."

The hunter gave a grunt of understanding.  The Torks—the Turkic tribes of the Oghuz region—were cousins to the Pechenegs, who were also Turks.  Like many relatives, the two peoples didn't get along well, to put it mildly. 

The elder sighed and settled in next to the hunter, and they sat in silence for a time. 

As the elder, leaning on his staff, hauled himself to his feet, he said to the hunter, "We will be meeting where the River Donets joins the River Don in a month and a half's time."  He sighed deeply and patted the hunter's shoulder.  "I hope to see you there."

The hunter bowed his head.  "I thank you… but I doubt it.  But I shall rid your pasturelands of the beast, though, and perhaps see you when you return."

"Thank you, my friend," the elder said, although both of them knew that they would likely never see each other again. 

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

The skycart touched down on the island, and Fintan looked around the village in awe.  There were dragons everywhere, and he wasn't the only one gawking.  All of his fellow passengers were staring at the flocks of dragons roving through the sky and the beautiful village covering the hillside.

Yesterday, Lord Hákon and Lady Gunvor had put out the call for help; Berk needed more hands to help construct and staff the visitor accommodations for the upcoming festival.  And Fintan and nearly a hundred others had jumped at that call. 

He'd been sent over in the first wave.  The flight had been amazing, and  he'd watched Eire fly by underneath him in awe.

A round young man holding a writing tablet, and an older man with a strong resemblance—and a pair of Gronckles—were standing by at the edge of the clearing as Fintan and the others disembarked. 

The young man stepped forward.  "Good afternoon everyone!  How was the flight?"

Fintan grinned and called out, "Glorious!" and a number of people echoed his words, while others were… less enthusiastic.

The young man grinned and said, "Glad you liked it.  So, I'm Fishlegs Hensteethsson clan Ingerman and this is my father, Hensteeth Axwitsson clan Ingerman.  He's one of the head carpenters, and once we get you all settled, he'll be organizing you for the construction projects."  Fishlegs motioned with his writing tablet.  "Come on, this way!"

What followed was a whirlwind tour of Berk.  They were fed at the mead hall, where Fintan had taken his bowl of soup and stared at the giant ball of weathered bone and scales at the base of the stairs.  Without even being told, he could identify what it was—the Green Death's tail club.  Some of the village artisans had begun to carve a depiction of the battle itself into the bare bone that had been exposed, but there was no mistaking it as anything other than what it was. 

After the meal, they were given basic housing in some barracks—nearly identical to the ones back in Vedrarfjord.  There, Fishlegs was in the process of giving them directions to where they needed to go tomorrow when suddenly the horn started to blow.

Five blasts, followed by a long, slow blast. 

Fishlegs looked confused.  "That's the signal for a Tribe Thing.  Come on!"

Fintan and the others followed him, like ducklings following their mother, and went to the mead hall—only to find Chief Stoick standing proudly above the doors, beaming. 

"What's going on, Stoick!?" someone called out irritably. 

"Aye, it's late, and we've got work to do!" someone else bellowed.

Stoick waved at them.  "I'll be brief then, but I have great news!"

"What?!" someone asked.

Stoick's grin was almost blinding.  "I'm going to be a grand-dad!"  Then somehow his grin grew even wider.  " _TWICE!"_

There was a pause, and then hundreds of people all took a breath at once. 

But before anyone could say anything, someone started to clap and cheer, and others followed suit.  Another called, "To the future of Clan Haddock!  Long may they lead!"

Fintan, clapping so hard that his hands were stinging, remembered seeing the three of them back in Vedrarfjord.  He had no doubt that they were happy… and that the children had been conceived in love.

He felt blessed to be here to hear it.  Right now, this giant of a man was his chief of chiefs.  And one day, his son would take up that mantle, without question.

Fintan knew it would be an honor to watch the next generation be born and raised.

The thought stayed with him as he and the other new workers set themselves to their tasks over the next few days.  Building shacks, pitching tents, laying out gravel for paths—using another of the Hero's new creations, a one-man, one-wheeled cart called a 'wheelbarrow', which made Fintan swear in sheer admiration at just how _simple_ and effective it was—and the ten thousand other tasks that needed doing for the festival.  Already, hundreds had arrived.

He'd also started to make friends among the Hooligans—or at least acquaintances.  The Norsemen loved to gossip as they worked, and since they all knew each others' stories by now, the newcomers made for prime storytelling targets.  And he replied in kind, drawing on his aborted bardic training, and sang songs and told tales—many of which they already knew, but appreciated hearing.

And from many, he heard about the proposed law for the training of dragons and riders—and was stunned. 

Not because some people felt that dragons should be kept only to the Old Tribe and those they brought in directly.  No, _that_ made complete sense to him. 

No, the shocking part was the fact that keeping dragons exclusive to the Old Tribe _wasn't_ being seen as self-evident; instead, there was _debate!_   They were arguing on _how_ to include their newcomers, how fast, how many, and in what way!  The mere _idea_ of bringing in the rest of their new Eirish people and granting them dragons was _not_ seen as absurd.  It was a question of how it was to be done… not a question of whether it was to be done _at all._

They looked at Fintan and didn't see a former piece of chattel who had stolen himself.  No, they saw a future dragon-rider and future member of their people as part of the same glance.  The sole question was how he would have to prove himself worthy first.

Fintan resolved to himself that he'd prove himself worthy of their trust, and for its own merit.  Because these were people that were worthy of it.

###

**April, AD 1042**

###

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

The horn blew three times, and Stoick sighed.  Next to him, Hiccup gave a sidelong look. 

"You _know,_ that was a lot more useful when we _didn't_ have to signal about incoming ships fifteen times a day," Hiccup said. 

Stoick gave another long-suffering sigh.  "You missed four when you were down in the Broodery.  This is growing absurd."

"Well, Thawfest is in another three days," Hiccup said reasonably.  "So they all want to get here sooner rather than later."

"Aye, aye, of course," Stoick said. 

The door opened and Hammeredge Frodesson clan Ingerman stuck his head in.  "Hey, Chief, I hate to bother you, but these ones are envoys, not merchants."

Stoick sagged.  "Aye.  From where?"

"Alba.  A bunch of Highlanders in galleys.  They're currently having quite the competition to get here."

"All right.  We'll head down to the docks to greet them shortly," Stoick said.  He hadn't bothered changing out of his formal clothes since the first envoys had arrived this morning. 

Hammeredge nodded and left, and Stoick glanced across the table.  "We have some time.  You had a suggestion before the horn blew?"

Hiccup nodded.  "I was talking it over with Wulfhild and Fishlegs, and well… we have a bunch of problems, and a solution that fixes most of them."

"I'm listening," Stoick said patiently.

"Problem one, we're using too much wood already.  Stoking the fires, building houses, ships…"  Hiccup tapped a sketch outline of Berk.  "Already, in the last two years, we've gone through nearly a tenth of the total forest on the island." 

Stoick blinked in surprise, and then whistled. 

Hiccup nodded.  "Yeah.  We're going through that much wood.  And while the Thorstons and Hoffersons have been making out like bandits with the wood-price from their lands, and replanting as much as they can, we can't afford to put another village on the island for visitors without making the situation that much worse.  We just don't have the _room._ "

Stoick nodded.  Berk wasn't _that_ big of an island, all things considered.  And half of it was mountain, and while there might be one acre of continuously level land on the island, there _definitely_ were not two.

"Second, we're too crowded here, and there really isn't a good place to _put_ a second village.   We've already made Mildew's old field into a field of tents and shacks, and that was barely enough for a quarter of the visitors we have now.  Third, as a concession to the worriers, I thought that we could keep the dragons in the Broodery and Rookery, and put the bulk of the visitors some place else."

"Aye, aye.  So, where?"

"Eigg," Hiccup said, pointing in the vague direction of the neighboring island to the east.  "It's four or five miles away—a nice easy dragon-flight—there's enough space to spread out on, the old harbor from the abandoned village is a little silted in, but we can clean and dredge that out, and there are some dragon tunnels there that we can use.  Muck is also a possibility, but it's smaller, and since it's much flatter, it's probably better for us to use as farmland." 

Stoick nodded.  Both islands had once had Norse villages on them, but they'd been chased off by the dragons, either fleeing elsewhere or joining in with Berk, before Stoick had been born.  "That sounds like a fine idea.  Start planning it, and we'll put it together before the fall festivals.  I'm sure that'll make this crowd look like a drop in the bucket, but we've already got them settled in.  No point in trying to move them now."

Hiccup nodded. 

"So, down to the docks?"

Stoick sighed.  "Aye, I suppose."

A short while later, Stoick, his family and the other members of his court were lined up at the docks—the very _crowded_ docks, watching the five Highlander galleys be towed in by Gronckle teams, overseen by Fishlegs.  There just wasn't _room_ in the harbor waters to let them deploy their oars. 

As the first one came into dock and was tied up, Fishlegs and Meatlug coming and joining Stoick's group, a _very_ large man, red-haired—almost as tall and broad as Stoick—came up to the side by the gangplank.  "Hallo there!  I am Mormaer Fergus of Dunbroch, senior vassal to King Mac Bethad of Alba!  I am here as his envoy, and offer you greetings on his behalf!"

Stoick bowed.  "I am Stoick the Vast, chief of the Hooligans, and I bid you welcome and offer you hospitality.  Do you accept?"

"Aye, I do, and I accept on behalf of my fellows, who have also come," Fergus said, "as well as my family, who I have brought with me to see the wonders of this place."  He motioned to an older woman with long brown hair, a younger girl whose hair was bound up under a tight covering, and three identical young boys with red hair.  All of them were looking about in awe and pointing at the dragons as they flew about.  "This is my wife, Elinor, my daughter Merida, and my sons Harris, Hubert and Hamish."

Stoick grinned.  "Then be welcome!" 

Fergus smiled in reply, and bounded down the gangplank.  To Stoick's interest, he saw that Fergus had a peg leg.

Punctuating his statement of welcome, the first of the other four ships were brought into the docks.  As Fergus and his family disembarked, the other ships were being tied up, and gangplanks extended.  Seven men dressed as nobles came down from them, three adults and four younger men.

The first arrived in moments, and was introduced as Mormaer Macintosh, who was painted in woad and had wild black hair.  His son was handsome… and knew it, with woad markings of his own, and a strut that made Astrid, Cami and Wulfhild make sarcastic comments in Norse behind Stoick's back. 

Next came a broad blond man and his son, who spoke thickly accented Goidelic, and were identified as Mormaer MacGuffin and his son, who reminded Stoick strongly of Fishlegs in his quiet demeanor and build. 

As the third pair—a short and squat white-haired man and an absent-minded young man—approached but before they could introduce themselves, the fourth young man pushed past them. 

"Greetings, Dragon Lord," he said ingratiatingly, and took off the concealing helm he was wearing to reveal a shock of red hair.  "I thank you for the hospitality.  I am Mormaer Dagur mac Oswald of Clan Murchadh, warlord of Alba."

Stoick managed to keep his eyes from widening, but it was a near thing.

But someone made a noise behind him, and Dagur's grin turned feral. 

* * *

 

 **AN:**   _And there we go.  I'll be back August 5th with Chapter 56!_

 _Now, I announced this over on my Tumblr, but I seem to have neglected to mention it here until now (literally my bad), but, yes, those Alban nobles are the main cast from Brave.  Literally, due to insufficient historical records, I went for the next best thing (please, nobody hate me).  Out of what would probably have been two or three dozen mormaer--lesser lords/minor kings--under Macbeth, I found_ two. _So, I had a choice: Gloss over that plot, make OCs to fill the void, or borrow from somewhere else.  Since_ Brave _is appropriate by general era and location, I borrowed those characters.  So let me make one thing clear though, first off: this won't be the start of a general trend of bringing in characters from other properties outside HTTYD.  I had a long debate on this over on my Discord server, and it boils down to this: I had a specific narrative need for Scottish nobles for a political subplot, so I included them._

_But, say for example, Frozen?  I have no need of those characters, as I already have a number of Norse/Scandinavian characters, their setting is far in advance of the time period currently set for ATOV, and the magic of their story is too deeply embedded to be easily excised. So there's no purpose in bringing them in aside from the sake of inclusion, which is not a compelling reason for a story of this scale and scope.  Or, to give an example from RTTE, the Wingmaidens as a group will almost certainly not be making an appearance, as their characterization niche is already handled by the Bog Burglars, and, more importantly, they don't fit within the worldbuilding that I've already created. Ditto for the Defenders of the Wing; "Mala", for example, is a Sanskrit name from India, so then I have the question of "Do I literally 'reskin' Mala as a Hindu woman leading a group that defends a dragon nest in the Himalayas in order to draw on that characterization? Or just drop the group?" And, so far, I'm leaning towards the latter option, but I might include them in that manner anyway if I decide that there is a narrative need.  But the character would get included for the sake of the story; the story will not be stretched to include the character._

_But, just to make this clear, this is not suddenly a Brave crossover; there is still no magic, no bear-fixated witches with overly specialized transformation spells, and so forth.  I'm just borrowing the characters to fill a hole in my research.  (And, just to assuage fears that I might do so, I won't be pairing Merida with Hiccup; I have other plans for her)._

_Next, thanks to ZerotheVman from my Discord server, there is now a TV Tropes page for A Thing Of Vikings!  I cannot really express how much this means to me; I've been a Troper for... over a decade by a significant margin, and seeing my work having its own page there has been something that I've been hoping for since I started posting this fic ^_^  The page needs some Wiki Magic, so please, if you feel up to it, head on over to contribute. *grin*_

_Finally, as with my last hiatus and Viggo's introduction, if you went 'HOLY SHIT' or some variant thereof for a certain character intro at the end of this chapter, please leave a review that contains your exclamation. ^_^_


	56. Perils Of Popularity

**Chapter 56: Perils Of Popularity**

_Compared to the drama of dragon-dug underground canals and dragon-forged skyscrapers, the Financial Revolution in the century and a half after Hiccup Haddock's taming of dragons is generally overlooked, but is perhaps even more fundamental to an understanding of the economic structure he left behind.  Prior to the taming of dragons, bullion currency was comparatively rare; while gold and silver coins were certainly in circulation, as witnessed by the famous bride price paid for Hiccup's wife Astrid, overall, the Europan economy was cash-starved and functioned primarily on the barter economy at the lower levels.  After the taming of dragons, however, an even more scarce commodity currency entered the economy in the form of dragon scales._

_As is common knowledge, dragons shed their skins each spring; prior to domestication, they used these materials for the construction of nests for newly hatched young.  Under human auspices, however, the shedding amounted to the annual input of pure currency into the economy.  Properly treated and cured, dragon leather and dragon scales can last for decades of use before wearing out.  While the leather itself acted as a trade commodity, the single scales from hide that wasn't of sufficient quality to be made into leather were not worthless.  On the contrary, they functioned as currency, quickly displacing bullion metals as the currency material of choice._

_In this role, dragon scales offered numerous advantages, including being nearly impossible to counterfeit or debase, being easy to substantiate as genuine, and naturally removing themselves from the money supply over time as they wore out or were repurposed (such as for industrial use, decoration or even insulation).  However, even with this removal, the most productive gold or silver mine could not hope to match the net output of dragon shedding, and the resulting injection of funds into Europa's economy—spread by the effects of the Dragon Mail and the existing trade network—caused rampant inflation, averaging between 3-8% a year over the next century.  While this would cause problems to the modern developed economy, in the cash-starved environment at the time, it was an economic blessing, allowing for a rapid shift from the barter economy and feudal taxation system to a market economy and currency taxation system, giving even the peasantry access to funds with which to pay their expenses and taxes and receive payments. Increasing per-person productivity from Haddock's innovations and the agricultural impact of dragon labor pushed urbanization, as demand for labor—human and dragon alike—exceeded the available number of hands and wings for most of the next several centuries…_

_—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd._

**_Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

**_April, AD 1042_ **

 

"I see my reputation precedes me," Fishlegs heard Heather's brother say, and felt a bolt of fear.  He'd made a noise in shock when Dagur had introduced himself, and the father-killing monster had heard it. 

Before anyone else could react, though, the lord that Dagur had shoved aside irritably yanked Dagur back out of the way. 

"That's not all that precedes yeh, yeh smarmy arse!" the old man bellowed, and shoved Dagur back.  "Mormaer Dingwall, at your service, Dragon Lord—"

"Oh, shut it, you old man!  I could take you!" Dagur shot back.  "In a heartbeat—right before I squeeze my hand shut around—"

"Aye, got an ambush planned then?" Dingwall brayed in response.  "That's just about your style—"

"I ought to teach you a lesson in agony—"

"Wee little sport like you, it'd be a beginner lesson for tots!"

Fishlegs glanced at the other Alban lords.  They were looking… unsettled, but also oddly amused, as Dingwall and Dagur bellowed escalating insults at each other, but as soon as Dingwall went to make a fist, there was an authoritative cough and all heads turned.

"As much as this is your _usual_ way of handling things," said the first mormaer's wife—Elinor, if Fishlegs recalled correctly—who was looking unamused at the group of them, "might I remind you that we are here under hospitality that was accepted only a few moments ago?"

Everyone glanced at Stoick, who was looking at the Alban lords with narrowed eyes.  "Aye.  If you've got a problem with one another, take it outside.  But no fighting in my lands!"

"Aye, Dragon Lord, we get it!" Mormaer Fergus said with a bow.  Dingwall looked somewhat abashed; Dagur just smiled unpleasantly. 

Stoick turned to Fishlegs, and Fishlegs prepared for the chief to tell him to get the visitors settled, as had been their routine during these visits—but a brief pause of consideration crossed Stoick's face, and he continued the turn until he settled on Wulfhild.  "This is Princess Wulfhild of Norway, also of my clan through my son," Stoick said by introduction.  "She's also our High Almoner, so she'll get you settled in for beds and the like, if you'll follow her."

Wulfhild looked surprised for a moment, but covered it with a nod of understanding as the Albans murmured among themselves at the honor of having a foreign princess helping them.  "Indeed!  Please follow me," she called in thickly accented Gaoidhealg, which at least a couple of the Albans had difficulty understanding, judging by their expressions. 

Another voice called out, "Hoy, Chief Stoick!"  Fishlegs turned to see Cami—who he hadn't even know was in the crowd until this moment—raising her hand.  "I'll go with, in case there's any problems with understandin' her accent."

"Aye.  Thank you, lass," Stoick said gratefully.  "This is Camilla Berthasdoittor, heir of one of our allied tribes, the Bog Burglars."

Fergus gave Cami an assessing look.  "Oh, I know them."  Fishlegs saw the big man pat his belt and purses, making Cami grin. 

Stoick quirked an eyebrow.  "She's here under hospitality, Mormaer Fergus, and her mother is a personal friend.  She knows better."  Stoick looked at Cami directly.  "Don't you?"

Cami ostentatiously gulped and nodded, making several people laugh. 

Once the Albans were out of sight, Stoick turned to Fishlegs.  "Find Heather and her parents and warn them that her brother and his men are on the island.  He might not recognize her on sight—she was a child when they last saw each other—but they'll undoubtedly recognize Murray and Griselda," the chief said urgently.  "I'll see about organizing some protection."

Fishlegs nodded and, without a further word, turned to Meatlug.  As he belted on his safety lines, he heard Stoick say behind him, "Spitelout, find Fritjof.  I know that he has plans for the festival, but I need him to play shadow for Heather and her parents, just in case."

###

As she and Mistletoe led the Albans up the wooden ramp and into the village proper, Wulfhild had to keep herself from glancing back at Dagur.  She knew who he was… and what he'd done to Heather.  So rather than focus on him, she instead forced herself to ramble about the harbor and village; she'd been talking for the full climb to distract herself. 

"…and up here is the main village.  We've still got a bit of a climb to get to where we're putting most of the visitors, so I have a question for you."

"Aye, Princess?" Mormaer Fergus asked.  He'd walked behind her for the entire climb without a complaint, and she was impressed; Hiccup hated that walk, and flew down whenever he could. 

She pointed to one of the small cliff-fields of pasturage that were currently sprouting tents.  "I can put you in some of those tents, or in more solid buildings up in the main part of the island, closer to the marketplace—but I should note that 'more solid' means 'shack' not 'house'."

Fergus shrugged, but before he could say anything, Dagur interrupted _again_ , speaking in Norse.  "We're high lords!  We should get quality housing!  Make some of your peasants sleep in the tents!" 

She gave him a thin-lipped smile, and replied in the same tongue, "We don't _have_ peasants here, Jarl Murchadh.  No thralls, nothing of that sort.  Besides, the village is already full to bursting with our guests from over the winter—" she nodded towards Cami, "—and it was hard enough for me to find enough beds for everyone then!  Now we've already had another _fourteen hundred people_ decide to show up nearly without any warning _before_ you, and there's still three days until the festival, so, please, accept my apologies for only being able to offer you more humble accommodations!"  She took a deep breath, and chastised herself for letting her anger at the kinslayer leak into her voice.  A few of the Albans looked like they hadn't fully caught everything she'd said, and Cami was repeating it. 

Dagur, his expression belligerent, continued.  "If you don't put us someplace nice, I'll—"

"That's enough, Dagur," Lady Elinor said in Gaoidhealg, and gave Dagur a quelling look.  "Behave yourself.  Before you get us all kicked off the island.  I _assure_ you, King Mac Bethad will learn _exactly_ who is responsible for that."

He scowled.  "And I'm supposed to just sit here and _take_ insults like this?"

Wulfhild smiled sweetly at him.  "You're free to get on your ship and leave if our accommodations aren't to your liking, Jarl Murchadh."

He glared at her, and she kept a close eye on the knife at his belt… especially as his hand twitched towards it. 

She rubbed in a little salt.  "Besides, are you so pampered a noble that you can't stand a slight bit of rustic living for a few days?"

He growled—honestly _growled_ —at her, and said, "If you were one of my thralls, I'd have you beaten for that tone alone.  For _starters._ "

Wulfhild's eyes narrowed.  "I'd be careful with those kinds of threats here.  And did you _bring_ any thralls?"

He scowled.  "No.  Although I _thought_ about it, after hearing what happened with that Eirish prince!"  A sneer grew on his lips.  "But I could send my ship for some… in exchange for, say, a dragon of my own?"

Lady Elinor interrupted before Wulfhild could formulate a reply to that very dangerous offer.  "Mormaer Dagur, _this is not the time._   Can you at least wait until we have sleeping accommodations before you pick a fight with our hosts?"

He glared at her, making her flinch back slightly, but she met his gaze evenly after that.  His eyes narrowed after a moment, and his lips curled in a sneer, but with obvious insincerity, he bowed ostentatiously towards first Elinor and then Wulfhild.  She heard him muttering under his breath, "You want a fight?  I'll show you a fight when I gut one and wear their heart on a necklace…" but then said more loudly, "All right, Lady Dunbroch.  I'll behave myself.  Wouldn't want to upset anyone."  That unpleasant smile was back, as though at a very nasty private joke with himself.

"Thank you, Lady Elinor," Wulfhild said, pretending not to have heard Dagur's muttered threat.  "Now, while the sleeping accommodations might be a bit… bare, we do have meals at the mead hall," she pointed up to the top of the village, "and Lord Hiccup spent part of the winter building a new bathhouse which is open to all visitors." 

"And the dragons?" Dagur asked belligerently.

"What about them?" she asked, despite kicking herself for responding to him.

He nodded towards Cami and Skuggi.  "Well, you said that she's a guest and she's got a dragon there—hey, where'd it go?"

Wulfhild said nothing as she watched the ripple sneak up behind Dagur and goose him on the arse. 

"What the—!" He whirled and pulled the knife from his belt, as Skuggi, visible as a shimmering, rippling blur in the air, danced around him and tapped him again. 

Cami, laughing, said, "Skuggi!  That's enough!"

The Changewing reappeared, looking disappointed, and then jumped back, hissing, as Dagur lunged at it.

"You—!  I'm going to skin you and wear your hide as my jacket!" he bellowed, and threw his knife at the dragon, who dodged with a chittering yelp.

"Dagur!" Elinor snapped.

"It insulted me!  I have the right to defend my honor!" he bellowed, scowling and holding a second knife in a way that made Wulfhild back up a pace on instinct. 

"Oh, it's just an animal.  It does no more harm to your honor than my husband's dogs when they drool on your feet!" Elinor rebutted.

"It—"

"Did it _hurt_ you?"

"No!  I'm tougher than that!"

"Then finish your question to the princess, and let us get settled in," Elinor said, and huffed slightly. 

Skuggi came back to Cami, crooning, and she patted her dragon on the head as he fondly headbutted her.

Wulfhild saw that all of the Albans were watching Cami and Skuggi, in awe or amusement or curiosity.  The one girl, Merida, looked fascinated.

Dagur was scowling, but nodded.  One of his men came up, holding his knife, and he put it back into the sheath at his belt.  "So if she's a guest, and she got a dragon, how do _we_ get dragons too?"

Wulfhild sighed, but Cami spoke up first.  "I'm a special case.  My father is from this tribe, and so when I accidentally bonded with Skuggi here, I was allowed to keep him—after a long discussion."

That started some talk among the Albans, but Wulfhild ruthlessly interrupted before things got out of hand.  "Mormaer Fergus, which is your preference with your leg, stairs or distance?"

He blinked and seemed to ponder.  "Distance," he answered after a moment.

"Then I'll put you up in the fields," she said.  "Unless anyone wants to be someplace else…?"

Everyone looked around and sort of shrugged.  "Sounds good," MacGuffin said.

"Good.  Follow me?"

She turned and continued walking up the paths of the village, heading for the bridge to the rest of the island.  "Now, the festival is in three days—April fourth, by the Julian reckoning.  We'll be holding our games and competitions on the day—"

"What sort of games?" Dagur interrupted eagerly.  His entire tone had abruptly changed; the sullen cruelty was gone, replaced by what sounded like genuine boyish enthusiasm.  "Pit fights against dragons?  Can I enter?  I'll prove myself a proper warrior!  The dragons from the nest you vanquished only occasionally came to my hold and I killed them!  The pansies here won't hold a candle to that chal—Ouch!"

Wulfhild shot Elinor a grateful look for having cuffed Dagur upside the head, and was given a tiny nod in reply.  Turning to Dagur, she said, "No.  No blood sports.  Of any kind.  More mundane contests, and the prizes are a share of the entry-fee pots, a ribbon, and bragging rights."

"What kind of stupid festival is this?  No blood sports?  And you call yourselves worthy before the gods with such…" he shook his head, his lips curled and nose scrunched in disgust, " _weakness_ being paraded about?  What kind of glory can there be without a blood price to set on it?"

Wulfhild narrowed her eyes and took a deep breath.  Dagur was reminding her of some of the warriors back in her uncle's court—the ones that liked to hear the screams of people trapped inside a burning house. 

Seeing her expression, Dagur matched it, with a tinge of that earlier threatening amusement, and crouched slightly to look her in the eye.  "What?  Is the little princess too weak to deal with the sight of blood?"  He drew himself back up to his full height, which was much, much taller than hers, and said caustically, "Look, point me at the tribe's champion, so I can challenge him to a duel for a dragon.  I promise not to hurt him.  Much.  Unless I get bored."

"Dagur!  We're here under hospitality!" Lady Elinor said sharply.  "If you want to make threats at the dragon-riders, come back after the festival, and put your own head on the chopping block!  But don't drag the whole kingdom down with you!" 

Dagur glared at her, and the pair had a brief staring match, which ended with Dagur looking down and away.  "Fine.  _Contests._   Feh.  Well, I'll just have to win them all then," Dagur said, his tone slipping back to the boyish boasting as he posed.  "I'll _earn_ it!  And then you people will have to recognize my greatness by giving me a right to that challenge!"

Wulfhild shared a look with Cami and quirked one eyebrow, trying to fill the gesture with as much incredulity as she could manage.  Was he serious, just posturing, or some mix of the two?  And if one of those changeable moods was a pose, was the other real?  Were _both_ of them real?  She couldn't tell. 

Cami mirrored the look, before turning to Dagur and saying, "If you can manage to win at sailing, swimming, climbing, running, dueling, archery—" Wulfhild saw Merida perk up noticeably at the mention, "—ax throwing, log rolling, and four kinds of wrestling, to mention just some of what the contests will be, I think that Stoick might be willing to listen to your petition!"

Dagur gave her an unfriendly smirk.  "Then I'll do that!"

Wulfhild rolled her eyes.  "Then if you manage that, then next year you can join in on the dragon competitions.  We have racing, acrobatics and target shooting, to name a few."

Dagur beamed, his whole expression sunny and open, and for a moment she could hardly credit that this was the same man she'd heard tales of, not just a murderer, but a father-slayer.  "How much does it cost to enter these contests?"

"Not much.  A pennyweight of dragon scales per," Cami said.

That set a murmur among the group.  "That's a lot…" Mormaer MacGuffin said.

"Not here, it isn't.  There are a few moneychangers working if you want to exchange your coin for scales," Cami said.

That led to more murmuring as they walked along, and Wulfhild and Cami both fielded more questions on the village and festival until they reached the visitor accommodations.  Getting the Albans settled took a bit, but they fortunately had enough space… for now. 

As they delivered Dagur and his men to their makeshift shack—the walls little more than Timberjack-cut boards nailed to upright beams, and a roof of wood slats—he looked around with a thoughtful air, and then turned to Wulfhild.  Looming over her and standing just a _little_ too close for comfort, enough that Mistletoe growled warningly, he said, "I suppose this is good enough.  Under the circumstances."  And he grinned at her—that unpleasant grin that made the skin of her arms prickle.  "So I guess I won't kill you or anyone you love just yet," he said in a humorous tone.

She stared at him, unable to make a sound—and he laughed, as though he'd just made a friendly joke, and turned away, giving orders on where his men would sleep and arrange themselves in the shack. 

The horn blew again, three times. 

Feeling like she wanted to scream, weep or yell from holding in her fury with her friend's murderous brother, Wulfhild instead left Cami behind to field any more questions the Albans had, and hopped onto Mistletoe's back.  With a rush of wind, they were off. 

###

Cami watched the Albans with amusement as they argued with Vexwit clan Jorgenson about exchanging their coin for dragon scales.  Vexwit was living up to his name as he made change for each of them, remaining calm and unhurried despite their impatience and trying to cut in line or arguing over details or pleading for special rates, smiling more and more cheerfully as they grew increasingly frustrated.  It was hard to believe he was Stoick's brother-in-law… 

Others in the group of Albans were arguing and discussing eagerly what contests they were planning on entering—and that one unhinged fellow, Dagur, had already found that his plan to enter and win at every single contest was stymied by the fact that there was only one of him.  By Cami's estimate, he'd need at least six of himself to pull it off. 

A more feminine voice from nearby drew her attention.  Standing up straight from where she's been leaning against one of the building's support beams, she looked to see Merida and her parents arguing. 

"It's an archery contest!  Mum, let me participate, for our clan's honor and glory!"

Elinor shook her head.  "We don't even know if they'd _allow_ you to participate, Merida.  It's likely for men only.  You saw the listing.  They only had 'archery' on the list, not 'women's archery.'"

"But Mum!"

"Merida, what will they think of you—of us—if you engage in those sports?  It's hardly ladylike."

"'Scuse me," Cami spoke up politely, although her eyes were narrow.  Urgh.  This would be delicate.

"Aye?" Lady Elinor responded, her tone quizzical. 

Cami smiled at Merida before looking back to Elinor.  "The Hooligans don't have sex-separated contests, except for things like water-wrestlin', 'cause that could get, um… you know."  She shrugged, trying for guileless and friendly… and, she thought, mostly succeeded.  "But for archery?  It's all one big contest… and if she wants to participate, it's actually an insult for her not to be allowed to."

"What?" Elinor blurted, clearly surprised.  Next to her, there was hope rising on Merida's face, and Mormaer Fergus was looking intrigued.

Cami nodded, her expression serious.  "Aye.  The contests are sacred, to show our prowess before the gods at the end of winter, to show that we survived the cold and dark.  Denyin' someone who wants to the chance to compete is to deny them the chance to show the gods that they're worthy."

Elinor blinked and Fergus grinned.  She had the feeling she already had him firmly on her side here. 

Cami smiled in reply.  "Honestly, if the funds are a problem, I'd be willin' to cover her entry fee."  She had enough, even after having to reimburse Rolf for his coffer. 

Fergus' grin grew wider.  "Ah, that won't be necessary.  But thank yeh."  He turned to his wife.  "I'd say that she gets to participate, yeah?"

Elinor looked at her husband and daughter and then slowly nodded.  "All right.  And thank you for informing us, Lady Camilla."

"Cami, please."

"Oh, but we're barely acquainted," said Elinor with a warm smile, "and you're the heiress to your tribe.  It's very kind of you, Lady Camilla, but we wouldn't feel right addressing you so familiarly just yet.  Perhaps someday?"  She turned to Merida.  "Did you bring your bow?"

Merida grinned.  "I did!"

Cami grinned back at her enthusiasm.  "I'm sure you'll do great!  You'll have an awesome prize to take back to your husband—"  The light in Merida's face died, replaced by a tension around her eyes and mouth, and Cami blinked.  "What did I say?"

Elinor glanced at her daughter and said, "Merida is… not married, and I am curious as to why you think that she is?"

Cami quirked an eyebrow and nodded towards the tight-fitting hood on Merida's head.  "Her hair's covered."  She motioned back to her own mane of curly blond, and then indicated Vexwit's wife, Fircone, who was helping her husband keep the totals, and whose hair was covered and braided.  "Married Norse women cover or braid their hair.  Unmarried women don't."  And virginal women typically wore circlets, which Cami had gleefully gotten rid of at the age of sixteen. 

"Oh," Elinor said faintly, and fingered her own tightly braided and ribboned hair.  "Well… I suppose that we might not want to send the wrong message—"

Merida didn't need any more permission than that, and ripped the hood from her head, sending a cloud of red curls cascading out from under it.  With a happy sigh, she combed it out with her fingers as Cami watched, her heart doing funny jumps.

_Uh oh_. 

###

Hiccup groaned slightly and slumped in his seat, only for Wulfhild to chide him.  "Hiccup!" she whispered through pressed-together lips.  "Come on!"

He darted a glance to the side, to see her giving him a level-eyed and unamused stare.  He, Astrid and Wulfhild were seated in the chairs next to his father's throne, their dragons sitting on the carved slabs in front of them.  The two new carved chairs—Astrid's a little bit larger and fancier than Wulfhild's, and Wulfhild's bearing Magnus' crest of a ax crossed with a sword carved into the back—sat next to his, with Astrid at his right hand, and Wulfhild next to her.  Like last year, his father's advisory council stood flanking them. 

Unlike last year, however, the number of guests was so massive that they couldn't all fit into the hall at once.  Starting a week ago, they'd been formally greeting the day's arrivals, just to keep things from growing too complicated and crowded… not that it helped much.  It was standing room only inside, with space allotted by lottery, and the envoys would come in with small groups and then the leaders would remain inside.  Wulfhild had organized it after Stoick had given her the job, citing that she actually _had_ a diplomatic bone in her body, and she was still looking extremely antsy about the whole thing, even after a week of it working so far. 

The five Albans and their immediate retinues stepped forward, along with the other envoys who had arrived today.  Captain Finnian of Dubh Linn had returned, arriving just a little while after the Albans, and another two Eirish envoys—one each from Laighin and Mide—had arrived first thing this morning. 

After Gothi finished her prayer and his father stood and welcomed the envoys with the same words that he'd been using all week, the Albans presented themselves. 

Mormaer Fergus—a mountain of a man only a handwidth shorter than Stoick—approached, bowed, and said with a smile, "Greetings, Chief Stoick the Vast, in my own name and the name of my king, Mac Bethad mac Findlaich, lord of Alba.  While we only heard rumors last year of your great strength, your victory over Harthacnut the Dane—and the kindness you showed to his broken forces—speaks well, and much, and highly of you.  I, and my king, would like to see peace between us."

Stoick smiled.  "As do I."

"My king sent a gift on behalf of our kingdom, as proof of our sincerity and goodwill," Fergus said, and his wife and daughter stepped forward with a fine box made of pine and oak and intricately carved.

Stoick reached in and pulled out a large fur cloak.  "Ah!  Bear!  Thank you!"

"Aye, gotten in trade from the Vikings… and now given to a Viking lord.  Funny, innit?" Fergus said with a grin. 

Stoick snorted.  "Aye.  Now, unless there's anything else, I think we should let your fellows introduce themselves?"

Fergus bowed and nodded, still smiling.  "Aye.  And I have to say, Chief Stoick, your command of my native tongue gives me a smile."

Stoick smiled and waved Fergus away.  "I learned it at my mother's breast.  She was Alban."

Fergus blinked at that note, but stepped back, and Mormaer Dingwall came forward to introduce himself.

###

Cami watched from her position as honored guest in the hall.  She was trying to pay attention to the Albans, she honestly was, but her attention was taken up by a constant awareness of where Merida was.

She held back a groan of exasperation—although the exasperation was with _herself_.  Oh, she had it _bad._   Since they'd arrived earlier, she'd been playing guide almost constantly, answering Elinor's and Fergus' questions, along with the rest of the Alban lords. 

At least she'd found out why the topic of marriage was so sensitive for Merida.  Her mother had been preparing—and pressuring—her to get married for years.  In fact, out of the potential suitors… the majority of them were here, in the form of the other mormaers' sons and Mormaer Dagur, although apparently Elinor was hoping to make a match with King Mac Bethad's stepson, Lulach. 

Impossible fantasies of rescuing Merida from that fate—possibly by bringing her to the Bogs like so many other women who joined the tribe, fleeing arranged marriages—were regularly teasing Cami now, not to mention the much more direct method of presenting _herself_ as a suitor for the beautiful redhead and hoping for acceptance.  Bog law—and Hooligan law by extension, due to long reciprocity—allowed for such marriages…

But she was getting ahead of herself, and kept mentally slapping herself upside the head every time her imagination careened down that path.  She didn't even know if Merida was interested in women… and besides, tribe heir or not, the Bogs were only two hundred and sixty.  Why would her parents agree to a match with such a small tribe, when there was potentially a kingdom to be had?

So she stewed.  Skuggi, meanwhile, had already made friends with her younger brothers, who found his color-changing hide to be the most amazing thing ever.

In fact…

She blinked and looked around. 

Where had they gotten to?

She started to scan the hall in more detail; while Skuggi could literally hide in plain sight, he still left a shadow and a ripple in the air that was very obvious when he moved, although the dimness in here would work to her friend's advantage… oh shit.

" _Skuggi!"_ she gave a harsh whisper to the shimmering form above the crowd on the far side of the room, apparently clinging to the wall.

The shimmer twitched in her direction, but then got back to what it was doing—specifically, climbing down the wall towards the sideboard, which was filled with delicacies for after the visitor presentations, with three small redheads clinging to his back. 

She glared at them, and was rewarded with Skuggi's head appearing for a moment and _winking_ at her before vanishing again against the rock wall.

"Oh, that's _it_ ," she said quietly, knowing that his hearing was phenomenal.  "You think this is funny, don't you?"

"Who are you talking to?" Merida's cheerful voice intruded on Cami's awareness.

She blinked and turned to see the object of her crush standing there, her arms crossed and grinning in amusement.  Behind her, Mormaer Macintosh was introducing himself and his heir.  Swallowing painfully, she indicated with a roll of her eyes and a semi-subtle nod of her head towards where she'd last seen Merida's brothers and her dragon. 

Merida followed her line, and then her blue eyes widened.  "Oh…"

Cami turned to look, and sagged—an entire platter of pastries was apparently hovering in midair, with the cakes on it vanishing from sight.

She and Merida shared a look. 

"Who corrupted who?" Merida asked plaintively.

"No idea," Cami said, watching the now-empty platter being gently placed back onto the sideboard, just in time for her cousin Karolina to come out carrying a tray of rolls and do a double-take at the empty platter. 

Then Merida tensed. 

"What?"

She nodded towards the lone man stepping before Stoick's throne.  It was that jerk, Dagur Murchadh.  As he went through the motions of introducing himself and thanking Stoick for his hospitality, Merida scowled.  "I wish we hadn't brought him, but we had to."

Cami quirked an eyebrow.  "Why?"

"He's scum," Merida said harshly.

Cami blinked in surprise at the vehemence in her voice.  "What did he _do?_ "

Merida turned to look Cami in the eye.  "You're from the Bog Burglars, but you said that your dad is from this tribe?  So you know him?"

"I've got four younger sisters and one younger brother by him, so that argues that I do," Cami said lightly.  "He's a good da.  What does that have to with him?" She nodded towards Mormaer Murchadh to indicate who she was talking about.

"He killed his own dad, boasted about it, and took his lordship," Merida said harshly.

Cami recoiled.  "What!?" she hissed.

"Aye, when we were little girls.  He's only a mormaer because his own men wanted him over his dad."  Merida's nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed.  "And the king wants him as his sword.  But Mum's got him on a leash… here at least."  She scowled.  "The king wouldn't be happy if he got us into a war with…" she glanced around the room significantly, and Cami nodded.  Yeah… Stoick would squish him if he started a fight at Thawfest. 

But given the bloodlust she saw in his eyes, she hoped that _he_ realized that.

###

**_Saint-Malo_ ** **_, Duchy of Brittany, Francia_ **

 

Inga and Dogsbreath silently stole through the quiet halls of the nighttime keep on feet covered only by fresh wool socks.  This was their third time out of their cell; both of the last two times, they'd been forced to retreat by patrolling guards.  But with the whole of the keep in a tizzy, preparing for some big Christian _blot_ on the day after tomorrow, this was their chance.  The whole of Henry's fief seemed to be asleep, and the moon was high, giving them light to escape by without needing a candle or torch that would give them away.  It was perfect burglary weather. 

Inga, crouched by a corner, peeked around and saw that it was clear.  She beckoned Dogsbreath forward and the two of them darted from cover to cover on their way to the barn where Redsnout was housed. 

Their plan was simple: reach the barn, free Redsnout, and run for it.  They'd argued over it at length, but at last they'd agreed to head east, towards the Norselands, where they'd be able to get directions to the Roman Empire, rather than risk ending up in some other place where they didn't speak the local tongue.  Of course, with the sum total of their worldly goods in the pillowcases that they had slung over their shoulders, it wouldn't be a _pleasant_ journey.  No tent, only the blanket from the bed, and whatever else they'd managed to steal on their way through the keep, which was minimal; Dogsbreath's pillowcase was stuffed full of food they'd stolen from the kitchens, but that wouldn't last, especially the way that Redsnout ate. 

They reached the door to the courtyard, and Dogsbreath motioned silently towards the barn; it was barred and locked.  He'd given her a count of how many locks she'd have to pick before they'd be able to make their escape. 

Three on the door bar.  One on the muzzle, chained to the floor.  Another two on each leg.  Two more on the tail.  Another around his chest to restrain his wings.

She'd practiced furiously on her ankle-shackle, and been able to get it open in under a count of thirty… but these locks would be new to her, and her heart was hammering in her chest in fear.

Keeping to the edges and shadows, the moon's light now their enemy if there was a watchman in view, they scurried.  First to one of the courtyard buildings, and then to the next…

They reached the barn without an alarm being raised… but it was only a matter of time before that happened.  To escape their cell, Dogsbreath had used the chair as a lever to haul the door up off of its hinges; while it was still technically in the doorframe, any close inspection would show what they'd done.

Inga went to take her knife-lockpick out and her hands were shaking so hard that she almost dropped it.  Once… twice… three times she tried to insert it into the keyhole, missing each time.

She paused, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, and tried to let the tension in her chest flow out with the air through her nose as she exhaled. 

Opening her eyes, she looked at Dogsbreath in the moonlight, and, on impulse, leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the lips.  Over the last month of their captivity… they'd grown… _close_.

He returned it, and for a moment, they stood there, together, and then she pulled back.  Her hands were still shaking, but not as badly, and she firmly slid the tip of the knife into the keyhole of the first lock on the barn door bar. 

She motioned with her head, and Dogsbreath nodded.  He turned, keeping a lookout. 

Trying not to focus on the passing time, just on the lock, she opened the first with some trouble; she'd gotten so used to her shackle-lock's particular setup that she'd started reflexively trying to open this lock as if it was the one on her ankle.  Taking deep breaths, she moved to the second, and had that one open faster. 

Then the third.  She set the heavy iron lock aside and tapped Dogsbreath on the shoulder.  Together, they lifted the bar off the door and set it gently off to the side; the last thing they needed was the clatter of wood alerting the whole of the keep. 

Opening the door, they slipped inside.  It was pitch black in the barn, and she could _smell_ Redsnout—dry, and somehow reminiscent of both cat piss and something more _spicy._  

"I need light…" she said softly, and Dogsbreath murmured an acknowledgment and opened the doors fully.  As the moonlight filtered in, she looked and gasped, despite herself.

Redsnout was tightly chained to the floor.  Even knowing what to expect, seeing the sheer amount of restraints on him made her heart start pounding like an overexcited drummer again.  There were more locks than Dogsbreath had reported, for starters—and then Redsnout's eyes popped open.

He saw them and started to thrash in the chains.  The clatter of metal against metal was loud.

Too loud.

Terrified that everyone in the fortress and village down at the base of the fort would hear _,_ she ran over and started to hurriedly pick the first lock.  _Any_ lock. 

As Dogsbreath worked at calming Redsnout, who thrashed about in the chains—twice yanking the first lock free of her hands—she focused with absolute bloody single-mindedness on getting the locks _open._  

_click click click click CLACK click click clickclickclick click CLACK_

Not caring about silence any longer, she threw the locks aside as she opened them, not caring about keeping count.  Dogsbreath unwound the chains as she worked—

And then, as Redsnout thrashed again, the lock was once again yanked out of her hands.

But this time, the tip of her knife stayed _in_ the lock. 

Holding up the broken knife, she felt her heart racing and her breath came in short, rapid pants, her thoughts stuck in a cycle of terror. 

"What?" Dogsbreath asked furtively.

She mutely held up the knife as she started to feel her head swim and spots appeared before her eyes.

"Oh shit."

"I, I, I need something to pick the locks with!  Something long and narrow and stiff and strong enough to move the tumblers!"

Dogsbreath also started panting—and then his eyes widened.  "'Snout!  Give her a quill!  The longest and thinnest one you've got!"

Redsnout chittered through the muzzle, and twitched his tail.  A quill stood up and without further question, Inga snatched it.

It was long, and thin, more like a spear or spindle than a knife, and there was no handle for her to easily grasp.  But it was _something,_ and the tip was sharp like a needle.

She shoved the tip into a lock and started to wiggle it around, feeling the shape of the tumblers. 

As she worked, there was suddenly a shout of alarm from outside of the barn, and the sounds of people yelling and running about.

She shared a wordless look with Dogsbreath and bent her head back over the lock.

Shutting out the sounds of the keep waking up and the shouts of men, she focused entirely on the small bits of metal inside the iron case of the lock…

It popped open and Dogsbreath yanked the chain loose.

Brighter light— _torch_ light—flickered around the edges of Inga's awareness, out in the courtyard. 

She looked for the remaining locks, and saw them.  Three left.  The two on his other leg and the one holding the muzzle to the floor.

Redsnout suddenly _moved,_ thrashing in his chains even more than he had previously, his tail sweeping underneath her.  She was knocked to the floor with a scream—which seemed to echo weirdly and with an odd clatter… even after she stopped.

She hauled herself to her feet—to see a trio of guards slumped to the ground in front of the barn, Redsnout's quills sticking out of their chests and faces. 

Dogsbreath bellowed and ran for one of their dropped weapons, an ax, and shouted for her to keep working.

Bending her head with a will, she set to work on the last three locks as Dogsbreath stood by the door, ax at the ready. 

The muzzle went quickly, and Redsnout screeched in rage and freedom as soon as she had it off of him. 

Dogsbreath turned and looked at her anxiously.  "There are archers coming up.  Hurry!"

"I'm working as fast I can!" she said, halfway through the first lock on the leg.  It popped open, and then she started on the last lock.

And froze.

"Shit shit _shit!"_  

"What!?"

"My knife tip!  It's still in there!"  She turned it upside down and started to hammer her stiffened palm against the back of the casing, hoping to dislodge it, but all she got for her troubles was a clatter of metal on metal. 

Dogsbreath turned and looked, and lunged at her with the ax.

She screamed and moved backwards—only for the ax to bite _deep_ into the oak beam that the chain was affixed to. 

Dogsbreath wound up another swing and turned to her.  "Get on his back!"

She didn't need to be told twice and practically vaulted onto Redsnout's saddle; even in the moonlight, she could see that the scales around the edges of the saddle were cracked and damaged, and wondered when they'd last taken it off. 

The barn shuddered with the force of Dogsbreath's blows, and Redsnout turned as best he could and chittered harshly at his rider. 

And then opened his jaw.

Dogsbreath yelped and flung himself backwards as Redsnout, screeching in rage, let loose a full blast of fire at the oak beam, which instantly caught. 

Inga's eyes burned with the sudden light and smoke, and Redsnout roared and tried to pull himself free.

Dogsbreath hopped up into the saddle, and with a shudder and the _CRACK_ of splintering wood, Redsnout yanked the bolt free of the blazing oak.  The ceiling sagged, and more of the building was set alight as the fire spread, and Redsnout let loose another blast of fire as he ran for the exit.

The building opposite the barn was roofed with thatch, and started burning almost instantly as the incredibly hot blaze of the Nadder's fire touched it.  The singing of bows and the hiss of arrows sounded, and Redsnout roared again, in pain this time, and let loose another blast of fire as he took off.

They took to the skies, the keep burning behind them, and fled east.

###

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

 

Stoick rubbed tiredly at his face as the crowd of foreign—very foreign—merchants stood politely in front of the table.  Bladewit, Gobber, Fishlegs, Wulfhild, Spitelout and Hiccup stood off to the side.

"Well, you got here just in time.  And how is Johann doing?" he asked, tapping the letter they'd given him from Johann.

Bladewit translated, as none of the men spoke Norse, Gaoidhealg or Anglo-Saxon, and Stoick's own Latin was _very_ rusty, and several of the men spoke the Al-Andalusian tongue that he had no knowledge of. 

The lead merchants—of which there were apparently several, as the group came from a number of places across the southern sea—listened and replied to Bladewit.  They had arrived only an hour or two before, with the exuberant letter from Johann. 

With their arrival—thirty-two ships, with six hundred and nineteen men between them—Stoick was _certain_ that there had never been a Thawfest like this in all of history.  According to Fishlegs and Wulfhild, the total number of visitors to Berk for the festival in two days' time outnumbered his own tribe by over four to one.  Nearly three _thousand_ guests, including these men and their crews, were spread across the island, with a hundred and eight foreign ships docked in the harbor, drawn up on the beaches, and even lifted up and placed on sea stacks for safekeeping.

Bladewit nodded, considered for a moment, and then said back to Stoick, "They say that when they parted ways a few months back, he was in good health and excited—'cheering', specifically—at the chance to shave off significant time in setting up the Dragon Mail.  And also he recommended that they stock up on paper, medicines, ink, and paint, and they still have several shiploads, even after Gunvor and Hákon bought out half their supply when they stopped in Vedrarfjord."

Stoick snorted.  "We'll take the other half."

Bladewit smirked. "Can I claim a small portion of that for the library?"

"We'll see how much they have.  But I don't see why not," Stoick said with an answering smile.

Bladewit turned and translated.

There was a great deal of grinning and clapping among the merchants, and Stoick stood up and shook their hands one by one. 

Then Bladewit paused as one of the merchants said something.

"What is it?" Stoick asked.

"When they stopped in Brittany, there were apparently rumors of a rogue dragon going around and attacking the holds of various lords, burning them and attacking their holders."

"Brittany… where is that?" Stoick asked. 

Bladewit turned and spoke with the traders before turning back.  "About a week and half's sail to the south, one of the lands that sticks out into the sea—"

One of the traders said something hesitantly, and she listened, nodded and added, "The westernmost stretch of Francia, apparently."

Stoick glanced around the room.  "Thoughts?"

Fishlegs cocked and then shook his head.  "I doubt that a dragon would go around and attack forts without provocation."

Hiccup nodded.  "Yeah, I agree there."

"What do you think?" Stoick asked.

"Well, I doubt it's Dogsbreath.  That's way too close to home.  A week and half of sailing is a day or so's flight.  But we can follow up on it later," Hiccup said, and Spitelout nodded in agreement.  Then Hiccup's expression grew thoughtful, and he rubbed his chin.

"What is it, son?"

"Well, Dad, if they'd be willing to stick around for a bit, we could cut the setup time for the mail even more," Hiccup said.  "I'd want to get the closer stations set up first, like the one in Normandy—and maybe follow up on Brittany at the same time—since we'll be putting a lot of traffic through there, but, once we're done, we can give them a lift home… and see where to put the mail stations ourselves."

Stoick nodded; the message from Normandy had arrived the other day, quickly following approval from Alba, Gwynedd and Deheubarth for similar stations in their lands.  England, meanwhile…  Rumors of the fate of Johann's contact there had reached them last week, carried by a Cornwall merchant.

Bladewit grinned and translated the offer. 

The merchants all looked at Hiccup, and then at each other, and started to chatter energetically among themselves.

After a moment, Bladewit said dryly, "They want to know what you have in mind."

Hiccup waggled his eyebrows as Stoick watched in amusement.  "Could you explain waveskimmers to them?"

Bladewit fondly rolled her eyes and started to explain. 

Over the next few minutes, Hiccup had to both draw a quick sketch, and deal with the merchants' incredulous stares.

A little while later, they were out on the water, and several of the merchants looked like they were either about to faint or have a religious experience as the Nadders and Gronckles cheerfully towed the longboat along at fifteen or so knots.  Stoick was technically supervising, but mostly he was just watching and enjoying himself.

As they approached Muck, Hiccup blew the horn he had dangling from his belt, and the dragons slowed and eventually came to a stop.

Looking out over the murmuring crowd of visitors, Hiccup asked cheerfully, "So, what do you all think?"

Bladewit, who was grinning from ear to ear where she stood by the mast, repeated the question in Latin and Arabic.

Stoick watched it all from his seat by the stern, beaming.  Hiccup had spent the winter productively.  Building the baths, the laundry, rebuilding the Broodery practically from the ground up, training the dragons in the Rookery, several dozen workable inventions, practically no major destruction _from_ those inventions, and, of course… siring Stoick's two impending grandchildren.

Stoick knew that both Wulfhild and Astrid were treating him with exaggerated patience since they'd told him, and he was doing his best to not coddle them, but it was a difficult struggle.  He had already been fond of the two of them on their own merits, and knowing that they were carrying his first grandchildren… Well, Astrid had started _that_ conversation with a warning for him to behave for a reason. 

He broke into an irrepressible grin as he remembered being told that he was going to be a grandfather.  That he and Valka would be grandparents.  Yes, it had also come with the near-explicit threat to his personal health and his ongoing ownership of all of his limbs and organs if he tried to treat them with excessive coddling, but that just meant that his son had married well. 

And he'd been evading that stricture fairly nicely as he made sure to help with their morning sickness and oddball cravings.  Astrid still managed to look threatening even when vomiting into a bucket, but she'd been too busy throwing up the fish she'd unwisely tried to eat to be able to follow through with the threatened gelding and dismemberment.  What had amused Stoick the most, though, was the moment the previous day when each of them had had opposite cravings and nausea.  Wulfhild had demanded cooked beans and boiled barley, while Astrid had wanted pickled and fermented cabbage and cucumbers, and each of them had gagged at the other's bowl, which had made Stoick laugh in fond memory. 

Meanwhile, Hiccup was busy running himself ragged trying to see to both their needs—even when they told him not to—and coming up with excited plans for building up the house for the incoming parts of the family, as well as fulfilling his duties for tomorrow's festival. 

Stoick was envious of his son's energy, but he supposed that that was part of being nearly seventeen.  He remembered having once not slept for three days straight as well at that age, and, Hiccup, at least, was being much more productive about it than his father had been.  _His_ excuse had been a stupid bet over night watch for dragon raids. 

Watching Hiccup fielding questions from the eager merchants—no, the waveskimmer modifications couldn't be done with just any boat, as they were more effective the more sleek the ship was in the water and needed a strong keel, like the modified and reinforced longboat they were standing in; yes, they could just fly with skycarts, but waveskimmers were more efficient at moving larger amounts, if much slower; yes, it was tiring for the dragons, but they didn't mind it any more than a man minded a day of good labor, in that so long as there was a good meal and a nice place to sleep at the end of it, they seemed to enjoy it; and, _yes,_ they were most certainly for hire—Stoick had to just sit back and smile.

Then Wulfhild and Mistletoe came flying up as they made their way back.

Stoick didn't miss how his son's face lit up at the sight of her—and how the expression was mirrored on Wulfhild's face.  As far as he knew, they hadn't _said_ it yet, but the fact that they loved each other was obvious to him.

As she and Hiccup talked about some problem back on Berk—something about the Skrill and Spitelout, which would make it the third or fourth altercation between the lightning-dragon and his brother-in-law—Stoick sat back and just watched, his heart bursting with pride for his son, and adoration for his daughters-in-law.  He found himself picturing his family in five or ten years time, with a horde of little grandchildren.  He wasn't feeling too greedy.  Six or seven would be enough.  All born healthy and strong, without the worries and fears that he and Valka had faced over Hiccup's early birth, and the miscarriages that they had suffered through before his son had been born… and the losses before that. 

But, no, no, happier thoughts on the future, not the sorrows of the past. 

"Hey, Dad, I'm going to go handle this, all right?"

Stoick waved him on; the merchants were all discussing things animatedly, and while they would undoubtedly have more questions later on, it looked like Hiccup had given them enough to chew on for the moment.  Bladewit had been drawn into the conversation, and was conversing fluently with several of them in what sounded like at least three distinct tongues.  

Hiccup nodded at Stoick's fond dismissal and blew the horn again.  As the dragons smoothly started to drag the ship behind them, chittering and warbling among themselves in a tone that Stoick had learned meant that they were proudly showing off—practically preening—Hiccup mounted up on Toothless' back and took off.

Stoick watched them go and continued to think fondly on that imagined future.  A few more years, enough to let Hiccup grow seasoned in his new role as a leader, the sort of man that people looked to for guidance and wisdom.  He wasn't there yet, no.  But Stoick had faith that he would.  And once that day was reached, Stoick could retire, abdicate the chiefdom to Hiccup, and spend his remaining years helping raise—and spoil—his grandchildren while Hiccup managed and led.  He would be better suited for this new world that he was building than Stoick was.

As the waveskimmer returned to the harbor, Stoick gave a happy sigh.  His home was at peace and prospering.  His son was going to be a father, one whose heart was big enough to fit all of the world into it. 

Once, Stoick had tried to shove his son into a mold to make the boy into a copy of himself, a continuation of their family line.  Much as Stoick was Hamishsson, and Hamish had been Hiccupsson, Hiccup would be Stoicksson, their pride and honor coming from the strength of their lineage, stretching back into the past.

Looking out over the busy harbor, packed with ships and overflown with flocks of dragons, Stoick thought back over the portraits of his ancestors, hanging in the mead hall.  For Stoick, his sense of pride had once come from being their descendant. 

Now…

The waveskimmer shuddered against the dock, and the waiting shore crew hurried to tie it to the pilings.  Nearby, another one of Hiccup's creations—a pile driver built atop a raft—was busy hammering in more piles to expand the harbor space.  The incredible contraption was drawing considerable interest from many of the visitors (which was why Stoick was keeping it running through the festival—to show it off).  Using a square raft with pontoons as a base, Hiccup had built a triangular frame atop it, and dangling from the point of the frame, he had set a massive weight to act as the pile drive; that was fairly standard as such things went.  His son's innovations, however, had been a walking wheel, in which a man could simply stride along at a walking pace, that drew up the weight to the appropriate height—and, at the top, the clever hook that Hiccup had devised would drop the weight onto the pile as soon as it reached the correct height. 

Now, he _knew_ that his pride, and the pride of all those chiefs that came before him… was to be the ancestors of his _son._

###

**_Constantinople,_ ** **_Roman Empire_ **

 

Sigurd slumped into the bathhouse pool, feeling wrung out.  Other waves and sloshes came as Kristoffer, Jorn, Benjamin, Ketilbjorn and Thorred joined him in the steaming water, with Gunnar, Gudmund and Hrafn standing guard nearby. 

Out of all of the things he had come to like about Constantinople, the baths were near the top of the list.  Multiple pools to soak in after a busy day, free admission for the Varangians, a pair of saunas—one dry, called the _laconicum_ , and one wet, called the _sudatorium_ —places to get a rubdown, sports to play…  They'd even let Hookfang in for a soak once in a while, although only in the larger pools during the low demand hours.

Of course, right now, there was no escape from duty, even on the Washday before the big holy day tomorrow, something they called Páscha.

"So, how goes it?" he asked tiredly. 

Jorn gave him a sympathetic shrug.  "At the moment, the debate has reached the point where either you're lying for some purpose, possibly intimidation, or you're telling the truth, also possibly for intimidation.  And there's also speculation that you're an outcast or criminal."

Sigurd bristled at that.  "I'm neither."

"Aye.  Your claim that you came here for glory makes a lot more sense to me if you were just one rider out of thousands," Jorn said with a shrug.  "But that is all secondary."

Sigurd nodded.  "They want more dragons."

"Ayep.  Even if you are exaggerating by ten times, like some of them are claiming, that's still twenty-five dragons for every _one_ that we have here.  So right now, they're looking to see if they have _any_ idea of where there might be more nests… so the question then for us, Sigurd, is _can you tame them?_ "

Sigurd swallowed.  "Yes I can!"

"Hundreds of them?"

"Well, yeah.  Well… Probably.  I don't know.  My cousin was the one who tamed the dragons from our nest back home!"

"Well, I guess you'll find out if you can manage it," Jorn said.  "Because they're looking for where they might find a nest… and as soon as they find one, they're going to want to you tame it for them."

"Yay," Sigurd said without enthusiasm, and sank lower into the water.  Then he sat back up.  "Who is 'the Eunuch'?"

That prompted a reaction from the older Varangians, including Ben.  "Who is the Eunuch?" he asked incredulously.  "You don't _know?"_

"Uh… only been here… six months?"

Jorn whistled and Kristoffer sighed.  "I know I explained it to you, Sigurd.  Back in December."

Sigurd thought back.  "The Emperor's… uncle?"

"Yes.  What brought this up?" Kristoffer asked.

Sigurd took a deep sigh.  "There were some people whispering in the marketplace, and when I asked what the problem was, a boy told me they were unhappy about the Emperor, because he's not a 'real' Macedonian, but is 'only' the 'Eunuch's nephew.'"

Jorn sighed.  "Aye, well, they got that much right."  He leaned forward, making the water slosh.  "Let me fill you in quick, Sigurd."

"And pay attention this time," Kristoffer added tartly.

Sigurd gave him a weak smile.  "Aye sir…"

"Fifty-some years ago, Emperor Basil formally formed the Varangian Guard out of Norsemen and Rus'men, many of whom had already been fighting for him as mercenaries.  Now, the thing you have to understand here is that Basil ruled for nearly fifty years.  He humbled the great generals of Anatolia, subjugated Bulgaria, brought prosperity to the people, increased the army to hundreds of thousands, and grew the territory of the Empire to the greatest it has been in over four hundred years."  Jorn pondered for a moment.  "And, if I'm doing my counting correctly, he died when you were less than a year old."

"Oh," Sigurd said softly. 

"But if Basil had one flaw, it is that _he did not have a good successor,"_ Kristoffer said.  "He never married, or even fathered a bastard heir, and his brother…"  Kristoffer scowled.  "I make no claims at being a moral man.  But Constantine ordered torture and mutilations for imagined slights… and did not care for actually _managing_ the empire.  No, not when there was another hunting trip to have!"  He made a face like he was going to spit.

"Not in the baths!" Jorn chided him.

Kristoffer swallowed, and Jorn rolled his eyes.  "But he died three years after Basil did—which was the best thing he'd ever done."

"Ouch," Benjamin commented. 

Kristoffer said acidly, "You try blinding a sixteen-year-old boy whose only crime was not looking deferential enough, and see what you think, lad!"  He scowled and Sigurd cringed at the image… and the age.  "If there is one thing that I find despicable about the Romans, it is this belief that _mutilating_ a man is _less_ evil than simply killing him.  Feh.  Of course, what can you expect from men so evil that they'll make half of their court out of _eunuchs?_ "

"What?!" Sigurd sputtered, shifting his legs under the water uncomfortably. 

"Aye, they take young boys by the score, carve off their balls before their voice cracks, and raise them in the court," Kristoffer said, sounding like he wanted to spit again.  "We're the Emperor's bodyguards, they're the servants and aides.  The idea is that the eunuchs, well," his lip curled in a sneer and he snorted disdainfully, "they can't have a bloodline to look after while they whisper in the Emperor's ear, now can they?  Except when they've got lots and lots of brothers—like John."

"Ayep," Jorn said in agreement.  "And many of those eunuchs end up whispering in the Emperor's ear regardless.  So on Constantine's deathbed, his advisers—John included—convinced him to marry off a puppet to his daughter, Zoe, instead of the more competent man he'd originally selected.  And Romanos made for a good puppet."

"You mentioned John.  Where'd he come from?"

Jorn scowled.  "He was the Orphantrophos—the man in charge of the imperial orphanage—and the senior court eunuch, having gotten his start as Basil's secretary and aide.  So he served under Romanos.  But Romanos was also a disaster."

Kristoffer groaned.  "Oh, don't remind me."  He flushed and sank down into the water, looking humiliated.

All of the younger Varangians looked at him.  "What _happened_?" Gunnar asked from his spot by the door.

"Romanos tried to lead the army personally—and he was so incompetent, twenty thousand of us against two thousand Arabs, and we had our asses handed to us on a platter."  He stood up out of the water and showed off a terrible scar on his thigh.  "I got this that day, protecting Romanos' hide from getting captured by the Emir of Aleppo."

Sigurd eyed the scar; it looked like Kristoffer's leg had been nearly chopped off. 

As Kristoffer settled back into the bath, Jorn nodded.  "John, meanwhile, as her uncle's trusted confidant, was bending Zoe to his will… and introduced his brother Michael to her, since Romanos wasn't coming to her bed anymore."

Kristoffer rolled his eyes.  "Aye, and _that_ made for awkward guard duty, let me tell you, hearing them and knowing that it was your job to protect the woman cheating on her husband."

Despite himself, Sigurd snickered. 

"Oh, think it's funny, don't you?  Well, they had Romanos strangled in his bath in the morning one day and Michael married off to her that evening!" Kristoffer said.  "And, no, I'm not exaggerating!  What a _mess_ that was!"

Jorn snorted.  "I got here a bit before then, and I'll agree to that!  So then we had Emperor Michael the Fourth.  But, well, after what happened to Romanos, Michael didn't trust her either."

"Can't blame him for that," Gudmund commented.

"Noooo…" Jorn drawled, "but essentially, John was running the Empire by that point, because Michael couldn't find his own arse with both hands and a map.  And that's how it was for the next seven years."

"Aye, with John's hand firmly up his brother's arse," Kristoffer said, making puppet motions with his own hand.  "And then Michael had the bad taste to get sick and die.  So John, running out of unmarried brothers, says to Zoe that he has a _nephew._   And hasn't she been wanting a son all these years, with which to continue the dynasty?"

"Michael the Fifth," Sigurd said flatly.

"Ayep," Jorn drawled again.  "Of course, John was _surprised_ when Michael turned on him that first day and had him banished.  Thing is, John wasn't Basil's equal _either._   Nobody is.  But the Empire went from having a leader truly blessed by God to _lead_ , to a cruel incompetent, then an idiot, then a half-competent puppet, and now… Michael.  And they remember the good old days of Basil… and while Zoe is _not_ her uncle, she's all they have left."

"No, there's also Theodora," Kristoffer said. 

"Oh, right.  Almost forgot," Jorn said with an acknowledging nod. 

"Eh, you're forgiven.  She's been confined as a nun out on one of the islands in the Sea of Marmara for over ten years.  Caught plotting against Zoe… _supposedly_ , but Zoe was always the jealous sort—and, unlike Zoe, Theodora actually has working thoughts in her head," Kristoffer said.  "But they're the last two blood-members of the dynasty.  So I can't say I'm surprised that they're muttering."  He looked at Sigurd.  "Good to know, though.  In case there's an uprising against him, whispers like those are the first warning signs."

Sigurd nodded.  And then the words fully penetrated.  "Wait, what?"

Kristoffer cocked his head.  "What's the question?"

"Warning signs for what?"

"That we'll have to put down another uprising.  There have been plenty of them over the last fifteen years," Kristoffer said matter-of-factly.

"But you were just saying—"

"Lad, I might not _like_ Michael, but we are sworn to the office of the Emperor, to protect it, to obey it, and to follow it.  He is, right now, the Emperor.  That means we protect and obey him.  You're in a tight spot, and that's a shame, because he doesn't like you, and I'm hoping to get Harald out of the cell that they've got him sitting in, but that does _not_ mean we act against the Emperor.  Understood?"

"Yes sir," Sigurd said gruffly, and sat back in the bath.

 

* * *

 

**_AN:_ ** _And I'm back!  I had a great hiatus, but I missed you all!_

_So, now, a few administrative points.  My next hiatus will be for the month of November, so I can participate in NaNoWriMo.  So the last chapter before the hiatus--chapter 68--will be posted on Oct 28.  Not coincidentally, that is also the last chapter in Book II._

_Chapters 57-60 are full drafted and undergoing proofing, and 61-68 just have a few scenes left to finish revising before being sent off to the betas as well.  My_ goal _is to have Book III be finished by chapter 100; it is currently undergoing first-stage outlining and drafting._

_Next, I'm sorry that I have to keep repeating this, but please note that I do not give out spoilers or take unsolicited submissions for content to be added into ATOV._

_While I appreciate the great interest in this story, my standard reply for spoiler requests will be RAFO: Read And Find Out, and accepting unsolicited material for inclusion is also asking for tantrums from people whose material was rejected.  I'll pass, thank you._

_Since there's been confusion on this, note that there's a difference between asking me, "Have you heard about this [historical person/event/location/etc]?" and asking "Hey, I want you to include this dragon from Monster Hunter/Harry Potter/Pern/ASOIAF/my imagination!"  The first is not a problem--at worst, I already know about the historical detail in question, and at best, I have another puzzle piece of history to fit in or not.  The second, though, I will not accept._

_Lastly, two personal points:_

_First of these, my 33rd birthday is in three weeks on the 26th!  (eep!)_

_Second, because I keep getting hate for the polygamy subplots and characters, let me just make one thing clear.  I'm poly, as is my wife.  While we're monogamous with each other, this story was one of the elements that led me to realize about that aspect of myself--that, no, I don't feel the sexual jealousy that more than one commentator has claimed "human beings are innately and universally wired" to feel.  So, in the end, sending me those nasty reviews and messages--calling consensual poly "garbage/cheating/disgusting/harem/etc" or wanting Wulfhild to die/be punished/tortured/etc, or threatening to flame me if I don't write the story as dictated, all that does is hurt me, make me angry--but it most definitely won't make me change the story!  If anything, it makes me more committed to writing this story the way I intended it.  Because I'm fundamentally writing it for myself, and sharing it with the fandom._


	57. Let The Games Begin

**Chapter 57: Let The Games Begin**

_…the machinations surrounding the Alban Red King, Mac Bethad mac Findlaích (~AD 1005—18 April, AD 1043), were complex.  Despite the efforts of apologists who wish to paint the king as an innocent dupe of Jarl Mildew the Vicious' manipulations in his efforts to trigger war between Alba and Berk, the fact remains that Mac Bethad's hands were hardly clean.  He became the Mormaer of Moray in AD 1032 after the previous Mormaer, Gille Coemgáin, was burned to death along with 50 of his men, and there is little question that Mac Bethad either participated in or organized the atrocity, although the question of his sense of guilt is open, due to his marriage to Gille Coemgáin's wife, Gruoch, and adoption of his son, Lulach, as Mac Bethad's own heir.  He also killed his own cousin, the previous king of Alba, Donnchadh mac Crìonain, on the field of battle in August of AD 1040, and took the throne.  While Donnchadh mac Crìonain had initiated the battle that resulted in his death, there is evidence of provocation on the part of Mac Bethad specifically to spur his cousin into invading and allow Mac Bethad to fight with the moral upper hand and on his own territory.  Similarly, Mac Bethad's efforts with regard to Berk included various attempts to cripple the nascent power…_

_—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396_

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

**_April 4, AD 1042_ **

****

Thawfest morning dawned to find the village already bustling about.  It was so crowded that Wulfhild and Fishlegs had resorted to stuffing some people's sleeping quarters into the underground dragon tunnels—and at least half a dozen merchants had specifically _requested_ space in the tunnels, as they allowed for greater security for their wares than a tent.  A vast tent city—laid out in as close to a grid as the hillsides behind Berk would allow—formed both market and sleeping quarters for nearly two thousand people. 

Wulfhild yawned as she blinked awake with the sunrise, having stumbled into bed last night well after sunset.  She'd attended the Easter Vigil last night, one of hundreds in attendance—by her estimate, well over two-thirds of the visitors to Berk were Christian, with the remainder being Moors and Saracens, and that didn't include the Christian Eirish from Vedrarfjord and Veisafjord—and her emotions were still roiling from it. 

She made a face, and huddled up against Hiccup's back where he was still asleep next to her, taking comfort from his presence.  Last Tyr's Day, Stoick had cornered her with a visiting priest from the nearby Abbey of Iona, which was effectively the center of Christendom in Alba and Eire from what she understood.  Her… father-in-law (for lack of a better term for 'father of the man whose concubine she was'… and used only with great discomfort, thanks to that vow hanging over her head) had wanted her to corroborate—or not—the priest's claims about Easter.  So… she had.  And Stoick, wanting to show proper hospitality to his thousands of guests, had ordered the hall built.  It only seated eighty, but it was enough to handle Mass in rotation, and the field outside allowed for hundreds to stand.  And as the highest-ranked Christian on the island, Wulfhild had been expected to go.  So she had.

Expectations.  She took a deep breath and rolled over.  Next to her, Hiccup and Astrid were still asleep; she had a vague memory of Toothless throwing a half-protesting Hiccup into the bed last night and holding him down with a paw until he'd stopped complaining that he had work to do.  Astrid had already been in bed by that point, dead to the world, only her light snoring giving away that she was still breathing.

Expectations.  Like how Hiccup had been _expected_ to be a copy of Stoick, big and strong and a proper Norseman… not hers and Astrid's loving genius who seemed to remake the world as a hobby. 

Like how she'd expected to be a playing piece on the political gameboard.

Her stomach gurgled, protesting that she hadn't fed it with the exquisitely picky food selection that she could keep down.  Wulfhild moaned, flopping back onto the pillow.  She considered poking Hiccup and telling him this was his fault, but he'd just agree and go get her something. 

Not for the first time, she thought on the child growing in her belly, and the sibling it had, growing in Astrid's.  Even though she'd studied Hooligan inheritance law until she'd felt that her eyes were going to bleed, she was still worried about which of them would be first… and if either of them would be male. 

Yes, she'd read the laws for inheritance, and gender officially made no difference.  But girls married _out_ of the clan… which was why four out of the five clans were headed by men; Bladewit's husband had been a clanless freedman and brought into the Ingerman clan by her marriage to him.  So, ideally, Wulfhild was carrying a daughter and Astrid a son, and Astrid's boy would be born first.  And while the reverse wasn't necessarily a problem, as Astrid's child would still be first in line to inherit according to the strange tanistry rules that the Hooligans used, there had been exceptions made before for the older children of concubines if the wife's eldest child was… unacceptable to the clan.

Such as Clodgall and Gobber. 

She'd broken out into a cold sweat when she'd found out about _that_ case, however unusual it had been nearly forty years before, and was praying daily that her child wouldn't do that to their sibling.  The scenario she feared was like what had happened to her and Magnus; she was legitimate, he was a bastard… and yet, he was the king.  (Although, given how thoroughly Einar had grabbed power away from him, a small and unworthy part of Wulfhild's heart did occasionally gloat about the fact that she possibly had more _real_ power as Hiccup's concubine and Stoick's high almoner than Magnus did as king of Norway).  The thought of her potential son resenting or even plotting against Astrid's potential daughter made Wulfhild break out into cold sweats on occasion. 

But, for the moment, even if her hypothetical son was born a month before Astrid's equally hypothetical daughter, all of Astrid's children would still be first in line ahead of her own, barring those unusual circumstances.  The Jorgenson case had been substantially different; Clodgall was nearly twenty years older than Gobber, who hadn't been first in line until their mutual older siblings had died in battle. 

She just had to keep telling herself that, so that she could take the joy in this. 

Besides, from what Nanna and Gothi had told them, it seemed likely that Astrid would be first. 

Next to her, Hiccup stirred.  Wulfhild rolled to give him a brief kiss, grateful not only for the distraction from her circling thoughts but also for how her heart beat faster at him being awake.  That being said, they both needed to deal with their morning breath before it got worse.  Astrid's morning breath for the last week, however, had practically been draconic in intensity, a pregnancy symptom that Wulfhild was grateful to have avoided. 

After they'd risen from the bed and gotten Hiccup's foot strapped in place, they glanced at Astrid, who had responded to them getting out of bed by burrowing deeper into the furs. 

"Astrid…" Hiccup gently shook her shoulder.

"I'll rip out your spine and use it as a backscratcher," came the muttered sleepy threat from under the furs.  "Go 'way."  And with that, Astrid wrapped the furs firmly around herself.

Meeting Wulfhild's gaze, Hiccup quirked a questioning eyebrow.  _Should we?_

Wulfhild rolled her eyes and shook her head from side to side in amusement.  _You're terrible._

Hiccup gave a knowing smirk.  _Yep._

Wulfhild nodded in smirking agreement and gave a waggle of her eyebrows.  _Sure._

Hiccup mouthed a count of three and…

"AAARGH!  I'm going to murder both of you!"

"But you'd have to get out of bed to do that!" Hiccup laughed, running for the door, Wulfhild giggling madly only a half-step behind him, the bed-furs bundled in their arms. 

"Aaaargh!  You're going to pay for this!" Astrid bellowed, and her footsteps quickly followed.  A comedic tug-of-war in Wulfhild's old room ensued.  At the end of it, all three of them were laughing, with tears streaming from their eyes, and Astrid had firmly retrieved the largest fur and wrapped herself back up in it. 

Eventually, they made their way downstairs for breakfast.  As they bantered and joked, Wulfhild pushed her worries to the back of her mind.  For now, the Thaw Festival was here, and she was determined to enjoy every moment of it with her new family.

After they'd eaten—and Astrid and Wulfhild had made sure that their meals were staying down—the three of them made their way over to the market, their dragons walking along behind them gamely, where there was already a roaring trade going on.  It had been a lengthy discussion, but they'd eventually come to a balance between hospitality and trade: while the merchants' collective room and board were covered by hospitality, for the right to engage in trade they had to pay a fee to help cover the costs of Thawfest.  Given the speed with which the dozens of merchants had agreed to the suggestion, Wulfhild was _certain_ that the fee was too low, but Stoick and Gobber had seemed pleased.

As soon as they reached the market, though, heads turned, and Wulfhild suddenly realized that it was 'later'.  She'd been working with the merchants since they'd started showing up, and had promised to view their wares 'later'. 

That time was apparently now.

"Milady, milady!  You promised!" called out one cloth merchant. 

"Sir!  Young sir!  Beautiful adornments for your ladies!" called another, his stall strewn with jewelry.

"Spices from distant lands!  Cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper!" called a third.

"Dark and rich Eirish ale, brewed by the finest alemaster of Eire!  Please, milord, miladies, have a tankard on me!" an Eirishman said, emerging from his tent with a number of tankards on a tray.  Hiccup picked one up, clearly intrigued—but then Wulfhild sniffed and recoiled, her stomach revolting at the scent of the strong brew, and Astrid actively gagged.  Hiccup looked at both of them mournfully and put the mug back onto the tray.  The trader looked crestfallen as they moved along. 

"Silks from Constantinople!  Treat yourself and your family to the finest products of the finest weavers!"

The three of them went from stall to stall; knowing who she was—and who Hiccup and Astrid were, by extension—many of the merchants became annoyingly and aggressively ingratiating, forming a crowd around them and pushing and shoving to try to be at the front. 

"Sweet ladies, gentle ladies, be pleased to honor a poor trader and view my wares?"

"Master Dragon Tamer, most brave and handsome Hero, allow this unworthy one but a moment?  I have special offers for you!"

"Young lord, young prince, buy a dainty for your darlings?— A gift!  A gift for the loveliest new mothers ever to grace the earth, in your time of joy!  Only let me show you my wares!"

Taking a deep breath, Hiccup looked at the crowd of expectant merchants and said, "Okay, one at a time.  We have a shopping list and a time limit."

Astrid put in with a grin, "And we don't want to be late."

Wulfhild exhaled in relief as the merchants digested this. 

"Well, hmm, what is on your list, milord?"

"Cloth.  Parchment.  Paper.  Inks and paints.  Brushes and quills.  Needles and thread.  Interesting weapons," he said, adding this last with a smiling glance at his wife, and then turned to Wulfhild with a smile.  "Anything you want?"

She grinned at him.  "I'll admit to liking some of that jewelry, but let's get the list first."

He smiled back at her, and Wulfhild felt herself stir at that.  That was one thing that she'd never experienced before her time here, and, for all of the headaches and heartaches that had ensued, Wulfhild was finding herself grateful to Einar and the other jarls.  Because if there was one thing that she'd come to realize, it was that she loved both Hiccup and Astrid.  From the frequent moments of pure friendship to the carnal bedsports they regularly indulged in, to simply being a vital member of Stoick's court, she was _happy._

If not for Father Henriksson's marriage vow looming over her, Wulfhild would have sworn that she'd found Heaven on Earth.

Next to her, Astrid grinned at the merchants.  "So, we have until noon for the competitions.  If you're all so eager to show us your stuff, shall we?  Who has cloth?"

Things moved quickly after that, and they got everything on their list, and a bunch more besides.

Wulfhild looked over Hiccup's shoulder as he knelt and examined a large barrel full of white powder at one stall.  The merchant was explaining intently in Anglo-Saxon, which Wulfhild didn't understand at _all,_ but Hiccup looked intrigued. 

And then the merchant said something else, and Hiccup's head whipped around.  Talking with the man in his halting Anglo-Saxon, he gesticulated intently, the two of them going back and forth. 

Wulfhild leaned over to Astrid.  "Do you understand what he's talking about?"

Astrid shook her head.  "Not one word."

After a moment, the fellow retreated back into his tent and came out with a small wooden board… which had what looked like some form of white rock _poured_ onto its surface.  But it wasn't liquid… although it certainly looked that way!

Astrid and Wulfhild shared baffled looks as the merchant carefully took the plank and set it up outside of the tent, and then stood back.

Grinning, Hiccup turned first to Toothless, and then visibly reconsidered.  "Hey, Stormfly?"

The Nadder came to attention from where she'd been snoozing in the sun.

Hiccup pointed at the board.  "Could you give us a small fire-breath at that?"

Stormfly seemed to consider that for a moment, gargled, and then breathed out a narrow—if still _hot_ —stream of fire at the plank for a few seconds.

"Okay, stop, that's good!"

Stormfly stopped, and gave Wulfhild and Astrid a questioning look.

Astrid rolled her eyes.  "No, we don't know what he's doing either."

Hiccup, meanwhile, was examining the board.  "YES!"  He turned to the merchant and said in excited Norse, "We'll take all of it!"  Then, at the man's confused look, repeated himself in Anglo-Saxon, sounding sheepish. 

"Hiccup, what _is_ it?" Astrid asked testily. 

He looked up and said carefully, "It's called 'plaster.'  And, look, it's fireproof!  Well, more fireproof than pitch and oakum!  Look!"  He held up the board.  "The wood on the other side isn't burned!"

Wulfhild blinked.  "That sounds promising, actually."

Hiccup grinned.  "Yep!"  Then he glanced to the side.  "Uh…"

The merchant, grinning, was rolling out multiple barrels of the stuff.  As he did so, he said something in Anglo-Saxon.  Hiccup listened for a moment and then nodded sheepishly. 

"What did he say?" Wulfhild asked. 

"That when he heard we had dragons living in wooden houses, he immediately thought we would be interested."

Wulfhild nodded in fervent agreement, remembering the occasional small fires from dragon sneezes from the last seven months.  Just because they were routine didn't mean that they weren't dangerous. 

Hiccup turned back to the merchant, and with some more back and forth, they arranged to have the barrels brought over to the smithy.  Hiccup paid the grinning merchant, and told him—through a chain of three translators—to hold off on leaving, as, if it worked, Hiccup was going to want more of the stuff. 

An hour or so later, the trio wandered home, their arms full of their purchases, followed by their dragons, whose saddlebags were stuffed past the point of brimming, with more goods strapped across their backs.  Toothless was even waddling on his hind legs, several bolts of cloth clutched in his forepaws. 

As they walked, Hiccup idly commented to Mistletoe and Stormfly, "You know, when a merchant comments that they'd love some spikes and scales, that's not an invitation to _throw_ some at him, right?"

The two dragons laughed, a high chittering snicker.

Hiccup gave the pair a deadpan look, and they laughed harder.

"I thought that he damn near crapped himself," Astrid said with a grin. 

"And one more round of 'oh, miladies, in your _delicate_ conditions…' would have made _me_ want to stab him with a sharpened scale," Wulfhild said with a roll of her eyes.  The fellow in question had been almost disgustingly unctuous. 

Hiccup nodded, jostling his packages as he tried to open the door to the house.  "Okay, fair.  He was an ass.  So, I think we have enough here, right?"

Once they had unloaded their purchases in the main room, Wulfhild stepped back and whistled.  "I think we _might_ actually have enough."

"Maybe!"  Astrid laughed.  "But now that we're done shopping… well, we have about an hour before the competitions start."  She smiled at Wulfhild in a way that sent Wulfhild's insides to fluttering.  "And I know what _I_ want to do…"  Stepping over, she took Hiccup by the arm.

Wulfhild gave an answering smile to Astrid and mutely took Hiccup's other arm.  The pair of them took him upstairs to their bedroom as the dragons laughed behind them.

As Wulfhild kicked open the door behind her, her hand fisted in Hiccup's shirt as she kissed him, she reflected that they might end up a bit late to the competitions. 

###

Stoick grinned as he sat down at the table and put out his arm, elbow down, hand up, in challenge.  Hiccup had pointedly reinforced the table with iron bands after he and his opponent had crushed it between them last year.  Stoick found that hilarious.

There was a line, as always, to challenge the chief at arm-wrestling, but Stoick was the reigning champion for seventeen years running—soon to be eighteen, if he had anything to say about it!

Beckoning the first man forward, Stoick set about defending his title.  By about the thirtieth man, the bets being placed weren't on his victory, but on how long the other man could stave off defeat.  Gobber was keeping book nearby, with a constant patter on the odds.

Stoick was cheerfully arm-wrestling with two men at once as Hiccup and his wives walked up, Wulfhild fussing with Hiccup's tunic and Astrid grinning at the pair of them. 

"Hey Dad, how goes it?"

Stoick cocked his head and grinned, and casually bumped the two straining men's hands onto the table.  They groaned and walked off, and Stoick turned to look at Hiccup.  "It goes.  How is the line looking?"

Hiccup ostentatiously looked up and over the length of the line, whose limits Stoick couldn't see.  "Well, you'll be here a while.  I think next year, we might need to do this tournament style instead of reigning champion."

A few people in the crowd seconded that statement, but one man spoke up.  With a note of cheerful humor in his voice, he said, "But I wanna wrestle the Chief!  I'll lose, but I want the chance to say I did it!" and that set everyone to laughing. 

The next man sat down and lost almost instantly, followed by the next, who put up more of a challenge.  As he strained, Stoick asked casually, "So, what's on your plate for the day?"

"Well, we just came from watching the sheep carrying, and Astrid came in third, we're here to see how you're doing, and then Wulfhild has the archery tournament, and then Astrid has the ax throwing and some dueling… and then we've got the dragon contests tonight after dinner," Hiccup reported, and another man had sat and lost in the time it took him to say it.

"Taking it easy, then?" Stoick asked.

Hiccup grinned.  "A bit.  But it's mostly lack of _time._   With the size of the festival _this_ year, we might want to expand it out next year to a few more days in the honor of the gods.  You know, do it tournament style, so more people can participate in more things."

Stoick nodded at the thought and then scoffed at himself—so obvious, and yet he hadn't thought of it.  "That sounds like a grand idea.  Talk it over with Gothi when you get the chance and see if that's acceptable to the gods."  He strained slightly and another arm met the table. 

Hiccup nodded, and he, Astrid and Wulfhild settled down to watch Stoick plow his way through the line of challengers.  Then Wulfhild and Astrid looked up and waved.  "Hey Cami!" Astrid called and beckoned the girl over. 

Cami appeared out of the crowd a few moments later, and Stoick eyed her with concern.  "I hope you haven't lost your place in line, lass," he said.

She eyed the table ostentatiously and shook her head.  "No, I'm foolish, not stupid.  I wouldn't even be a challenge.  I'm here with the Albans.  I want to watch you and Fergus."

"Oh?" Stoick asked, grinning. 

"Ayep.  He's a bit further up the line, waitin' his chance."

Hiccup eyed the table, and once Stoick was done with his current contender, walked over and exaggeratedly examined the iron bands across the oak boards for signs of wear and damage, causing general laughter.  Stepping back, he rejoined Astrid, Wulfhild and Cami where they stood nearby; there was a fair-sized audience hanging about, watching the slaughter.

A short while later, Mormaer Fergus sat down on the bench and waggled his bushy red eyebrows.  "Oh, this'll be fun," he said, grinning. 

Stoick matched it, and the surrounding crowd exploded in a flurry of bets and speculation.  Fergus was bigger than Gobber, and while he wasn't Stoick's size, his frame was on par.  This would be glorious. 

They politely waited for the bets to calm down—although Stoick was a little hurt by Cami betting on Fergus to win!  He'd have to check later to find out if he'd upset the lass somehow—and set to it. 

Instantly, it became apparent that all of the challengers before had been merely a warm-up.  The two of them strained against one another, and Stoick felt the muscles on his arm pop.  For the first time since he'd sat down, he had to brace himself against the table—and Fergus did the same. 

The metal groaned audibly—wait, no, that was Hiccup, being dramatic. 

All around them, people were cheering him and Fergus.  Applause broke out when Fergus lasted longer than any other challenger.  The pulse in Stoick's head pounded in time, and he could feel himself sweating with the effort, and knew his face was flushed, but so was Fergus'.  Their hands locked in strain, Fergus gained the upper hand slowly, his arm fresh while Stoick's was slightly tired from already defeating a hundred and more men. 

"Come on, Dad, you can do it!" Hiccup's voice came from behind him, and encouraged by his son, Stoick somehow managed to draw on reserves that he didn't know he had. 

Slowly, Fergus' arm bent back… past the midpoint… over… over…

Fergus was fighting it, beads of sweat dripping down his red face, but Stoick had the momentum of it now, and, inch by bloody inch, Fergus' arm approached the table's surface.

The crowd was dead silent around them, all eyes on the table.  Fergus managed to halt his advance for a moment, panting for breath with the effort, but Stoick continued mercilessly.  This was his home, his chiefdom, and his pride at stake.  He wouldn't lose in front of his son, no matter _how_ worthy the challenger was!

With a final bellow of effort, he summoned up strength and with a resounding _thud,_ Fergus' hand impacted the table's surface.

There was a hush, and the crowd erupted into cheers and applause.  Both of them breathing hard, Stoick looked up into Fergus' eyes and saw the hard-won respect there, respect that was mirrored in his own.  The pair of them wordlessly knocked the table aside and pulled each other into a backslapping hug. 

"That was amazing!" Fergus bellowed gleefully.  "I haven't had a bout like that in years!"

"Same!  It was worthy of song!" Stoick said, grinning from ear to ear.  He pulled back and looked at Fergus.  "I say friend, how say you?"

"I'll be glad to call any such man of stout strength a friend!" Fergus said, grinning.  "Better than an enemy, that's for sure!"

"Ha, that's true!" Stoick said, and he and the other lord gave each other another round of hearty backslaps.  Then Stoick turned.  "Hoy, Gobber!" he called. 

"Aye, Stoick?"

"Unless someone manages to give a better bout than that, take a third of my winnings at the end and give them to Mormaer Dunbroch here, as second place for a hard-fought bout!  And, if such a man can be found, Fergus is free to defend his title!"

"Ahah!  I look forward to it!" Fergus said, beaming, and then bent down.  "But I believe you have a title to defend, chief!"  He righted the table and set the chairs down.  "I'll try not to make silly faces behind your opponent's back!"

Stoick, laughing, sat back down in his seat, and the next man, an awed look on his face, stepped forward. 

###

**_Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

Ruffnut walked— _walked,_ not _waddled,_ thankyouverymuch!—through the hallway to Magnus' office, after having slept through the Christian morning mass that Magnus had gotten up for.  She was showing very large now, and was hating it, even as she used the pregnancy fatigue to get out of inconvenient and unwanted ceremonies.  She vaguely recalled what her feet looked like by this point, and the baby—who was definitely a girl, regardless of what others were saying—seemed to have _her_ uncle's (and, to be fair, her mother's) enjoyment of a nice rough brawl.  Pity that the only things in punching and kicking range were Ruff's internal organs…

Holding the letter she'd written for Gothi and Nanna in her hand, she stopped outside Magnus' door and raised her other hand to knock, but paused when she heard Yngvarr's voice inside.  He'd been gone for several weeks on some business for Magnus, and she hadn't heard that he was back.

"What I've found so far… well, I'm planning on visiting your uncle's court in Sweden next to see what can be found there," Yngvarr said, sounding pissed off.

"That good, eh?" Magnus asked wryly. 

"That's one way of putting it," Yngvarr replied.  "It doesn't help that the circumstances are fairly rare, and there's hardly going to be a perfect match.  I've only found a handful of such mixed marriages—one of them in my own family line, ironically enough—and rulings on them weren't always recorded."

Ruffnut's eyes widened.  Mixed marriages?  Like hers with Magnus?  What was the question that Yngvarr was flying around in winter trying to answer? 

"And what about the ones that you _have_ found?  How did the Church rule on them?" Magnus asked quietly. 

"Here," Yngvarr said, and there was a rustle of parchment. 

There was a moment of silence, Magnus clearly reading, and then his disgusted voice came through the door.  "Well, that's a delightful pattern."

"Aye.  I'm less than pleased myself.  While there are good men in the Church, for most it's a position bought by their fathers for the advancement of their family.  But as for those good men, milord, do I have your permission to approach some of the more honorable Church jurists I know and know of and explain the situation?"

Magnus sighed.  "Aye.  Do that.  We need to resolve this, before the question of inheritance comes to bite us."

That made Ruffnut's eyes go _very_ wide, and she glanced down at her belly.  What were they worried about?  Would their Church not accept her baby as heir?

Her eyes narrowed.  _Would the Church not accept Magnus'_ child _as his heir!?_   Yngvarr's comment about positions bought by fathers for their sons made her hackles rise.  She was going to have to corner one of them and get it out of them. 

But for the moment, she had her own issues. 

She knocked politely and entered a moment later, to see the two men standing together, examining a parchment in Magnus' hands.  "Yngvarr!  Good to see you!"

"And you, milady Queen," Yngvarr said with a wide, genuine smile.  "What do you have there?"

Ruffnut grimaced inside.  They had their secrets and she had hers…  maybe now was not the time to confront them over theirs.  For all she knew, they were laboring under similar oaths.  But she knew that she _trusted_ both her husband and Yngvarr to do the right thing.  So she said, "A message to Berk's healers about the hospital and some things that have come up.  I need advice, and possibly to send a few of our people over there for training with them."

Magnus made a noise of surprise. 

"What?" she asked, turning to him.

"I'm just… wait, it's that Ingerman library, isn't it?  They have herb-lore and healers' craft recorded in it, I bet."  He shook his head and grinned. 

Ruffnut grinned at him in response and stepped closer.  He was… half right.  But that wasn't why she was sending the message.  It was because she needed to have her people properly sworn in on the oath of secrecy regarding the healing uses of dragons, and educated on the same. 

Magnus cocked his head.  "I've been meaning to ask, where _did_ that library come from?  It's… not something I'd expect from a…"  He paused and gave her an awkward grin.

"From a tiny and rude village of unsophisticated tribesmen when even the King of Norway doesn't have a library of that size?" she finished sweetly.

He nodded a bit hesitantly, looking at her for offense. 

She grinned and slung an arm around his back in a fond half-hug.  "If I remember, the start of it was from a Viking raid on an Eirish monastery like… eighty or ninety years ago, I think for someone's dowry.  The guy was a scribe, and his wife's family basically went, 'You like books?  We'll get you books.'" 

Both Magnus and Yngvarr snorted.  "That must have been the _strangest_ raid on a monastery ever," Yngvarr said with a laugh.  "'Gold?  No, not good.  And what's with all this silver?  Where do you keep the _books?_ '"

Ruffnut laughed.  "So, Yngvarr, are you going to be heading to Berk anytime soon on a mail run?"

He shook his head.  "I'm planning on taking Tuffnut with me to Sweden next week to introduce him to Coalburner, and perhaps taking Vladimir home to Kyiv."

"Oh, he'll like that," Ruffnut said with a grin.

"As for mail from Berk, I think we talked it over with Hiccup back in December; he'll be sending someone with messages sometime this week, after Easter and the Sigurblót today."

There was a knock at the door, and she turned and looked to see Eindride standing there.  "Sire?  The glima tournament is soon.  You said that you wanted to attend?"

Magnus beamed, and set the parchment down on the desk.  She glanced at it, but her ability to read wasn't strong enough to be able to take in much of it with only a fleeting look.

All she saw and took in was a part of one sentence— _…decided in favor of the Christian…_

As they walked to the glima tournament, Ruffnut turned that thought over and over in her head.  Who had decided what?  And in favor of who?

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Astrid bounced on her heels as the line of archers stepped out behind the line of powdered chalk on the three-hundred-pace-wide archery field, the stubble-length shoots of dragon-nip under their feet only starting to show green, the crowd behind the ropes calling encouragement to their people.  Next to her, Hiccup chuckled.  "Excited?"

"I want to see Wulf compete!" Astrid said eagerly.  "Given how hard it was to convince her to try in the first place, just getting her out there is a giant," she made an obscene gesture with enthusiasm, "to Einar!"

Hiccup burst out laughing, but he joined in on the cheering as well.

Wulfhild looked at them from her position nearby on the field, and ducked her head, undoubtedly blushing at their enthusiasm.  Astrid grinned, and as the contest judge ordered the archers to draw back their first shots, she leaned forward excitedly to watch. 

_"Loose!"_ the judge—her grand-uncle Leif—bellowed, and the air sang with arrows.  "Draw!"

The rules were simple; the target rings were allotted points per ring.  Five shots per round, and the half with the lowest scores would be eliminated each round.  It wasn't their normal way of doing it, but with over two hundred archers in the contest, they'd had to get creative. 

Five volleys of arrows sang out into the targets, and Leif bellowed to safe their bows.  "And if I catch anyone joking around with theirs while the round is scored, you're out on your ass!"

Astrid smirked as Dagur shoved the arrow he'd been mockingly nocking and pointing at people back into the quiver like it had burned him.  If only Leif had caught him…

The scoring went quickly, as Leif and several teams of judges spread out and starting counting up. 

Astrid's heart fell as the cutoff score was announced several minutes later—and Wulfhild's score was short by a significant margin. 

Her bow slung over her shoulder, she came and joined Astrid and Hiccup at the sidelines a few moments later.  To Astrid's surprise, she was grinning.  "Not bad for someone who only started practicing again over the winter, don't you think!?  Look, I scored in the top half!"

"Of the people who lost in the first round…" Astrid said hesitantly. 

"Yes… but look at them, and look at _me._   The tiny princess scored ahead of over sixty men!"  She pranced a bit and beamed at Astrid before sobering.  "Asta, I love that you're concerned that I 'lost'.  But I was going to lose.  I only touched a bow again for the first time barely three months ago.  I didn't come in dead last, and that's good enough for me!"  She reached over and hugged Astrid.  "And I'll do better next year."

Astrid blinked.  The idea was so foreign to her competitive mindset that she couldn't wrap her mind around it.  But she could see the logic of it, at least, and, well, Wulfhild was happy.  So she hugged Wulfhild back, and gave an irritated glare back in time at herself of a few months before for being afraid of this.  They'd settled down nicely into a stable trio, and Astrid had noticed that Wulfhild was the stabilizer on both herself and Hiccup; he was the thinker, she was the fighter, and Wulf was the calmer.  During Hiccup's last nightmare of the battle two weeks before—before they'd told him that they were pregnant—Wulfhild had helped settle him when he'd woken in a blind panic.  And when Astrid had experienced her own nightmare a few nights ago… the other woman had been there, and holding her along with Hiccup, and singing her the sorts of quiet hearth-songs that Astrid remembered from her own childhood. 

And now…

Unlike Astrid, Wulfhild didn't _have_ to be first.  She just had to do well enough to take pride in her own skills. 

For a brief moment, Astrid felt envious at the other woman's centeredness, but it passed.  She wasn't Wulfhild's copy anymore than Wulfhild was hers.  But they meshed so well with Hiccup it was wonderful. 

Sighing ruefully at herself, she returned Wulfhild's hug, and, on impulse, kissed her brow, as it was at just the right height to plant a kiss on. 

And it wasn't like such gestures of affection between them were that uncommon either, these days.

Wulfhild made a happy noise and pulled herself closer.  Another light touch announced Hiccup joining in on the hug.  "So, shall we head off to the next contest?"

Astrid shook her head.  "Nah, the ax throwing isn't for a bit, and I honestly want to watch the archery contest."  Especially to keep an eye on Mormaer Dagur.  While the father-killing ass was protected under hospitality, Astrid deeply cherished the fantasy of catching him in the act of _something_ that could get him thrown off the island. 

The scoring finished, the diminished field of archers took their spots and nocked their arrows.  Still on the field were Dagur, a trio of Bogs, a few Hooligans… and foreigners.  Eight dozen or so visitors to their home… and they were a tiny fraction of the vastness that had descended on them.

She remembered a year ago, the few hundred that had arrived, and thinking that it was incredible and numerous.  And now…

Astrid closed her eyes and listened as a hundred arrows sang towards their targets.  In the nearby field, a ball game was going on.  Further afield, a rock- and hammer-throw contest was underway—she could hear the thuds of the weights hitting the ground.  From further away, she fancied she could hear the shouting and grunting of the regatta crews as they and their ships raced around the island.  The children's contests were well underway, and she was going to have to see if the Jorgensons had regained their supremacy. 

The world had changed.  Her natal day was in two weeks, and in the time between her fifteenth and seventeenth, her life had changed. 

She considered the two people she had her arms around, and decided that it had unquestionably changed for the better.

###

Arrows hissed through the air as Cami watched the archery contest.  The competition was tight, she had to give them that.  Being honest with herself, she had to admit that she would have been eliminated several rounds earlier.  Wulfhild had already been eliminated, and was standing with Hiccup and Astrid on the sidelines.  Still in the running were mostly Albans and Gwyneddans, including that giant arsehole, Dagur—apparently the clawmark tattoos around his eyes was his clan's way of indicating a master archer—and…

Cami sighed.

Merida.

The vivacious redhead had proven herself an archer of worth already, scoring bullseye after bullseye… and Cami was finding herself falling deeper and deeper into… trouble.  Because her infatuation would be _trouble,_ no question.

It didn't help that she'd spent the last three days finding excuse after excuse to hang around the Albans and… help. 

And she and Merida had become friends, at least, despite Cami tripping over her own tongue and stammering on a regular basis.  How she hadn't come off as creepy or at least overly eager, she had no idea, and part of her was afraid that Merida was annoyed with her and only constrained by her mother's dictates on manners.

Elinor, for her part, impressed and terrified Cami.  There was no question that she was the pillar of control and stability in the Alban contingent, and part of Cami wanted to introduce her to Cami's mother.

The rest of her—the arguably more _sane_ part of her—wanted to keep Bertha and Elinor far, _far_ apart. 

But mostly, she was just… _taken_ with Merida.

And as the other woman advanced to the next round of the archery contest, Cami could only stare, watching her skill, her poise, and the play of her muscles under that dress.  

Oh, she had it _bad._

Through a dozen elimination rounds, she watched, until it was down to Merida versus Dagur…

And while Dagur was an amazing shot, Merida was more capable of the trick shots that the judges finally ruled to be used for the final elimination—mostly out of practicality, as they'd gone so far back that they'd run out of field to add distance to the targets. 

As Merida whooped and cheered, being celebrated by her fellow Albans, Cami, caught up in the moment and infected by the energies of the cheering crowd, grabbed Merida by the shoulders…

And planted her lips firmly on Merida's.

Merida's eyes widened, and as Cami broke the momentary kiss, her stomach plummeted at the look of shock and surprise on Merida's face.

_Oh, Freyja, what have I done?_

Suddenly terrified, Cami turned and took to her heels, not knowing if anyone else had noticed in the intensity of the celebration. 

###

**_Northern Reaches Of The Great Steppes, South Of The Ural Mountains_ **

 

The hunter moved quickly and quietly through the green spring grass of the steppes.  It was still growing to its summer height, and rustled as he stepped through it.  It would give him no cover at this point, but it was important that he cover as much ground as he could during the day.  The dragon was a night flyer, and he hoped to sneak to up on its suspected den, if not ambush it while it was asleep.  It might not be honorable, but dragons were beasts, and deserved no honor.  Only death. 

As he moved, he maintained his focus as best he could.  He was going to slay the beast, and prove his own dominion over it. 

But the idea planted in his head by that accursed messenger… refused to leave.

Dragon-riding.  Feh. 

He knew dragons.  He knew them very well.  They were dangerous, vicious monsters, who would lash out and destroy for the sake of destruction, terrorize for the sake of terror, and he knew that better than most. 

His hand tightened on his spear as he walked, as memories unbidden marched across his inner vision. 

Shaking his head to clear it, his focus long since gone, he cursed the messenger fluently and at length in his native tongue, a language he had not heard in a very long time.

With a scowl, he sat for a moment and had some food from the satchel that hung from his shoulder.  Chewing on the dried meat, he tried to clear his thoughts again, to achieve that inner peace and focus so that he could face the beast in its own den and be the one to walk away.

Focusing on that inner point of peace and stillness within himself, he ate quickly, efficiently and with little attention to the dry flavor; it was for the sustenance, not the taste.  A short while later, he stood and continued on his way, the mountains that were his destination creeping closer from the horizon.

###

**_Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

"Yes!  Go, Astrid!" Hiccup and Wulfhild cheered as Astrid's final ax scored a bullseye into the wooden target.  Hiccup could barely hear his own voice over the cheering of the crowd immediately around them, mostly Hooligans and Bog Burglars.

The judges walked over and inspected the targets as the spectators and competitors looked on.  There was a hush; it was the fourth elimination round for the ax throwing, and Astrid was part of a group of five that had started as a group of eighty—and of the Hooligan tribe and their Bog allies, she was the last one on the field.  And at just about three months pregnant, no less.

Earlier rumblings of bias had inspired Hiccup to bring in non-Hooligan judges, and now there was an intent argument going on around the targets, as the five judges worked to determine who was eliminated and who wasn't. 

As they conferred, a feminine questioning cough from nearby made Hiccup turn.

The Alban girl, Merida, her victory ribbon around her neck and bow in hand, looked at him and Wulf.  "Uh… Lady Wulfhild?"

Wulfhild turned.  "Yes?"

"Do you know where Lady Camilla went?  I… have a question to ask her, but she… disappeared."

Hiccup blinked.  "Uh oh."

"What?" Merida asked, sounding worried.

"Usually when Cami vanishes, that's a warning sign that there's a prank about to happen."  A few incidents from his childhood ran vividly through Hiccup's memories.  He still was not sure where Cami had found that much butter…

Merida exhaled slightly.  "Do you have any suggestions on where I should look for her?"

"I'm not sure," Hiccup said, and then there was a call from the judges… and three of the ax throwers were eliminated… leaving Astrid and a tall Norseman from Orkney.

Merida stood and watched with them as the Orkneyman and Astrid flung their final axes at the targets—and the Orkneyman, his posture irritated and growing more so every time he looked at Astrid, made a mistake. 

One of his axes landed in the third ring of the target.

All of Astrid's blades landed dead center.

The Orkneyman screamed in frustration and swore vilely at Astrid.  Hiccup didn't hear all of the details over the roar of the crowd, but he got the gist, which made him scowl—but jeers from the onlookers made the Orkneyman stomp off the field, and Astrid shrugged and gleefully took the ribbon from the judges. 

Hiccup breathed a sigh of relief; for a moment, he'd been certain that the man was about to attack Astrid. 

Nearby, a number of the fellows who had been eliminated before were making dark comments, but they were in the minority, as most of the onlookers were very impressed.

As Hiccup watched, one of the Eirish visitors from Corcaigh laughed harshly at a comment from one of the men who had lost in the second to last round, and said loudly, "'Special weighted axes'?  How would she have managed that, when you all traded off axes between throws specifically to prevent that kind of cheating?"

More argument broke out at that.  As they bellowed and bantered, Hiccup turned back to Merida.  "I'm sorry, but I have honestly no idea where Cami is.  Maybe check her house for starters?"

Merida nodded resolutely—and then Lady Elinor came over.  "Congratulations on your win, Lady Haddock!" she called, smiling broadly and earnestly at Astrid. 

Astrid grinned.  "Thanks!  But I have to give my mother credit.  She trained me in the basics from the time I could walk."

Elinor seemed to digest that for a moment.  "Isn't your mother… the chieftess of Vedrarfjord now?"

"Yes," Astrid said, grinning at Hiccup, who grinned back.  "But that's his fault."

"Hey!" Hiccup mock-protested as Elinor mouthed the word 'fault' with an incredulous expression.  "They seem pretty happy there!"

"Oh, they are, but they were millers, and now they're dealing with the city!" Astrid said, still grinning.  "You know that feeling when you're on dragon-back and you look down and you realize just how _far_ down it is?"

Hiccup quirked an eye.  "Yeah, it's really, really cool, knowing that you're so high up and flying with a friend."

Wulfhild snorted and said to Astrid, "You're not going to get through to him on that comparison, Astrid.  Not when he's the sort that thinks that strapping wings to his arms and jumping off of Toothless' back is a fun idea."

Elinor and Merida both made noises—the older woman sounded appalled, while Merida sounded intrigued. 

Hiccup grinned and rolled his shoulders in a humorous shrug.  "I do get what you're saying, though.  Some people can't handle the heights and get nauseous."

Astrid nodded and rolled her eyes. "Exactly.  So they're getting used to it, but it was a _bit_ of a change, wouldn't you say?"

Wulfhild _mmhmm'_ ed in agreement, and Hiccup glanced at her. 

"What?"

"Well… you've gone through a bit of a change too," he said cautiously.

"What, from 'princess' to 'concubine'?"  Wulfhild rolled her eyes at him.  "How about, instead, from 'playing piece' to 'happy family member.'"

Hiccup felt his heart beat oddly for a moment, especially as Astrid and Wulfhild exchanged happy grins… but rather than say anything, he instead settled for putting an arm around each of their shoulders. 

Lady Elinor was looking them over, her expression inscrutable, but Merida, standing a bit behind her mother, looked openly envious. 

Astrid, leaning her head against Hiccup's shoulder, looked back to Lady Elinor.  "But, yes, Lady Elinor, my mother trained me to throw an ax, how to dress wounds, put out fires, and skills like that."

Elinor seemed to digest that, and then said a bit stiffly, "I see."

Merida gave a smile that edged, ever so slightly, into being a smirk and asked in a very polite tone as her eyes darted towards her mother, "And how many of those very practical skills are helping with her ruling her city now?"

Astrid shrugged, clearly not offended.  "Most of them, I think.  Plus, she's trained as a scribe from her birth clan, which has come in handy."

"I… see," Elinor said again as she and Merida exchanged pointed looks, but before she could say anything else, there was a sudden scream from the next hill over—by the cattle wrestling contest.

Followed by lots and lots of shouting. 

###

Heather watched in amusement as she worked the eating contest as one of the staff.  The source of her amusement was Fishlegs plowing through plate after plate of roast sausages, surrounded by dozens of other people all doing the same as the tiny candle burned down, all while she and the other cooks kept the food coming for the contest. 

Next to her, Fritjof snorted.  "Lad's got a good appetite, I'll give him that."

She scowled slightly at her bodyguard, her good mood dimmed from his presence and all that went with it, as the eating contest continued.  One of the other contestants, an Eirish man, his eyes weaving and unfocused and his skin flushed, tried to eat another sausage, but gagged and started to heave, and was lead away from the table. 

Heather ignored him, and tried to return to watching Fishlegs, who was cheerfully chewing on another of the small sausages.  Heather had been involved in preparing for this contest all week, and her own cooking contest was soon… but she couldn't bring herself to focus on the here and now.

Her _brother_ was here. 

Her _father-killing_ brother was here.  Protected under hospitality.

And rather than throw him off the island, Stoick had given her a bodyguard instead. 

It had been difficult, but she understood _why_ he'd done that.  But… well…

Part of her was fantasizing about Stoick ordering Dagur thrown off the island, and her complying by having Windshear grab him with her talons… and then dropping him from a few thousand feet up. 

She'd actually told Fishlegs that fantasy that first night, as they'd lain in bed, and while he hadn't quite recoiled, it had clearly been a close thing.  But they'd talked.  And he'd pulled all of her little revenge fantasies out of her head one at a time, like yanking bad teeth, and gotten her to swear that she wouldn't carry out any of them.  And he'd been right to do so. 

Gods, she loved him so much, and wondered what in Hel's name she'd done to deserve him. 

Her parents, meanwhile, were essentially hiding out in their house until the festival was over, insisting that it wasn't a hardship.  They were very uncomfortable with crowds after having been thralls, and after some discussion, she'd relented, angry that Dagur had 'won' by making them hide away from the festival. 

As Fishlegs got started on the next plate of sausages—his fifth—Fritjof commented, "So, after this, I have my dueling competition, and then your cooking competition?"

"Mmhm," she confirmed wordlessly, loading up another plate with five sausages. 

"Excellent.  That gives your lover-boy there a chance to digest a bit."

She snorted, and handed over the next plate.  People were cheering as the contestants went through as many sausages as they could, without the benefit of bread or beer to wash them down, for the length of the small candle's burning, which lasted for the count of six hundred. 

As the candle guttered in the last puddle of wax, Fishlegs holding a respectable second place to a nearly-round Viking raider who was going to be the undisputed winner, the crowd shifted and two men stepped aside. 

And there was her brother, just standing there, cheering on one of his men.

The sight was like a blow to her chest and a shout from Alvin's weapons master to defend herself.

She took in the details in an instant.  Dagur had grown since she'd last seen him, six—almost seven—years earlier.  His hair and beard were still the red she remembered, but they looked like he combed them with his fingers and trimmed them with a knife, and there was a trio of claw-mark tattoos around his left eye, their tribe's mark of a skilled archer.  He was cheering on his herald, a big, beefy and beardless man that she recalled as being named Vorg, who had won a swimming competition earlier. 

Reflexively, she went for one of her knives… only to find the sheath empty.

Her mind was blank in shock for a moment, and then she realized that Fishlegs must have disarmed her earlier.

And apparently, he had been right to do so.

She didn't know which hurt more.  The fact that her lover had taken precautions against her violating her oath to him… or that he'd been right to do so. 

Because she'd already tensed to throw in that moment.

As the last of the candle burned down, the big raider polished off his forty-seventh sausage, while Fishlegs chewed determinedly at his forty-first, and they were given their first and second place ribbons—and a flask of beer apiece to wash it all down. 

Fishlegs stood and gave a deeply satisfied belch, which made Heather smile, even with her current mood. 

And then she heard shouting and screaming coming from off in the near distance. 

She shared a look with her lover and shook her head emphatically. 

This was _not_ her fault. 

* * *

_**AN:** Thank you all for the kind words of support last week, and the early birthday wishes!  You get an early chapter upload this week—it was my first wedding anniversary yesterday, and my wife and I plan on spending the rest of the day being the nerdy couple that we are and playing board games.  _

_Also, with this chapter, even taking my author notes into account, the total posted word count of this story now exceeds 600,000...  and Scrivener's compiled word count for my working document is 750,000 (not counting notes or redacted scenes).  So more is coming!  Thank you all for staying with me this long!_


	58. A Foul Play

**Chapter 58: A Foul Play**

_What is known of Jarl Mildew the Vicious mostly comes from secondary sources—journal entries from the Hooligans, observations from King MacBeth and his court, and others—due to the fact that the man was apparently a recalcitrant loner and hermit.  A multiple divorcee and rumored to have had various unsavory habits, he was generally ostracized by the community by his early adulthood, formally outcast from his birth clan (Hofferson) in AD 976 and forced to take a new name._

_The only reason why he had not been entirely banished from the tribe decades before the end of the Dragon War, according to the general consensus from Hooligan accounts, was that he was one of Berk's most effective and lethal dragon slayers during the last decades of the Dragon War.  According to the records, he was surpassed in dragonslaying only by a handful of his contemporaries, chief among them his younger brother, Rikard clanhead Hofferson.  However, despite his substantial attested kill record, his personality was such that he was relegated to the fringes of the tightly knit tribe, rather than being held up as one of their elites._

_—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396_

**_Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

**_April 4, AD 1042_ **

 

Astrid, followed closely by Hiccup and Wulfhild, quickly made her way to the sounds of the commotion, and she found herself oddly musing on how often she ended up doing this.  Before Hiccup had first upended the world, her job had been leading the children's fire squad, and now she was still running towards shouts and yells.

However, instead of a bucket of water to splash on dragonfire… she had a bucket of authority to toss onto trouble.

Some days, she found herself missing the bucket of water.  It was just so much more _straightforward._  

There was screaming and shouting as she cleared the crest of the hill, and her heart sank. 

Half a dozen men were holding back a large bull from trampling a man in the wrestling paddock—but another knot of agitated men was standing over another form, lying on the ground, thrashing back and forth.

"What's going on!?" she bellowed—and then looked down at the woman on the ground, and her eyes grew wide.  She was gagging and shivering, and a puddle of vomit lay on the ground near her head, and the men around him seemed hesitant to touch her.  And based on the finery of her muddied clothing, she was probably a noblewoman.

She turned as Hiccup ran to the paddock.  "Wulfhild, go get Nanna and Gothi!"

Wulfhild nodded and was on Mistletoe's back in a trice.  A clatter of claws on wood and a blast of wind from her wings brought them airborne from the top of a nearby building in the space of a few seconds.

As Mistletoe climbed for altitude, Hiccup shouted for help getting the half-conscious man out of the paddock, and Astrid yelled for people to start helping the vomiting noblewoman, which was apparently enough to break them free of gawking, as the people in the crowd started helping as she'd directed. 

The woman at her feet was panting, and—she felt at her neck—her heart was racing.  Also, she was clutching her stomach, doubled up as if in pain.

With the bull snorting and bellowing as it was slowly shoved back into its stall, the second man was hauled free, and Hiccup grimaced and swore as the man was laid out on the gravel near the woman.  "Oh, _not_ good."

"What?"

"You don't recognize them?"

Astrid blinked and took a closer look.  "Uh oh."

Hiccup looked up around at the crowd.  "Who here is with them from Mön?" he called.

A groan of pain came from the man from the paddock.  "Hoy… there… Haddock."

"Bran, save your strength," Hiccup admonished the herald of the king of Mön, Bran mac Muchada, who Astrid recognized from the formal presentation the day before.  "You've got at least one broken arm, and it looks like the bull kicked you in the head, judging by that bruise."

"I've… had… worse," Bran said, gasping. 

"Bullshit," Hiccup said tartly.

"No, that's what I'm lying in…"  He coughed.  "Is the princess all right?" Bran asked as the men who had been shoving the bull back into its stall came over. 

Astrid and Hiccup both looked to the woman, and Astrid connected the name to the identity.  Mór nic Echmarcach, only daughter of Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, king of the Isle of Mön to the south, the largest island in the Eirish Sea, one of the senior kings of the Uí Ímair dynasty.

Or, in other words, a poor choice of person to suddenly fall sick and convulsing at their Thawfest.

Around them, in the crowd, people were muttering about curses and witches. 

"What happened?"

Bran snorted painfully.  "I was about to wrestle the bull when I saw that my princess had collapsed.  And then the bull… surprised me in my inattention."

"And we ran into the pen to get it away from Bran," one of the husky men who had been restraining the bull said guiltily.  Astrid looked up at him.  He was a large Eirishman, clearly a bodyguard by his size and dress, and looking like he was at a loss for what to do. 

"You there…" she started.

"Grádaigh, ma'am," he supplied.

"What happened from your point of view?" she asked. 

He blinked and seemed to consider.  "Um… Lord Bran was getting ready to ride the bull, when I heard retching coming from behind me—and then Lord Bran got thrown and almost gored."

"Sounds about right…" Bran mumbled from the ground, and shivered.

Astrid grimaced, and looked over Mór.  There were no obvious wounds on her, but she was panting, and her forehead was feverishly warm and spotted with sweat.  As she lifted her hand from the princess's forehead, she gasped and started to retch again, and she turned her on her side as she spewed out her lunch—which made her own meal likewise agitate for freedom.

A rush of wings announced Wulfhild and Nanna's arrival.

Nanna looked over the scene, her face set and focused.  Without further ceremony, she immediately went to her knees between the two visitors and started examining them.  Bran was first, and after a quick examination, she turned to Hiccup and Wulfhild.  "Get him over to the healers' tents and be careful not to jar that arm.  Lena's got a fair bit of bonesetting work already waiting for her, given the festival ruckus.  He's not in mortal danger, so he can wait in line."

Hiccup nodded and pointed at several of the Mön men.  "You four, help me!"

Bran groaned as they carefully pulled him to his feet.  "What about my princess?  Grádaigh, make sure she's guarded!"

"Aye sir!"

"We'll take good care of her, Bran, don't worry about it," Hiccup soothed, and turned to Astrid.  "Milady, could you handle this?"

She grimaced.  "I'll do my best."

"Then I know it's in good hands," he said, and helped carry Bran off with half of the Mön men. 

Nanna bent over Princess Mór and said, "Ma'am, can you hear me?  Can you understand me?"

She nodded, and retched a bit, her breath heaving.  "My, my gut hurts," she moaned.  "And… and my eyes are burning."

Nana nodded, as if this had meaning to her—she even turned and actually _sniffed_ at the pool of bile.  Then scowled. 

"It was some curse on her, wasn't it!?" one of the onlookers said anxiously.

Nanna looked up and shook her head.  "Poison, I think."

_That_ started more murmurs through the crowd; Astrid saw people making gestures of warding and protection, and more than a few hands clutched at amulets. 

"Can you help her?" Grádaigh asked.

Nanna took a deep breath.  "I will do my best.  Let me get her to my hut.  I'll be able to do more for him there."

Wulfhild spoke up.  "I'll take her there.  It'll be faster."

Grádaigh said, "But—"

"We'll take good care of her," Wulfhild said soothingly.  "She's our guest." 

"Aye, of course, but I need to keep watch on her!" Grádaigh protested.

Wulfhild nodded as she and Nanna loaded up the shivering, shaking princess into a carry-sled that could be lifted by Mistletoe, and looked to Grádaigh.  "Who of your men do you trust?"

Grádaigh blinked.  "All of them!"

With an intent nod, Wulfhild pointed to one of them.  "You there!  Hop on!" she motioned to the back of the saddle.  "And send the rest along to the healer's hut on foot!"

The picked man, with some trepidation, did as he was told, and the dragons took off.

Astrid and Grádaigh watched them go, along with the rest of the princess's men standing at their sides. 

"Now what?" he asked quietly.

Astrid took a deep breath.  "Now?  Your men go to Nanna's hut and guard your princess in case her poisoner tries to finish the job.  And you and I?  We hunt ourselves a hospitality breaker."

###

Wulfhild helped haul the carry-sled—another of Hiccup's creations—into Nanna's hut, grunting with effort.  The princess wasn't a small woman, but the sled had helpful handholds, and while she wasn't tall like most of the Hooligans, archery and dragon-riding had honed her muscles. 

One of the other healer tables was already occupied, with Sorcha mopping the patient's brow as they came in.  "What's this?" she asked.  "And should I send for Tadhg?"

Nanna shook her head at the mention of her and her wife's male concubine—a concept that _still_ boggled Wulfhild's mind, despite Sorcha's round belly under her smock—and said in a flat and businesslike tone, "The ill signs came suddenly.  Vomiting and gut-ache, with burning in the eyes and his heartbeat is irregular.  Her face is flushed, fingers and hands are cold.  Collapsed without warning about…" she glanced at Wulfhild, "a quarter hour ago?"

Wulfhild cocked her head in thought and nodded hesitantly.  "Less than half?"

Sorcha nodded and started to look through the various jars and containers that lined the wall of the healer hut.  "Sounds like poison."

"Or food that went off," Nanna agreed.  "That's what I thought.  Get a purgative ready."  She turned to Wulfhild.  "Princess, you'd best leave.  Aside from how you're not a healer, your morning sickness won't be happy with this."

Wulfhild nodded wordlessly and made a beeline for the door as Sorcha commented dryly, "And mine will be fine?"

Nanna replied wryly behind Wulfhild, "You're past the worst of it.  She isn't."

At the threshold to the hut, Wulfhild paused and asked, "Will he be okay?"

"We'll do our best," Nanna said without looking up from her focus on her patient. 

Sorcha came up with a cup and a bucket, and Wulfhild took _that_ as her cue to leave. 

There was a loud retching noise behind her as the door closed, and she stood outside of the house for a moment, panting from the effort and anxiety of the last few minutes, as Mistletoe came over and nudged at her, concerned.  So did Nanna's Nadder, whose name Wulfhild couldn't recall.  She snorted up against Wulfhild's dress, and then sneezed.

Wulfhild laughed and patted her on the nose-horn.  "You don't like the smell in there, do you?"

The Nadder huffed and shook her head. 

Wulfhild gave her another fond pat.  "All right.  Let me go back and see what's going on."  She turned to Mistletoe, who snorted and murbled with concern. 

They climbed up the side of one of the houses to reach the new takeoff point, and were off. 

She immediately spotted Hiccup and Toothless winging their way through the air and waved.  They diverted course towards her and Mistletoe, and shortly the two dragons were flying alongside each other. 

"Bran's getting worked on, but there's a bit of a line," Hiccup called. 

Wulfhild grimaced.  "How bad?"

Hiccup shrugged, spreading his hands to express a moderate amount.  "Maybe fifty or sixty people there in total?  Broken arms, whacks on the head and the like.  How was it at Nanna's hut?"

"They're thinking poison, and doing what they can to help," Wulfhild said, her voice raised enough to carry the short distance between them.  "I think we need to tell Stoick as soon as we can, especially if there's a poisoner on the loose."

Hiccup nodded.  "Yep!  I'll check by the house and you check by the games?"

"Sounds good!" she said, but before they split apart, there was an angry shout from below, and their eyes met. 

"Do you want it, or should I?" Hiccup asked her.

"Can we handle this together?" she asked.

He nodded and they flew down together, where a confrontation was building. One man was currently surrounded by half a dozen more, of the large and burly variety, their arms reaching forward, while the encircled man was holding a shovel in a defensive manner; they'd backed him into a small dead end in the field of shacks and tents of the market.  Wulfhild was certain they were about to stop an impending beating.

Landing, Hiccup and Toothless abruptly took up the space between the oncoming circle of men and the single impending victim, as Wulfhild and Mistletoe landed behind the attackers in the main thoroughfare of the market, sending several onlookers dodging and yelping.

"What's going on here!?" Hiccup demanded as Toothless gave an angry hiss, and the men froze.

A nobleman standing nearby regained his poise, thrown off by their arrival, and said unctuously, "This man owes me a debt, and I intend to collect it."

Wulfhild spoke up sharply. "You're under Chief Stoick's hospitality here. If he owes you money or something, then tell him to pay up, but keep violence outside our borders."

"Mmmh, yes, but he has every reason to never step outside of your borders again, milady."

"And why is that?" Wulfhild asked sharply.

"Because I was his _daer-fuidiri_ ," a quiet voice came from behind Hiccup and Toothless.

She turned, as did Hiccup.

"What?"

"I was his thrall. I escaped," repeated the man, still holding the shovel, but he was much more relaxed now than before they'd landed.

Hiccup said, in a voice of recognition, "You!  I know you! You're the man from Vedrarfjord! The one that bowed to me!"

"Aye, Milord Hiccup."  The man grinned slightly.  "You have a good memory."

"Well, be that as it may," said the nobleman, "I won't contest his freedman status _now_ , but he owes me for his purchase price, or he's a thief."

Hiccup snorted. "A thief of _himself?_ "

"Just so, Dragon Lord."

Wulfhild could hear his teeth grind as around them, a crowd of onlookers started to gather. "You really expect him to compensate you for managing to _escape_ you?"

The nobleman ignored her and continued to speak to Hiccup.  "His leaving the status of thrall happened on your lands, Dragon Lord. His removal of a thrall from my lands happened on _mine._ "

Hiccup scowled at the oily man. "You're literally claiming… who are you, anyway?"

"I am Tuathel mac Uaithne, _rí ruirí_ of Fear Manach, sept to the _rí ruírech_ of the Uí Néill, and this man was formerly my property. I recognize that you do not see my claim as valid, nor do I wish to attempt to assert it here, but the fact remains that I am unjustly deprived of something of value due to his actions, and I was in no violation of the law when such deprivation occurred."

Hiccup stared angrily at Tuathel. "You're insane."

"No, Dragon Lord, and if you truly believe that, I will have to claim insult against you," Tuathel said levelly, as whispers and comments broke out among the onlookers. "I am in full possession of my faculties. I simply demand justice for a theft of my property against the man who now owns what was formerly mine."

Wulfhild stared at Tuathel, appalled, remembering some of the more vile lords in her uncle's court. 

Then the freedman spoke up.  "I am sorry for 'stealing' from you, milord Tuathel, but, by my reckoning, you should have a replacement for me already. For sure, the babe is your own blood, but gotten on a thrall concubine all the same. Assuming, of course, that you _didn't_ injure her on the ride back."

Wulfhild felt her eyes widen a bit, and Hiccup turned and looked back at the freedman. "Say again?"

"My old owner there has an eye for pretty girls. But unlike you, milord Hiccup, he didn't see a reason why they should _want_ to come to his bed, or why they should have a choice in the matter."

He paused, as if pained, and Tuathel shouted in objection, "I see no reason why this has any bearing on our dealings here!"

Wulfhild, eyes narrowed at Tuathel, simply said, "Oh, it does." Mistletoe made an angry hiss at him and he unconsciously backed up a step, and his retinue retreated from Toothless, who was making a similar angry sound.

Hiccup dismounted and gave an angry glare at Tuathel.  Then, looking back at the freedman, he asked curtly, "You were saying?"

"Well, I escaped with another woman… and she was about a month or so from having her child." He looked down. "But… this lot caught up with us and she… fell.  And I couldn't stop her.  And I was too much of a coward to go to her aid."

One of the men in the retinue muttered to his neighbor, " _Told_ you that we should have checked that hillside."

Hiccup turned and glared at them, while Wulfhild dismounted.  The crowd around them had grown to at least fifty by this point, and she could hear them speculating.

"I don't see how that matters," Tuathel said. "Regardless of what I do with my current property, or what assets I—"

"Assets!? You mean thralls," Hiccup interrupted. "You're demanding that he pay you for his own freedom!"

"That _is_ how it is done, Dragon Lord," Tuathel said, sounding genuinely baffled.

Hiccup scowled and reached over to a saddlebag on Toothless's side. "Fine. You there, what's your name?"

The freedman stammered out, "Fintan mac Ionatan, milord Hiccup."

"Fintan, here."  He tossed a sack of dragon teeth to the man, and then turned to the nobleman. "He'll pay you, and _I'm_ going to witness it, and so will Wulfhild here, and you'll leave him _alone._ Am I clear?"

The noble grinned and Wulfhild narrowed her eyes. Reaching out, she pulled Hiccup aside and pulled his head down to hers, followed by a whisper of, "Hiccup, if you do that, you're setting a precedent! He'll have every reason to go around and tell other people who held thralls that escaped to Berk that you'll pay them for the escapees!"

His eyes widened and he cursed. "Too late. I'm not going back on my word now."

She grimaced. "Well, it's going to cause problems."

"If they try that kind of stunt, I… we'll deal with it when the time comes. But, for now, I'm going to deal with _this_ problem."

She nodded, and then gave him a smile. "You're a good man, Hiccup."

"Is he?" asked Tuathel, clearly having overheard and not caring about the rudeness. "I find it hypocritical that a man who apparently finds such distaste for my own actions has a concubine of his own."

She whirled and scowled at him, her pulse suddenly loud in her ears. "If you think _my_ situation is anything like those of the women you force into bed, then you're grievously mistaken. I _offered_ myself for alliance, and I'm _happy_ here!" she said in a fury.

"So you claim, but I have to ask, then: why do your royal brother and his lords have a wealth of dragons given in exchange for you, if not as part of some agreement?" He gestured at his cheek and hers. "Besides recompense for damaged goods."

She saw red and glared at him. "You, you… you _are_ insane!  Do you think before you open your mouth?  Or do you insult everyone that you meet with that oily voice of yours?"  She gestured to the scar on her cheek, which was still quite visible, despite having lost some of its redness over the winter.  "'Damaged goods'?"

Tuathel rolled his eyes.  "You're a concubine.  What else are you?"

Taking a deep breath, Wulfhild pushed the anger down into her belly and smiled beatifically at him.  "The sister of a king.  Whom you just insulted—and I _claim_ that insult on his behalf.  I know that you consider me little more than 'damaged goods', but my _brother_ doesn't."

Tuathel blinked—and then his disdain seemed to grow, along with his belligerence.  "Oh _please._   I'm sure your brother was quite happy to be rid of you for such a stellar price!  What other lord would be interested?  But playing on the guilt of the man that damaged you?  No, clearly—"

Hiccup, clearly having heard enough, moved forward, his shoulders set in anger—but Mistletoe beat him to the punch, and she leaned in and opened her jaws directly above the Eirishman's head, which made Tuathel fling himself to the side.  A number of the onlookers burst out in laughter at the sight.

As Tuathel picked himself up off the grass, Wulfhild looked at Hiccup.  His jaw was set, his eyes narrowed, and she could see a small muscle jumping in his cheek.  Hiccup leaned forward, and helped haul Tuathel back to his feet—his guards standing back as Mistletoe hissed at them.  Once Tuathel was back on his feet, though, Hiccup didn't release the other man's arm.  Instead, his voice dropping with anger and disdain, he said, "Enjoy the rest of Thawfest, _sir._ Take your payment for a man's life and get off my island once the festival is over.  And know that you'll _never_ be welcome back."  Hiccup leaned back and said in a false-musing tone, the iron-hard anger still detectable underneath, "Besides, I think I need to go have another talk with your king about how things are done in your lands."  He gave Tuathel a hard scowl.  "If I were you, I'd start freeing your thralls now, while you have the chance to do it voluntarily."

"Is that a threat?"

"A promise," Hiccup said, eyebrows knitted together.  "My father and I have no patience for keeping men as _things,_ and I'm _going_ to see it gone from your island if I have anything to say about it.  And I _do._ "

The freedman—Fintan—went to hand over a fistful of dragon teeth to his former owner, but Wulfhild held up a hand.  "Fintan, _stop._ "

He froze, and Wulfhild looked at Tuathel.  "I'll forgive your insult… _if_ you give up claim to his freedom-price, right now, in front of witnesses." Tuathel scowled, and she said sweetly, "Or I can call upon my brother and tell him of your insult, and pay you a visit with a thousand or so berserkers.  Your call."

Tuathel glanced at Hiccup, whose expression was stormy, and nodded.  "Fine.  I accept your terms.  The runaway's freedom price is voided in exchange for forgiveness of my… ill-chosen words."  He looked at his men.  "Let's go."

Hiccup said sharply, "Yes, please.  I want you off my island before sunset."

Tuathel shook his head.  "Bold words from a man who lets his concubine speak for him and tries to pay off a man he has a grievance with—ack!"

Hiccup fluidly drew Inferno and had the point of the blade waving in Tuathel's face.  "Keep talking.  You're not a guest—you're just an outsider who seems to be _determined_ to provoke people.  But want to see something nifty?"  His thumb moved on the sword's hilt, and the blade began to hiss—and then, another motion made it catch on fire. 

Tuathel made a warding gesture as he backed away.  "What witchcraft is this?"

Hiccup smirked.  "Smith-craft.  But you want to know _why_ I tried to pay you off?  Because we'd have to duel otherwise, and," he extinguished and sheathed his blade, "I don't think that would be terribly _fair,_ now, would it?"  He leaned in.  "Get.  Out.  Before I stop playing fair."

Tuathel and his men, eyeing the blade where it sat innocently on Hiccup's hip, left in a hurry.

Once he was out of sight, Hiccup sighed and looked around at the gathered onlookers.  "Yes!?"

Suddenly busy, they dispersed, talking intently among themselves.  Hiccup ran his hands through his hair and then turned to the freedman.  "Are you all right?"

Fintan looked at the two of them with wide eyes and then knelt.  Hiccup, inhaling sharply, walked over and pulled him back to his feet with a great deal more gentleness than he had for Tuathel.  Wulfhild eyed Fintan as he stood next to Hiccup; the Eirishman was shorter than her husband, with a pronounced thrall collar callus around his neck, an unruly shock of red hair, and freckles across his cheeks and nose.  "That's enough of that.  Before, at Vedrarfjord, you called yourself my friend.  My friends don't have to bow to me."

The former _daer-fuidiri_ stared, wide-eyed, and Wulfhild grinned at him. 

Then Toothless snorted and pointed at the sky; Wulfhild and Hiccup both looked to see Stoick flying overhead, and Hiccup sagged.  "Duty calls," he said, moving to Toothless, who bobbed his head.  Turning back to Fintan, Hiccup said, "I don't have time right now… but when the festival is over, come, find me.  I want to know about what he did—and how I can put a stop to it.  Okay?"

Fintan nodded, wide-eyed, and she and Hiccup took back to the skies to let Stoick know that there was a poisoner on the loose. 

###

Grádaigh holding onto her for dear life as they flew overhead, Astrid spotted the distinctive pair she was looking for walking along in the crowd, a third person following closely behind.  Guiding Stormfly with her knees, she landed her dragon near the food stalls and associated eating contest.

Heather, Fishlegs and Fritjof all looked up at her.  "What's going on?" Heather asked.

"Heather, I need to borrow you for a bit," Astrid said curtly.

Blinking, the other woman asked, "What for?"

Astrid slid out of the saddle, while Grádaigh tried to dismount smoothly and fell like a sack of beans on the ground.  As Fishlegs helped him, Astrid walked up to Heather and whispered intently, "I know that I'm asking something uncomfortable, but… we…"  She huffed and pushed out past the stammer, "Somebody just poisoned one of our guests, the princess from Mön… and I need your help in finding the poisoner."

Heather grimaced and nodded.  "You've got me.  Where do we start?"

Astrid turned to Grádaigh, back on his feet with Fishlegs' help.  "Okay.  We've got some help.  Fishlegs, Fritjof, Heather, this is Grádaigh of Mön.  His lady princess was poisoned less than an hour ago.  We're going to find the hospitality breaker and bring them to Stoick for justice."

Fritjof nodded, looking resolute, while Fishlegs looked… a bit hesitant.  Heather stepped forward and said to Grádaigh, "Did he have anything to eat or drink in the last few hours?"

"Aye… ma'am," Grádaigh said, clearly wondering who Heather was.

"Where?  The mead hall?"

Grádaigh shook his head.  "No, the marketplace."

"All right then," Heather said.  "Show us where." 

Astrid shot Heather a grateful look, and they set towards the semi-neat grid of tents; Wulfhild and Fishlegs had literally laid out the market on the hillside with a square and a chalk-line, and she was grateful for it, because it made finding their way much easier.

Unfortunately, Princess Mór nic Echmarcach had apparently bounced all over the market tents in the morning; there were over a hundred market stalls in between the sleeping tents, all spread across the side of the hill where they'd been set up in Wulfhild's semi-even rows.  Some of the tents were enormous, occupying multiple 'lots'.  She vaguely recalled having seen him during their own rounds through the market, a tall woman, midway between her height and Hiccup's, with long black hair and a pale complexion. 

And now she was possibly dying in Nanna's hut. 

Several of the merchants were looking at her expectantly now, and more were coming out with offers as they had a few hours earlier. 

"Citrons from the Levant!  Limes from Italia, grapes from Francia?"

"Gems and jewels to enhance your radiant beauty, milady!"

"Figs, dates and pistachios!  Foods from faraway lands!"

She turned to Grádaigh, ignoring the merchants.  "Okay, what did you all do when you were here?"

He frowned and twitched his lips.  "Lots.  And I'm trying to remember it all.  This one market has more people in it than all of my city, and I'm a little turned around."

She nodded in sympathy.

Heather spoke up.  "Well, you said that all of the food was checked?"

"Aye.  I made sure to check that the drink was poured from a common pitcher and that the food was served from a common pot."

Heather grimaced.  "Did… did you check to see if the cups and bowls were clean?"

Grádaigh suddenly paused and turned to her and said, in a tone of deadly fear, "Nay.  I didn't."

Heather closed her eyes, which made Astrid worry, and then opened them again.  "Okay.  Where did your lord have anything to eat or drink?"

"A few places here and there in the market…"

"Show me."

They started making their way through the stalls at speed, setting up a simple pattern, with Grádaigh pointing out the locations, and Heather and Fishlegs going in to investigate. 

At the fifth stall—where she, Hiccup and Wulfhild had been offered Eirish ale this morning—Heather, Fishlegs and Fritjof slipped into the line, as they'd been doing to check each of the potential locations.  While they waited, she chatted aimlessly with Grádaigh about Eire and the lands surrounding, including his adopted homeland of Mön. 

"…and supposedly, according to legend, the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill made the isle from a piece of Eire that he was going to throw at Alba and missed—"

A shout from the tent interrupted him, and he and Astrid looked at each other and, as one, they darted forward.  

The tent collapsed as they reached it, and she tried to dart to the side, but she couldn't get out of the way before the stretched leather and furs collapsed on her, knocking her to the churned dirt of the ground.  She tried to scramble free from the entangling folds as a hand suddenly grabbed her and painfully hauled her upright.  Thanks to the dirt in her eyes, she couldn't tell if it was friend or foe until her feet were back under her.

And then there was a knife at her throat.

Well. 

Foe then.

She blinked away the dirt as best she could to see a crowd around her and her assailant.  Heather was crouched in a fighter's stance nearby, a knife in one hand, while Fishlegs was holding a small folding table like an awkward round shield, his tunic soaked in beer, an upended barrel having poured out its contents nearby.  Grádaigh and Fritjof were glancing at each other, obviously preparing to coordinate a flank.

The man holding her bellowed right in her ear, "Stand back!  I'll kill her!  I want out!"

She scowled and tensed to attack him with a stomp on his foot and a shot to his groin, but paused as she smelled something out of place.  A scent like some kind of exotic flowers, from right nearby, strong enough to overpower the scent of muddy beer and sweat. 

Flowers.

Her eyes went wide as she realized what it was.

The knife was poisoned.

_Shit, shit, shit…_

A second thought occurred, ending the mental profanity.  It wasn't just _her_ life at risk here—her baby's was, too.  And it would probably be even more vulnerable if she got scratched with a poisoned blade…

Swallowing hard after the instant of furious, almost panicked thought, she spoke up in her most level tone that she could manage, "You just made a big mistake, mister.  Put the knife down and I promise that you'll be allowed to explain yourself.  But this is a limited-time offer."

"Shut up!"

"Why did you poison the princess?" she asked flatly. 

"Shut up!  I'll cut you!  I will!"

"And then you'll be down one hostage, and it's a question of which of my friends get you first.  Oh, hey there, Stormfly."  She gave a little hand signal to her friend as she felt the man behind her tense at the sight of the angry dragon.  In a tone that was significantly more calm than she felt, she said, "Put down the knife, and I guarantee your life."

"I want an escort to my ship, and free passage off of the island!"

"Arm's going to get awfully tired holding that knife that whole time," Astrid observed flatly.  There was a bit in the back of her mind that was screaming louder and louder to attack him and damn the consequences, but she ruthlessly tamped down on it with all of the discipline she could bring to bear.  That knife was not just her potential death, it was the death of her child if she got scratched with it. 

"I'll… I want out!  I just did what I was told to!"

"By who?" Astrid said, shifting her weight very, very carefully.  The knife was right up against her collarbone, and she could feel it dimpling her skin.  Thankfully it wasn't too sharp, or she would have been cut already.

Stormfly was watching her closely, and she made another hand signal, as Fishlegs started to drift to the side.  She couldn't see where Fritjof had gone, and Grádaigh was standing straight ahead, tensed to attack with a blade.

"Hold it!  Nobody move!  I'll cut her, I will!"

"You kill me, and you'll be dead ten breaths later," Astrid said in an irritated voice.  "I'm the only thing keeping you alive right now."

Heather spoke up.  "Who told you to do it?  Tell us, and you'll go free."

""You shut up!   Just _shut_ up!" he snapped, and unthinkingly gestured with the knife.

As soon as she felt it leave her skin, Astrid went limp and twisted out of his grip, the knife a brief hard line against her shoulder as she spun her way free of his poor hold.

Hitting the ground, she heard Stormfly screech and there was a blast of heat and a scream above her.

After that, it was all over but for the cleanup, as the smell of dragonfire-charred person made her double over and vomit.

###

Hiccup, Wulfhild and Stoick landed hard in the middle of the disturbed marketplace, and the crowd moved back to give them space as their dragons hissed at the crowd, their body language protective.

Hiccup dismounted without pause and ran over to where Astrid was being examined by Nanna, who had arrived ahead of them.  To Hiccup's heart-hammering fear, a white scratch was visible above Astrid's shirt, on her collarbone.  Before he could even say anything, though, Nanna said, "She's fine.  A light scratch, but it didn't break the skin."

"She'll be okay?" Hiccup asked as Wulfhild asked, "The babe will be okay?"

Nanna nodded.  "Aye.  The poison would have to enter her blood, and that didn't happen."

Hiccup breathed out a sigh of relief, and Wulfhild pulled Astrid into a protective hug as Nanna dabbed the wound with something that smelled like honey and put a small bandage on it.  Astrid sighed as she glanced down at it and shared a look with Hiccup; the small wound crossed over the scar from the attack in Nidaros, and Hiccup remembered just how painful it had been to heal from that. 

As Nanna packed up and left to return to treating the poisoned princess, Astrid described what had happened.  As she described the knife at her throat, Hiccup could hear the brittleness in her voice and wondered when it would crack.  Astrid _hated_ feeling helpless.  But before he could ask, nearby, in the remains of the tent, Heather crowed, holding up a glass jar with a large flower inscribed on it.  "Found it!"

"What's that?" Hiccup asked, turning to look.

"I'd wager it's the poison he used," Heather said. 

At that, the assembled crowd burst out into more murmurs and discussions.  Nearby, Fritjof and the Mön man were strapping a badly burned body into a carry-sled—the remains of the poisoner, apparently.  Stormfly was standing nearby, looking at the corpse with a poisonous glare. 

Hiccup remembered almost taking a tankard from the man only a few hours earlier in the morning…

He swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. 

Stoick stepped forward and spoke to the crowd.  "All right!  Someone broke hospitality!  He's been dealt with!  We'll be looking into this, rest assured!  Go and have a good Thawfest!"

A few people separated from the crowd, while others were still craning in to look.  Hiccup shared a look with his father.  "Dad, let's head over to Nanna's hut so you can see how your guest is holding up?"  He turned to Bran's Eirishman bodyguard.  "And as for you, what do you think?"

All eyes turned to the man, and he looked a bit hesitant but nodded.  "Aye.  We went into that tent this morn', and were given tankards of strong ale.  And less than an hour later, my princess was tossing her guts up.  And then…" he nodded towards the jar, still in Heather's hands, "well, _that_ don't belong in an ale-tent!"

That set the crowd to murmuring in speculation and agreement, and Stoick turned to Hiccup.  "I'll meet you there.  But we need to talk on this."

Hiccup nodded, and turned to Heather and Fishlegs.  And frowned.  "Where are your dragons?"

"Meatlug stayed home to keep Windshear company, because she doesn't like crowds," Fishlegs said, and then quirked an eyebrow.  "Hey!"

"What?"

"I can read that!" Fishlegs said, pointing at the jar where it sat in the crook of Heather's arm.

Hiccup blinked.  "Wait, you can?" 

"Yeah, look, it's in the Al-Andalusian tongue!"  He leaned in and squinted—his face almost level with Heather's chest—and then she wordlessly handed him the jar.  He took it with a nod and a furrowed brow and examined the delicately etched lines in the glass.  " _Refined Essence of… Ta'fila._ No idea what that is.  Um… _Refined by… Basir Abu-Fadl al-Lixbuna, Shawwal Four-thirty-two,"_ he read out slowly and haltingly.  "I think that last one is a date."

"…I don't know what that is either," Hiccup said. 

Fishlegs shook his head.  "It sounds familiar, but I'd want to check the books."

Hiccup nodded.  "Meet us at Nanna's hut?"  He glanced at the crowd, where people were not even trying to hide the fact that they were listening in. 

Fishlegs nodded, handed the jar off to Hiccup, and he, Heather and Fritjof pushed their way out of the crowd. 

Stoick was about to get on Thornado when one man suddenly burst out, "Dragon Chief Stoick!  My tent and wares were damaged in apprehending this hospitality breaker!  Can I ask for recompense?"

Stoick paused, and Hiccup got a full-on look of the expression on his father's face of tested patience, followed by exasperation and then a wry resignation, all in rapid succession before he turned and said to the man, "Aye.  Show me what was damaged."  He glanced to Hiccup.  "Off you go.  I'll meet you there."

Hiccup nodded, and he and both Astrid and Wulfhild were airborne a few moments later, Stormfly hauling the carry-sled with the poisoner's remains in it, the Mön bodyguard riding double with Astrid. 

It was a brief flight, and Hiccup kept giving worried glances at Astrid.  Stormfly had come and gotten them, and she was right now giving both Hiccup and Wulfhild a stink-eye, as if asking _where were you?_

They landed, and entered the hut.  Toothless took one sniff at the threshold, moaned, and smartly turned around to wait outside, along with the handful of Mön men standing watch.  Stormfly, on the other hand, snorted and forcefully stepped inside to follow Astrid, although, judging by the way her nostrils were flaring, she wasn't any happier about the smell. 

Hiccup gratefully handed the jar of poison off to Nanna; the stuff gave him the creeps, even knowing it was in a jar, and that he routinely handled dangerous stuff.  Just… urgh.  _Poison._   It made him shudder… especially remembering how he had almost drunk some it a few hours earlier.  If not for Astrid and Wulfhild's morning sickness, he'd likely be in there with Mór nic Echmarcach, puking her guts out and trying not to die. 

The Mön man immediately walked up to Nanna, who set the jar down on a table to talk about the princess.  They quickly vanished into the curtained-off back half of the building, and Hiccup, Astrid and Wulfhild gingerly sat down together in one of the Stoick-sized chairs in the room, Hiccup and Wulfhild holding onto Astrid protectively.  His dad would be here soon, and they just needed to wait. 

Staring at the jar, Hiccup wished that Nanna hadn't left it.  Astrid couldn't take her eyes off of it, and he considered kissing her to distract her from it.  But instead, he found himself examining the jar as well; it wasn't much; a medium-sized brown glass jar, about the size of his doubled fists, with a soft cork lid held shut by wire, half-filled with a yellowish oily liquid that sloshed in a way that made him think it was thicker than water…

And then Astrid gave a little gasp in his arms.

"Astrid?  What is it?" he asked.

"Hiccup?"

"Yeah?"

"I _recognize_ that jar."

"What?  How?" Wulfhild asked, her arms tightening around Astrid worriedly. 

"The night of the battle… remember how we were scouring the whole island for materials for the firecocks?"

Hiccup nodded, and felt Wulfhild do the same. 

"I went to Mildew's hut.  Near as I can figure, I was the last person in the village to see him.  Well, not that I really saw him.  Pounded on the door, asked him for help.  Was just about to leave when he opened the door for an instant and practically _shoved_ a sack of a dozen glass jars into my hands—glass jars that looked _exactly_ like that one, down to the _carved flower."_

Hiccup blinked. 

Astrid shrugged.  "I… I didn't think to ask anything else.  I just thanked Odin, hopped on Stormfly, and flew off back to the crafting station with the sack."

Hiccup just squeezed her tighter, and she mumbled into his shoulder, "Where did you _go,_ old man?  And why did you give away your poisons when you got there?"

"I don't know, but I think we need to find out," Hiccup said. 

Then Astrid suddenly shuddered in his arms and started crying a bit.

Hiccup rocked her back and forth as the realization that she'd almost died—and been so helpless—hit her.  Wulfhild started singing softly to her, and they cuddled like that for a moment, as the fear—not just for herself, but for their child—that she'd deferred took its toll.  And, Hiccup was willing to bet, the pregnancy mood swings that he'd heard about weren't helping either… not that he'd dare say such a thing.  As Astrid shook and sniffled against him, Hiccup saw Stoick peek his head in and see them for a moment.  His eyes narrowed and then he nodded to Hiccup.  Hiccup responded with another nod, and his father pulled his head back out.

###

Stoick was waiting by the door to Nanna's hut as Heather, Fishlegs and Fritjof walked up.  A few of Grádaigh's fellow guards were standing out in front, talking with Stoick animatedly, but then he spotted them and held up a hand to the man he was talking to, and, after a quick apology to him, stepped over to the three of them. 

"Sir?" Heather asked as he motioned them aside into the small alleyway between the two huts. 

He exhaled sharply through his nose.  "Lass.  Right now, my daughter-in-law is in there shaking in both Hiccup and Wulfhild's arms because a poisoner had a knife to her throat."  His eyes narrowed.  "I don't want the next time to end with me holding my son or grandchild as we light the funeral pyre."

Heather winced and nodded.  "You and me both, sir."

"Good."  He looked her over and hesitated for a moment.  But only a moment.  "But… I have _no one_ that I trust implicitly to be my spymaster _and_ who has the skills for it."  His eyes looked straight into hers as hers widened as she realized what he was leading up to.  "No one… except _you."_

" _Me!?"_ she squeaked.  "Sir, you, you, you can't be _serious!_  I was a spy, half of the tribe still hates my guts for it, I almost betrayed you, I, I, I…" she stammered to a halt as Stoick held up a hand. 

"Heather.  I _trust_ you.  And I won't demand you to do it.  But I think that you're wasted chopping onions in the kitchen… and…" he hesitated and said, "I think that it would be the grandest gesture, whether like this," he spread his arms in the same manner that Hiccup did, "or like this," and he made an obscene gesture, "to take the training that monster gave you and turn it to protect the very people he sent you after."

Heather blinked, and Stoick reached out and gently patted her on the shoulder.  "Think on it."

He walked past her, and she just stood there, stunned.  It took the sound of the door opening and closing and the weight of Fishlegs' hand on her shoulder to break her out of it. 

Shaking her head and calming her pounding heart—what was he _thinking,_ offering her a position like that!?—she numbly followed Fishlegs and Fritjof into the healer's hut.

###

Astrid looked up from Hiccup and Wulfhild's joint embrace as Stoick entered the hut, followed a few moments later by Heather, Fishlegs and Fritjof.   She'd managed to get past the worst of it, although she was sure that knife and that smell of flowers was going to feature in her nightmares later on.  She hadn't felt so helpless since she'd seen the fleet set their sails in pursuit… and even then, it had been more a looming doom, instead of _a knife to her throat._  

She took another deep breath.  She'd kept control… and her thoughts pointed out that she _hadn't_ been helpless.  He'd had a knife, but she'd had her friends, her dragon, all of Berk… and ultimately, she'd taken her opening to pull herself free.  

Clenching her hands, she shoved the thought of helplessness away and looked up to Stoick.  "So who was he?"

Stoick scowled.  "According to those that arrived with him, he _was_ Aindriú mac Domnall, _cerd aire_ of the Uí Néill.  I've already sent others to find his lord's envoy and have him brought here, along with Bran."

"How is Bran?" Hiccup asked.

"Banged up and with his arm broken in two places, apparently," Stoick said flatly.  "But he should be fine, once he's had a chance to heal up a bit."  He looked at Astrid.  "I know that you're not injured… but… lass, are you all right?"

Astrid inhaled sharply through her nose, set her face firmly and nodded.  "Yes.  I'm just…  if it had just been _me,_ I would have taken my chances."  She glanced down at her belly.  "But it's not just me.  And that… that made me freeze."

Stoick closed his eyes slowly and nodded.  "Aye.  Thought as much."

Hiccup tightened his arms around her—and there was a pounding at the door.

Heather turned and opened it, and yelped as the door burst open and her brother bounded into the room.

Astrid's eyes went wide as Mormaer Dagur clan Murchadh came in with a yell of "Chief Stoick!"

Stoick didn't hesitate, and within a moment, Dagur was pinned against the wall, Stoick's hand against his throat.  Heather was backing away like he was a snake ready to strike, her eyes wide and chest heaving with panic.

"What are you doing here!?" Stoick demanded.

"Ack!" Dagur gasped and grabbed at Stoick's wrist.  "Came… to… offer… help…"

Stoick scowled and dropped him.

Dagur fell to his knees and gasped in a full breath of air as two of his men appeared at the door.  Dagur ignored them, and said to Stoick cheerfully, "I like you!  That was impressive!  Don't try it again if you want to keep that hand!"

Astrid glared at him—along with everyone else.  Stoick crossed his arms and gave Dagur a narrow-eyed look.  "What are you here for, Mormaer Murchadh?"

"I came to offer my help!  You had a hospitality breaker—and one with poison, no less!"  His mouth sprouted a toothy grin.  "So I want to offer my alliance and my men for when you declare war on the offender's homeland!  We'll burn their villages, sack their fortresses and put their heads on pikes!"  His smile turned into a leer.  "Because that's what you _get_ when you break hospitality!"

There was a strangled noise coming from near Astrid, and after a moment, she realized that Hiccup was practically vibrating.  He made a noise of rage and disgust as she turned to him, and said, "What kind of a monster are you?"

Dagur cocked his head, looking honestly confused.  "Uh… is this a trick question?  Because I'm pretty sure I'm a man, not a draugr or a bogle or something…"  He reached into his belt and pulled out a knife, and casually flipped it around in his hand to offer the hilt to Hiccup.  "Want to check if I bleed red?"

Astrid was staring at the knife, which Dagur was holding by the blade without a concern, when there was suddenly the sound of a sword being drawn and Fritjof had the edge of his blade by Dagur's throat a heartbeat later.  "Put the blade away, or things get messy."

"Wha…?" Dagur eyed the blade as if surprised to find it there, but he didn't look scared.  At the door, his men did, though, and they drew _their_ weapons.

"Fritjof!" Stoick exclaimed as Astrid and both Hiccup and Wulfhild made wordless shouts of their own. 

"Sorry, sir, but," Fritjof looked at Dagur with a scowl, "you don't draw a weapon in the presence of my chief or his heir, _got it?"_

Dagur nodded, and grinned.  "I like him!"  With an equally casual flourish, he flipped the blade around in his hand again and sheathed it with a smooth motion.  Then he nonchalantly reached up and pushed the sword away from his neck to look at Fritjof.  "Very nice.  That was your free chance, by the way.  You try that again, and I'll shove that sword up your ass."

Fritjof snorted.  "You're welcome to try," he said, and sheathed his blade.  At the door, Dagur's two men eyed the room, but sheathed their blades as well at a motion from Dagur. 

Dagur turned to look at Hiccup with a smirk.  "But what kind of monster am I?  Why?  I mean, you're the man who tames monsters and shows them who is their master, aren't you?  Are you thinking of taming me?"

Astrid glared at him.  "That's not how it works!"

"They're our friends, not our thralls!" Wulfhild added angrily.

Dagur scoffed, but before he said anything else, Hiccup said, "Dragons don't kill for the fun of it.  They raided us because the choice was being eaten by their nest lord."

"That was the giant dragon I heard about, yeah?" Dagur asked.

"Aye," Stoick said tartly, "and as for your offer of alliance, Mormaer Murchadh, I will have to decline.  I have _no_ intention of punishing an entire kingdom for the actions of a single man.  If it was ordered by their king, I would address my grievances with _him,_ not his people."

"But if you do that, then how will you get a proper reputation?" Dagur asked in a reasonable tone, making Astrid's eyes narrow. 

Stoick's reply was as dry as a room full of salt.  "I don't know.  Why don't you go ask the English and Danes?"

"But that's what I'm saying!" Dagur said energetically.  "You did that, and now everyone's scared of you!  It's glorious!  And I want to help you teach a lesson to the hospitality breakers!  So that way they know that it's not just ships, but poisoners too!"

Astrid pulled herself free of Hiccup's arms and stood to look Dagur in the eye.  "And do _what?"_

"Teach them a lesson!"

"Hard to teach someone a lesson when they're dead," Wulfhild said dryly, getting out of the chair and helping Hiccup do the same.  "Lessons are for the living."

"Exactly," Stoick said, and bent slightly to look Dagur pointedly in the eye.  "And that is not the sort of lesson I will give, much less with a father-killer at my side."

Dagur's face twisted and he reached for his knife, pausing at only the last moment.  He sneered.  "I see.  You sound like my father did.  All _peace_ and _mercy._ " 

"That sounds like a threat," Fritjof commented dryly.  "You having killed your father and all."

Dagur scoffed and turned to leave.  "I can tell that I'm not wanted."

"Took you long enough," Hiccup muttered.

Dagur glanced back over his shoulder.  "So, oh great and _brave_ Dragon Tamer, you agree with your frightened old man here?  Or are you willing to stand together with a brother-in-arms… _brother?_ "

Hiccup scoffed.  "Yeah, no, the only way that you'd be _my_ brother is through adoption, and Dad has enough crazy from _me_ to deal with."

"Ain't that the truth," Stoick deadpanned as, behind him, Astrid saw Heather's face twisting into a rictus of pain.

Astrid barked a laugh to draw attention as Hiccup shot his father a betrayed look, and Wulfhild snorted.

Dagur sneered.  "You're all so weak.  You could have conquered the whole of the Isles by now, and you're just sitting on your hands and letting poisoners in to make you look like fools."  He stepped over to the door and said, "Weak fools."  As he turned to leave, he paused and looked at Heather.

Astrid tensed, reaching towards the knife at her belt.

"Do I know you?" Dagur asked curiously as Heather stood there, frozen, her eyes wide in terror.  "You look familiar.  I think I once killed someone who looked a little bit like you."  He cocked his head from side to side and then shrugged.  "Ah, well.  I've got contests to win."  And with that, he left and half-slammed the door behind him. 

Heather sagged and almost fell away from the wall, supported only by Fishlegs. 

Before anyone could say anything, the door opened again, and Bran and the envoy from the Uí Néill were escorted inside by Spitelout.

The envoy looked terrified—probably having visions of them doing exactly what Dagur had suggested—while Bran grudgingly allowed that they'd taken proper care of his princess and treated her as a guest should.  Behind them, Astrid watched Heather pull herself together, and ached to go comfort her… but that would raise dangerous questions.  And Fishlegs seemed to have her in hand.

The discussion of what had just happened continued.  Shortly, Heather, Fishlegs and Fritjof, along with Grádaigh, were all called upon to give their their testimony.  Once they were done, Bran agreed that they'd found the right man, which allowed Heather and Fishlegs, plus Fritjof, to be dismissed. 

But when it came time for recompense, they hit a deadlock.

"…and my princess was poisoned!" Bran insisted for the fourth time.  "We demand recompense from the Uí Néill for the assault on her person!"

As the envoy protested, Astrid felt Wulfhild suddenly stiffen next to her. 

"What?"

"I have an idea," Wulf said, and leaned over to Hiccup.  The two of them conferred quietly for a moment, and then Hiccup nodded appreciatively.

"Excuse me, Bran, but I think we might have a solution for this problem," Hiccup interrupted, grinning.

"Oh?  And what's that?" Bran asked, and Stoick gave them an odd look. 

"Earlier, Wulfhild and I had a little… talk with the _rí ruirí_ of Fear Manach, Tuathel mac Uaithne.  And he still has his thralls."  Hiccup looked at the envoy.  "He's sept to your king, isn't he?"

The envoy nodded. 

"Then here's my… _our_ suggestion," Hiccup said, taking Wulfhild's hand, and Astrid beamed with pride at her partners, thinking that she saw the direction this was going in.  "Bran, we compensate you from our coffers, and you give us the full claim to this insult."

Bran cocked his head.  "I'm listening."

Hiccup turned to the envoy.  "Meanwhile, I know that in your king's _tuatha,_ he's in the process of banning the _daer-fuidiri._   But does that apply to Fear Manach's tuatha?"

The envoy hesitated.  "I don't know… but I don't believe so."

Hiccup's smile grew an edge.  Astrid felt a similar grin grow, and she saw an identical look grow on Wulfhild's face.  "Then, for this insult of one of yours breaking our hospitality, _and_ for the injury to another of our guests, I suggest that when you return home… you tell your king that the _daer-fuidiri_ of Fear Manach are to be free as soon as possible… and I and a few others will handle the delivery of the writ to Tuathel mac Uaithne _personally."_

The envoy blinked and nodded.  "And you would call it quits?"

Hiccup nodded, and Astrid watched as a broad grin grew on Stoick's face.  "I like it," her father-in-law said.  "Bran, what say you?"

Bran scowled but nodded.  "In the broad strokes, yes.  But the geld for a princess is no small sum."

Stoick nodded.  "But we can afford it.  Let's talk." 

Outside, there was a horn blast, announcing the next round of games.  Astrid shared a look with Hiccup and Wulfhild—and Stoick waved them towards the door.  "Go.  I'll handle it from here."

Astrid nodded, feeling steadier than she had when she'd entered a little while ago.  Calling over Stormfly, she thought about what was next on their agenda—the dragon contests.

And they still had those to win. 

###

Cami was sitting at the cliff's edge behind her hut, watching the sun set as Skuggi nuzzled up next to her.  As she scratched around his whisker-horns, making him purr, she toyed with the ribbon she'd won earlier for her own climbing contest.  Even… _distracted_ , she'd climbed up the sheer cliff-face for an easy win, familiarity giving her an unfair advantage.  And she'd had a strong incentive to climb as quickly as possible, with a certain redhead also in the contest, who had come in fourth place—and who Cami had fled from as quickly as possible after being awarded her victory ribbon and prize money. 

She kicked her heels against the dirt and stone of the cliff-face.  Gah!  How had she been so _stupid?_   She'd seen the look on Merida's face during the climbing contest, all questioning, with a scowl each time Cami had run for it, claiming other commitments in public.  That sort of rejection was not something she was looking forward to.  It had happened before, and it hurt every time.  She liked to play herself up as being a hardass, and maybe she was on some level, but it never got easier to reach out to another woman and get slapped down for it.  As unacceptable, as undesirable, as unwanted. 

She flung a stone out across the water and watched it fall until the mists swallowed it. 

It was for the best, really.  In another week or less, they'd both be on their ways home, and she'd never see the other woman again.  Better to have it end with that look of shock and surprise on Mer… on _her_ face than to deal with the actual rejection. 

And if she kept telling herself that, maybe she might even start believing it.

Dragons whooshed through the air below her.  She got a brief glimpse of Hiccup and Toothless, both of them bellowing in victory, and a small smile grew on her lips.  At least her friends had won the racing contest; it had been an impressive race, with over a hundred riders and dragons winging their way around the island.  She'd caught a good portion of it from her vantage on the cliff.  As they vanished into the mists as well, she threw a salute off in their direction… and tried not to feel jealous of her friends.  As Heather had commented in the baths the other week, the three other women were all getting laid regularly, and with someone that they loved. 

Meanwhile, the last time Cami had gotten that itch scratched, it had been with that sailor down south, back in the middle of the summer.  He'd been cute… but then his shipmates had wanted 'their turns', and if not for her tribewomen intervening it would have gone _very_ badly. 

She sighed.  The sun was a fingerwidth above the horizon, and with the conclusion of the day, she'd officially have seen her eighteenth winter pass. 

She heard footsteps behind her.

"Not now, Gulla," she said, sighing.  She'd set the other woman as her guard so she could mope in private. 

The footsteps continued to approach, and she turned with a scowl.  "I said… oh."

Merida, her bow slung across her back, wordlessly stepped over to the cliff's edge.

For a brief moment, Cami considered the benefits of hopping the rest of the way off the cliff.  Skuggi would catch her again, wouldn't he?   He'd have plenty of time—the water was hundreds of feet below and all that.

Yet she couldn't actually bring herself to do it, instead staring at Merida. 

Maybe she'd push her, out of disgust?  Well, that would be a rather definitive answer…

But rather than do that, Merida unslung her bow and sat down next to her, her skirted legs dangling over the side of the cliff, her bow set off to the side.

"I wanted to thank you before," she said quietly. 

"For…?"

"Telling me Mum that I could compete."  Cami watched her toy with the ribbon around her neck, and give a small grin.  "I got enough from that victory pot that… well… as Mum said, it was practically a dowry."

Cami sighed at length, remembering hearing earlier about the marriage arrangements for Merida. 

"Aye.  Like that, but with bells on it."

Cami snorted and they fell into an uneasy silence.  Her heart was pounding.  Would they be leaving her kiss before as something mutually unspoken of?  Would she at least be able to keep the tenuous friendship they'd built?

As the sun touched the horizon, Merida spoke up.  "Why?"

Cami gave a small strangled groan.  "Why… what?" she deflected.

Merida gave her a sidelong look.  "Don't play the fool.  I know you're smarter than that.  But fine."  She took a deep breath and asked flatly, "Why'd you kiss me?"

Cami said nothing, her heart pounding in her throat.

Merida continued.  "Aye, I've heard about your tribe.  How the Bogs are thieves and warriors, and all women, and they don't have to get married, and half of them are runaway brides from across the Isles, and because there's no men… you all make do with each other."

Cami looked down.  The sea mists looked so soft…

Merida scoffed.  "But you told me that your father is part of the tribe.  So I don't know what's true and what's not.  But if a _boy_ kissed me like that…" she swallowed audibly, "my father would have to ask about his intentions."  She reached over, put a hand on Cami's shoulder and turned her to face her.  "So what are _your_ intentions?  You've been hanging around with me and mine for days.  I thought that you were just being friendly… but…"

Cami looked, really _looked,_ at Merida, and despite her fear, didn't see condemnation or disgust.  Just worry and curiosity. 

Taking her heart into her hands, she held it out.  "I… I was bein' friendly.  But… aye.  You're half-right."  She hung her head.  "My intentions were… not purely honorable.  I was trying to be friendly… and then you went and pulled off that hood and…"

Merida blinked and shook her head, sending her hair in a wave.  "Wait, what?"

Cami groaned.  "I saw your hair and got… what's the word, _infatuated_.  And I've been fightin' it for _days!_   But I tried to be friendly and a guide and everythin', and then I find that you're skilled, and smart, and strong and why would someone like you be interested in me and I was all ready to just suffer in silence until it passed and—"

Strong arms were suddenly tight around her and she leaned into Merida's hug.

"You think I'm too _good_ for you?" Merida asked, sounding surprised. 

"Um, yes?  Daughter of a mormaer, possible future queen of Alba, skilled archer and half a dozen other things I could mention?  Even if you were interested…" she swallowed hard to try to get the lump in her throat down, "your Da would declare war on my little tribe in a heartbeat for the insult.  And we're tiny."

Merida pulled back a little and looked Cami over.  Cami's heart was pounding like she'd just run a race.

Then Merida glanced over at Skuggi, and then back to Cami, gave her a sardonic quirk of the eyebrow and said, "Tiny, maybe.  But you've got big friends."  She waved as if to indicate Berk. 

Cami gave a small snort. 

Merida rolled her eyes.  "You really have no idea how this place is seen right now, do you?  It's half like something out of the nursery tales, like the old kingdom with the four sons under the old king, a land of peace and plenty… but the other half is a bogle-tale, except instead of frightening little kids, it frightens _kings._ "

Cami blinked in surprise.  "But Stoick wouldn't, I mean he's not…"

Merida gave her a sardonic look.  "Aye.  And _you_ know that.  But who else does?"  She shifted a little bit closer.  "But that's besides the point." 

Despite herself, Cami asked, her throat a bit tight, "And what is the point?"

"I never said I wasn't interested."

Cami felt her jaw drop.

Merida looked at her a bit shyly.  "I mean… I hadn't given it any thought until a few hours ago.  But what I have thought…"  She gave a hesitant little laugh, full of anxiety, and flushed, visible even in the dying light of the sun.  "I mean that I'd like to be friends at least.  And maybe… maybe if I get a choice…"  She reached over and took Cami's hand. 

Cami stared, her heart suddenly feeling like it was soaring without Skuggi's help.  Calming herself with a deep breath, she grinned at Merida.  "So… um… what now?"

Merida grinned back.  "Tell me about the Bogs.  Tell me about this tribe of shieldmaids and women sneak-thieves.  Tell me how it is growing up knowing that you have more to be than just someone to get married."

Cami sighed happily and started to tell her friend about her home. 

###

Having overseen the official ending of the Thawfest, Stoick ambled towards his hut.  The party was still going strong, but it had been a long, tiring day, and he'd found that if he managed to get to sleep before Hiccup and his wives reached their bedroom, he might actually _sleep_ through the sounds of their lovemaking.  Both women were… _not_ quiet, not alone, and _certainly_ not together, and while he'd taken some parental pride in his son's evident virility at first, these days it was just something to try to not overhear.

As he stepped through the front door, though, he saw that there was already someone in the main room, sitting by the fire in the _skorskeinn,_ an empty basket at the foot of the chair.  Dim firelight glinted off of deep black hair and Heather's green eyes practically glowed in the semi-darkness as she looked up at him.  She looked like she'd been thinking.

"Chief," she said in a tone of polite greeting.

He nodded back to her.  "Lass… Heather.  What brings you here, aside from your duties?"

She took a deep breath and looked back into the fire.  "I thought about what you said earlier.  Toiréasa has the same training… but you don't know her, and you don't know if you can trust her."

"Aye," Stoick said in acknowledgment of the point.

"But you feel that you can trust me."  It wasn't a question.

He nodded.  "I do."

"Why?"

He walked over and sat down opposite her.  "Because I do.  Because you've shown your own loyalty, despite the risk, and the cost.  Because a young woman with every reason to betray us… _didn't,_ and those reasons don't exist any longer.  Because when I asked why you didn't trust me before, you gave me reasons, good, _solid_ reasons, as to why you didn't."  He took a deep breath and said, "And because your family is here.  Your lover is here.  And this is your chance to protect them, using the skills you have, the skills that almost no one else has."

She grunted as if struck, and nodded in acknowledgment of the point. 

They sat in silence for a long moment, the crackling of the flames dancing on the coals the only sound.  Stoick reached over and added another log to the _skorskeinn's_ fire.  It caught around the edges after a few moments. 

Finally, Heather spoke up.  "You… you're asking a lot."

"I know.  And I wouldn't be asking if it didn't need doing.  But we had a poisoner sneaking around the village.  That old arse Mildew is out there somewhere, and knowing him, he's planning mischief of a nasty sort."  His lip curled slightly in a half-smile.  "We even had a spy come in as part of a group of thralls."

Heather gave a laugh-sob and slouched in her chair, looking down at her hands.  She took several deep, calming breaths and said, staring downwards, "I… I… I'll do it."  She looked up at him and stared him straight in the eye.  "But on one condition."

"Aye?"

"You mentioned that my family is here.  Fishlegs is here.  I want to protect them."

Stoick nodded, as the log he'd added caught fully, bringing in a new burst of light into the room.  It lit half of Heather's face fully, and cast the other half into deeper shadow. 

"So… with that…"  She looked down at her hands, held together in her lap.  "With that… not now… not when he's here under hospitality… and not in a way that'll bring war down on our heads… but… for the good of my family… and for the blood of my father, who has no one else to avenge him…"  She looked back up at him, her face set in pain and fear and… hope.  "I want… I _need_ to deal with Dagur the Deranged, with your permission and approval.  That's my condition for service as your spymaster.  Sir."

Stoick looked at the young woman, just past her seventeenth winter, and nodded slowly.  "Then you have it.  Welcome to my service, Spymaster Ingerman."

 

* * *

 

**_AN:_ ** _A slightly longer chapter than normal, but I think it worked out well!_

_Announcements:_

_First, aaaaah, I’m 33 next week!_

_Second, I have a Discord server; the invite link is accessible through my tumblr’s sidebar. :)_

_Third, thanks to Vman0, there is a TVTropes page for A Thing Of Vikings! It was created over the hiatus (and for which I kept forgetting to make a note about.)  It still needs some Wiki-Magic, but having a subpage just for my story was one of my fondest wishes for this fic since I started. So a big thank you for that!_

_Fourth, I had to make a slight edit to this chapter; as Quetzelcoatl found in the comments, I made a research error on_  Princess _Mor's gender; I've edited the chapter to correct this detail._


	59. New Pieces In Play

**Chapter 59: New Pieces In Play**

****

_Despite the conflicts that marked its inception, Berk's Dragon Mail service transformed European society and shortly the world within Hiccup Haddock's lifetime, with regular mail and trade routes that extended to China, India, Madagascar and the northern reaches of the Vestrilands by AD 1100._

_The effects this had on social norms, commerce, and the sciences can only be seen by comparing the state of the world in AD 1000 with that of AD 1200.  In 1000, the world's human population was approximately 275 million people (+/- 20 million), the majority of whom were living in feudal or tribal societies, and approximately 2-3 million dragons, living either in nomadic bands or in the few remaining nests.  By AD 1200, the human population had doubled to a minimum of 550 million people, and possibly as high as 600 million, while dragons had reached a population of over 50 million, and social structures…_

_—The Dragon Millennium, Manna-hata University Press, Ltd._

**_Mead Hall, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

**_April, AD 1042_ **

 

The next morning, Hiccup sighed to himself as he sagged into his chair in the mead hall and suppressed a yawn.  He hadn't gotten much sleep last night, not after Astrid had had a nightmare, and then the three of them had cuddled until they'd fallen back asleep.  And then, right at their very doorstep on their way into breakfast, Wulfhild had gotten waylaid by a pack of merchants demanding that she settle some dispute.  She'd waved them on ahead, but that had given such a _grand_ start to the day. 

He glanced around the packed hall, filled with people chattering in many tongues, and shook his head.  The Festival was officially over, having formally wrapped up last night as the sun set; several of the children in the hall—mostly Jorgensons—were now walking around with their new victory medallions on puffed-out chests, making sure that everyone could see them.  _Normally,_ last night would have been a party, and _today_ would have been business as usual—planting, fishing, herding, and so forth.

But 'normal' hadn't been seen around here for a while now.  While a few of their nearest neighbors would be heading home today or tomorrow, the majority of their guests were staying for the foreseeable future—days to weeks, even months in a few cases.  Some of that was his fault, of course; the southern merchants were staying until he could give them a lift home via waveskimmer, to give one example.  _That_ was going to be a grand tour of the great southern sea, and he was looking forward to it.  But others—like some of the nobles—were here to discuss treaties and the like with his father, and that would take weeks.  Still more of the merchants were plying the local waters, looking for more goods and trade opportunities, but none of them were straying too far from Berk. 

The reason, of course, was the upcoming shedding of the scales.  Word had gotten out, and all of the merchants were eagerly waiting for their chances at the supply.  Two days ago, Hiccup had had a rather difficult talk in his halting Latin with one man, Cecelio, who had cheerfully explained that the wait of a month was no hardship at all for a chance at the fresh scales and dragon leather!  Especially since they still had some trade goods to sell, and with Hiccup's promise of a lift home, he'd still arrive there faster than he would otherwise. 

In essence, if he understood correctly, the merchants would prefer to leave Berk carrying nothing but dragon scales and food for their trip home—and the food only grudgingly, as it would take up room better used for scales and leather.  Some of the merchants, having run through the stock that they'd brought, were scattering all around the region looking for more to buy and bring back with them to Berk in time for the scale shedding so that they'd have more to trade.

Interrupting his reverie, Astrid slumped into the chair next to him, and then leaned up against him bonelessly.  "You know, they warned me that I'd feel sore when pregnant, but I had _no_ idea."

"I'm sorry," he said, kissing the top of her head.

"I know," she mumbled into his shoulder.  "And I still love you.  Despite having thrown up again this morning."

"I'm sorry for that, too," he said with a smile.

"You're going to make it up to me," she continued, her head against his bicep, eyes closed, a smile on her face.

"Yep," he said, smile shifting to a grin.  "Do you have something in mind?"

"Oh, yes," she breathed out in an insinuating tone.

"Good."  He took a deep, bracing sigh and leaned over to ask, "So… how's your shoulder… and your throat doing?"

"Eh.  I can say that it was literally just a scratch.  I mean, it was a _scary_ scratch…" she unconsciously put a protective arm over her belly, "but I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Hiccup.  I appreciate the concern.  I really do.  But I'm _fine._   He's dead, and the part I'm most upset about is that we can't question him to find out who gave him his orders.  The only harm he did was putting Princess Mór in the healer's hut, and Nanna is confident that she'll recover in a few days."

He sighed, but, before they could continue, she elbowed him.  "Heads up."

Hiccup looked up, to see Phlegma the Fierce heading in their direction.

"Oh, joy," he said, and that was the last thing he had time to say before she got into earshot.

"Hiccup, Astrid, you're looking well," she started politely.  "Astrid, I heard about what happened yesterday, and I'm glad that you're all right."

He sighed.  "What is it, Phlegma?  We're going to have a long day."  _And you waited until Wulfhild wasn't with us._

"Nothing too much, Hiccup.  I just wanted to let you know that your latest creation is working out wonderfully."

Hiccup quirked an eyebrow. 

"Your wonderful laundry is saving us so much effort these days, I wanted to say thank you on behalf of all of those who have been stuck for so long with washing the clothes," she said earnestly.

He just nodded, his mouth full, wondering when the _actual_ point of her little talk was going to show up.  Sure, the laundry was nice—and getting quite the workout with all of the guests—but it didn't seem like it was high enough priority to discuss over breakfast. 

When he didn't say anything more, Phlegma cleared her throat and said politely, "Well, I wanted to tell you that we've been able to get through our laundry needs in a tenth of the time it used to take us, which means that we've been able to start tackling some of the other jobs that need doing around the village with all of the freed-up time."

He nodded again, both because he was eating, and because he didn't want to get dragged in too deep into a conversation with Phlegma.

She seemed to take that as permission, and smiled.  "So, I had a thought for you and your challenge with your wife there."

"Oh?" Hiccup asked, actually interested for the first time during the conversation.  Astrid perked up as well. 

"Well, since you seem to have this wonderful ability to keep creating new things both for war and peace, I thought that I'd see if you could come up with anything else that could help with tasks that take much time.  Things like carding, spinning, or weaving…?"

Hiccup cocked his head.  "Huh.  Hadn't thought of that."

"I realized, which is why I brought it up," Phlegma said reasonably.  "If you could do to spinning what you did with the laundry, you would free up enough working hours that we would probably have enough hands to tackle everything that needs to be done in the village."

Hiccup narrowed his eyes.  "There's a _lot_ that needs to be done, though.  That's why we've been bringing over some of the people from Eire to help—"

"But imagine if we _didn't_ need them!" Phlegma said pointedly.

"What?"  Hiccup narrowed his eyes at her.  "We talked about this.  Why is the idea of bringing in people from outside the tribe and having them join with us such a bad idea?"

"Because they're not part of us!" she snapped, her reasonable veneer vanishing.  "Because they have no _roots_ here.  We tolerate _your_ foreign woman because she's of value to the tribe, but look at Fishlegs' girl!  She's _exactly_ the kind of danger we want to avoid!  If he hadn't been lucky and caught her looking for the book with _all_ of our secrets about the dragons, then we'd be having to deal with an Eirish 'king' that has dragons of his own.  Sure, she got caught, but what's to guarantee that the _next_ spy won't be able to get away with a theft of our dragons?!"

He just looked at her levelly.  "Are you saying that you want to get rid of Heather?"

"No…" Phlegma said in a tone that said _yes._   "She's tied now to Fishlegs, and that's good enough for me. And if other men around here decide that they want an out-of-tribe bride, that's also fine.  It's how we've worked in the past."

"Then why do you have a problem with wanting to bring in more people?" Astrid asked with a scowl. 

"Because there's a difference between someone _marrying into_ the tribe and bringing in floods of outsiders who will have no blood ties!" she said fiercely.  "How will we know what their motives are, or if we can trust them?"

Both he and Astrid sighed, and she said to the older woman, "So, of course, your solution is to just declare a blanket ban?"

"Oh, if we find a few here and there that are of great value to the tribe with their skills, I imagine that we can make an exception," she said with a scowl.  "But, yes, I'd rather you build us more things that can save us time and effort," addressing Hiccup, "instead of bringing in potential thieves and spies.  Or murderers.  Look at what nearly happened to _you_ yesterday, Astrid!"

Astrid just glared at her.  "If you really think that—"

"Yes, I do!  Why was he here in the first place?  We never had these sorts of problems when we stuck to ourselves and didn't get involved in the business of outsiders," she snapped.

Astrid slammed the table.  "That's enough.  There are—"

Phlegma cut her off.  "Fine.  Think on it," she said and walked off before Astrid could say more.  After watching her retreating back for a few moments before it was cut off by the motions of the crowd, Hiccup turned to Astrid.  "Well, that went well."

She snorted, gritting her teeth.  "Yeah.  Real well."  She leaned her head back against his shoulder tiredly and they sat that way for a long moment before she spoke again.  "She did have one point, though."

"Oh?"

"Well, aside from this newfound hatred of outsiders," Astrid said sourly, "she did make one smart suggestion, but, hey, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again."

Hiccup snorted.  "Or they get eaten by something."

"Imperfect metaphor," Astrid said, shrugging. 

"So… what was her 'valid point'?" Hiccup inquired after a few more moments.

"Well, if you could turn that big brain of yours towards carding, spinning or weaving, or all three, that would be… well, if you think they're happy about the laundry, wait until you do something about _this_ ," she said said, fingering his shirt.

Hiccup just looked at her, baffled.  "Ummm?"

"'Ummm' what, Hiccup?" she said as he paused, turning to look at him with a gleam in her eyes that worried him slightly. 

"Yeah?" he said in a meek voice.

"You _really_ have no idea how much work goes into making clothes, do you?"

"Uhhhh…" he felt his face flush.  "No…"

She rolled her eyes.  "Well, I suppose that that's forgivable, given that it was just you and your dad growing up, and you never saw it.  And you work primarily with leather when you're sewing."

Wulfhild walked past, her shoulders hunched and her eyes half-lidded from exhaustion, and her lips set in a grumpy scowl.  Hiccup motioned her over, but she shook her head and pointed towards the kitchens.

Throwing her a thumbs-up as she walked off to get breakfast, Hiccup nodded in turn at Astrid.  "So… enlighten my dumb guy brain, please."

His wife gave him a deadpan look and then said sweetly, "If you want, I can go get the book with the details from the Ingermans and shove it in between your ears, lover."

"Well, that would be one way to cram for a test," Hiccup said, deadpan.

She snorted.  "Okay, you win that round."  She reached up and mussed his hair.  "Short version: we make wool into yarn, flax into linen, and to do both, we have to first take a giant crazed _mass_ of fibers," she lightly yanked on his hair, making him yelp in surprise, "clean it up so that they're all going about the same direction and overlapping so that they hold together, twist it together into a thread or yarn, and then make it into cloth.  Naalbinding uses little knots, while weaving uses a loom.  For a shirt like this…" she pulled on his collar, making it cut slightly into his neck, "Hmm… well, let's see.  You've grown up a bit, but a nice shirt like this… hmm, well, it takes a day to sew it from the cloth, a week or two to _weave_ the cloth, and two or three _months_ to spin the thread to weave the cloth."

He blinked in surprise.  " _What?"_

"Yep.  Hiccup, I may be a shieldmaiden, but I still got taught all of the feminine arts growing up, and had to help while listening to my mother and her friends talk, as they made clothing like I just described."

"But…" he looked down at his shirt, eyes wide.  "Three and a half _months_ to make _this_?"

"For one person's work, yeah.  That's just the thread and cloth, mind you," she said, clear enjoyment in her voice at his shock.  "I'm not counting the buttons, or the dye, or the harvesting of the flax or wool in the first place…"  She shrugged and leaned up against him again.  "It basically comes down to this, love.  Each inch of thread in that shirt had to be spun out of a mass of fibers, which get teased out and put onto a spindle to twist it into thread.  It's annoying, time-consuming work, and you're doing incredibly well when you can spin, say, eighty to a hundred yards in a day."  She pulled on the sleeve and held it up for examination.  "I'll let you do the arithmetic, but, as I said, a shirt like this is probably made from, oh, about five yards of cloth."  She held up a thumb to the sleeve and said, "It's a pretty fine weave, call it, oh, thirty threads to an inch."

Hiccup blinked, the numbers immediately pulling at him, and he swallowed hard as they totaled up to an appalling number.

"There are eleven _thousand_ yards of thread in this shirt," he said numbly. 

"Sounds about right," Astrid said with a knowing smirk. 

"Astrid… you said that you're doing _well_ when you get hundred yards done in a day."

"And now you see why I agree with Phlegma, for once, on pointing that big brain of yours in _that_ direction."

He nodded, eyes still wide at the sheer amount of work he'd been casually wearing.  How often had he grumbled about his clothes not fitting right because they were too big? 

He owed the village tailors some apologies…

His reverie was interrupted by Gobber walking up to the table with a giant grin on his face.  "Hey there laddie.  I've got some news for you.  You'll love this." 

Hiccup looked up at Gobber.  "Oh?  Is this going to be like the time when you told me that I got to practice my sword-sharpening skills?  And I have to put an edge on _all_ of the new swords and axes?"

Gobber grinned.  "Aye, perhaps, if you want to look at it that way.  But how do you feel about working on your dragon taming skills?  Especially if there's another Night Fury out there?"

Hiccup blinked.  "What?"

"Aye, I heard from a bunch of the Cornish when they were waiting to talk to Stoick that there have been dragon sightings in the mountains down in England."  He shrugged.  "Normally, they'd call up some hunters… but they figured that you might have a reason to work for free."

Astrid snorted.  "Oh, so that's how they're thinking?"

"Aye.  And one told me that there were rumors of a Night Fury up in the Dartmoor Mountains."  Gobber grinned and leaned in.  "Worth it?"

Hiccup nodded enthusiastically.  "Yeah.  Could you get anything more out of him?"

"Already did.  Note's on your desk in the workshop."  Gobber gave a cheerful little salute and walked off. 

Wulfhild came up a moment later, a tray of food in her hands and a familiar face trailing in her wake.  She sat down next to Hiccup, and Fintan stood nervously across the table from the three of them.

Hiccup looked up at the nervous Eirishman.  "Sit, sit."

"Betting you're feeling like you're at a tribunal," Wulfhild said, digging into her bowl of food with a will, as Astrid wrinkled her nose. 

He nodded, and Hiccup gave a little laugh.  "You're fine.  Astrid, this is Fintan mac Ionatan.  You _might_ remember him from a certain night back in Vedrarfjord."

Astrid looked at Fintan and then blinked.  "You!  What are you doing here?"

"Getting my fat pulled out of the fire by my lordship here," the Eirishman said earnestly, with a furtive glance at Hiccup.

Hiccup snorted.  "You're giving me too much credit—"

"I'm sorry, milord, but I'm not.  Tuathel is canny and clever, and he would have been completely capable of smuggling me back out past your guards in the mess of the festival.  I blame myself; I should have been more alert, but I was so…" he looked around the mead hall and at the dragons sleeping in various corners and on various perches, "entranced."

"There's lots of that going around," Hiccup said, smiling. 

"Your home is beautiful, milord.  I just… I don't know how to describe this.  It's like something out of a bard's tale, of the Lands Underhill, and you one of the Tuatha Dé Danann."

Hiccup blinked.  He wasn't _that_ familiar with the Eirish sagas, but he knew of _those_ , and Fintan had basically just called him a demigod, something analogous to a king of the elves.

He looked down at the table.  "Why do people keep _doing_ that?"

"Doing what, milord?"

"I'm not a god.  I'm just a man.  I… just want respect for who I am, not worship," he said.  He looked at Astrid as he spoke and she gave him a wry smirk.  _Good luck with that._

He gave her a look in response.  _Not helping._

She just gave him a wide sunny smile.  _Oh, I'm sorry, was I supposed to help?_  

He replied with a glare.

She gave a little shrug and turned back to the table.  "So, what exactly happened today that Fintan here is talking about?"

Grateful for the save, he explained about the Eirish petty king who had once owned Fintan, and Astrid's face was stormy as he finished.

"Okay, so, first off," she said, pointing her spoon at Hiccup, "what you almost did was both awesome and stupid, but stupid in a good way."

"How so?" Wulfhild asked, coming up for air as she hit the bottom of her bowl, having interjected here and there during the explanation but having otherwise occupied herself with slurping up her breakfast of porridge and skyr with maximum efficiency and minimal decorum.  The pregnancy hunger pangs had managed to make her set aside her royal training on decorum, at least in part.

"Because of exactly what you said at the time, Wulf.  Yes, it would have set a precedent—but it also would have closed the question of compensation that Eochaid dangled over us when he was here," Astrid said thoughtfully and then smirked.  "Also, I wish I could have seen the bastard's face when you tossed that bag of teeth over."

Fintan gave a soft smile.  "It was glorious."  He then sobered.  "But there are sixty or seventy _daer-fuidiri_ still at his ringfort near Lough Erne, and he is no doubt making plans on how best to soak you for every single coin and tooth that he can manage," he said, looking Hiccup soberly in the eye.

He nodded.  "If he tries that, then I give him to Astrid to play with," he said with a smirk, turning to his wife.

She gave him a happy smile. 

Fintan grinned at the three of them.  Standing, he said, "Well, if you have no further questions…?"

Hiccup reached up and pulled at Fintan's arm.  "Stay.  You called yourself my friend.  I don't have too many of those."

Fintan looked at him in surprise and sat back down.  "You… you _are_ serious, milord?"

He sighed.  "Okay, first, knock it off with the 'milord's, or at least save it for when the fact that I'm the chief's heir is actually important.  But I spent my entire life being the mistake, and now people are calling me a god."  He scowled at that.  "I may have overshot 'being one of the guys', but my friends don't have to treat me like that."

Fintan looked at him dubiously.  "Milord.  I'm a freedman.  You're the heir and Hero.  The gulf between us could scarcely be wider," he said stiffly. 

"All right then.  You're promoted to 'friend.'  Now quit it with the asskissing," Hiccup said sardonically. 

"Milord, you're being absurd.  But if it pleases you to jest with me, then I'll do my best," he said, finishing off with a forced smile. 

Hiccup gave him a look and then sighed before rolling his eyes and saying, with just a hint of sarcasm, "Usually when I'm joking, Astrid is throwing punches at me."

A solid thump hit his arm and he yelped.

Turning to Astrid, he glared at her, and she just gave him another sunny smile.

"Not funny."

"Oh?  I thought that it was amusing.  And you _were_ telling jokes again, Hiccup," she said, still grinning, but then sobered and said seriously, "Like it or not, you are _not_ 'just one of the guys,' on just about any measure, and while I promised not to hero-worship you, the man has a point—asking him to _not_ have that much respect for you when he doesn't know you that well beyond you being the man who rescued him from thralldom _twice,_ the second time personally, is a bit much."

He gave her a glare, which bounced off without a scuff mark.  Then he sighed.  "Point taken." 

Fintan looked at them, his faced studiedly impassive, and Hiccup just looked at him, wondering what the freedman was thinking. 

He could ask… and Fintan would probably tell him.  But that wouldn't help with making the man his friend.  His lord, yes.  But not his friend.

So, instead, he asked, "So, Fintan… I know that you were a thrall to that… asshole, and you said something about a woman who was also a thrall to him.  Could you…"  Hiccup trailed off with a grimace. 

Fintan nodded, his expression solemn, and took a long drink of ale from his tankard.  "She was… she _is_ about a year or two older than Lady Astrid is.  Tuathel bought her when her parents ran afoul of bad debts when she was fifteen or so…"  He sighed and took another drink.  "Her babe would have been born around Christmas—Yule for you—maybe a bit thereafter."

Astrid growled, making Fintan look a little alarmed, and then approving. 

"And what were you two to each other?" Wulfhild asked.

Fintan looked down at the table and drummed his fingernails as his face wrinkled in pain.  "We… well… we were thralls together.  Well, not really.  I was a field laborer, and she was the king's concubine.  But I was trained as a bard before I was taken and sold… and I told stories and sang songs to keep all our spirits up, and… well… we became friends."  He sighed painfully.  "Her name is Roisin.  We weren't supposed to share such things, but she did anyway.  In whispers, in the dark and quiet when we could steal away…"

Hiccup grimaced, and he wasn't the only one, and then an ugly thought occurred to him.

Fintan kept talking, his eyes looking down into his tankard.  "We would find time to talk…  and then we heard about Vedrarfjord from a passing bard…"

"Fintan…?" Hiccup asked hesitantly. 

"Yes, mi—Hiccup?"

"You… you said that you and she were close.  _How_ close?"

Fintan glanced at him, and then cracked a slight, sad smile as he looked back down at his tankard.  "Very close…"  His fingers tapped on the table and he looked up again, pained.  "The… the baby?  It…  it might be mine.  I said otherwise to rile him… but…"

Astrid snapped the wooden spoon in her hands, and Wulfhild winced.  Hiccup just leaned in, his shoulders set. 

"So… my friend.  _Where_ did you say his estates were?"  He smiled wolfishly.  "I did promise to pay him a visit to let him know about our agreement with the Uí Néill for their man's breach of hospitality." 

###

Fishlegs sat in the glass-shop, taking quick and careful notes as Fearghas worked.  Nearby, Hiccup, Astrid, Wulfhild and one of the visiting merchants were leaning back against the wall, to watch.  Heather was standing off to the side, ready to hand tools over to Fearghus as needed.

The last few weeks since Fearghus had arrived had been busy; they'd shipped over fired-clay bricks from Eire with which to build the furnaces, and Hiccup had made them nearly every tool that Fearghus had asked for, and now, today, the day after Thawfest, was the start of glass production in earnest.

They hoped.

Bracing himself, Fearghus opened the door to the melting furnace.  Taking one of the iron spoons that Hiccup had made, he reached in and scooped out some of the successfully and _cleanly melted_ glass, to Fishlegs' joy—and relief _._ There were still bits of the former iron cauldron and glass shards in a box in the smithy, waiting for Hiccup to figure out what to do with them. Fishlegs shared looks of glee with the others as Fearghus looked at the spoonful critically, and poured it back into the furnace's crucible. 

"I'm satisfied with the consistency," Fearghus noted, and picked up one of the iron pipes from the rack.  Sticking it inside the furnace, he picked up a gob of the molten glass on the end and, gently, blew into the opening on the other end. 

Fishlegs watched him work, taking notes so quickly that he was going to have to stop and make a clean copy of it later because he was smudging the page with his charcoal stick.  The blob of glass became a small clear bubble as Fearghus carefully blew into the open end, spinning the pipe to keep the bubble on the end of it.  Occasionally, he stuck the glass bubble into the second furnace as the glass cooled too much for him to work with it, spinning it all the while; Hiccup had built a stand for him to rest it on, which had a little curve to the top of it so that he could continue to spin the pipe sticking out of the open furnace door, even as the glass warmed in the furnace.  As Fishlegs had inadvertently discovered earlier, spinning the pipe was the best way to handle hot glass; it had the consistency of warm honey, and without someone constantly spinning the pipe, the glass would slump and eventually fall off the end. 

Over the next short while, Fearghus worked the bubble, adding more glass to it and expanding its volume, and then sticking another blob of glass onto the end, opposite the pipe.  Then, as he anxiously instructed her, Heather carefully went up and stuck another pipe onto that bit of glass.  Fearghus hadn't been happy about having to do this with someone untrained when they'd originally suggested it before starting today, but he wasn't exactly spoiled for choice—and Heather's hands were much steadier and much more nimble than Fishlegs' own. 

Using a sharp knife, Fearghus cut the glass bubble from the end of the first pipe, leaving an open end to the bubble where the pipe had been.  Then, a little awkwardly, Heather handed him the second pipe with the glass on the end of it. 

Fearghus took it, and spun the pipe rapidly, which made the open end of the glass bubble widen.  Once he was happy with that, he cut the end off of the second pipe and stuck the whole thing, now visibly a basic goblet with a simple base formed by the second blob of glass, into the annealing furnace, where it would cool over the next day down to a temperature that was safe to handle.

With a nonchalant shrug, Fearghus turned to the onlookers, who were mostly staring in silent awe, and then bowed. 

They broke into applause, and Fearghus basked in it before he asked Fishlegs, "Still plenty more glass in that crucible.  Should I make another one?"

Fishlegs nodded eagerly.  "Make as many as you can!  No point in wasting all of that fuel for just one goblet."

"Jars, too," Astrid added, still awed but beginning to grin.  "Goblets are great, but we kinda used up every jar and container in the village back last autumn."

"Well, that we can do.  We have lime aplenty, potash aplenty from the Broodery fires, and sand coming out of our ears," Fearghus said.  "And the shop's working just fine."

With that, he cheerfully began whistling and stuck the pipe back into the melting furnace.

Next to Hiccup, one of the foreign merchants—a fellow from Venice, who had been invited because of his home's connection with glassmaking—said in slow, careful Latin to Hiccup, "It's a bit basic, but it looks like you have a good start here.  I have some contacts among the glassworkers back home, and I'll see if any of them wish to come here."

Hiccup nodded and grinned.  "Thank you!"

"Ah, of course.  And you mentioned a reward, did you not?"

Fishlegs snorted and said in Latin, "Within reason, obviously.  But we're not going to be stingy, either."

Cecelio's eyes widened and he grinned at Fishlegs.  "Your command of my tongue is quite good!  What sorts of rewards did you have in mind?  Because, well, I could see some use for a windskimmer…"

Hiccup shook his head brusquely and replied in his mangled Latin, "No.  We will to hire dragons, but no to give they away— _especially_ not for just to glassmake!"

Cecelio held up his hands.  "Can't blame me for trying.  By the way, Lord Hiccup, you should take some lessons from your friend here, and I mean that with no offense.  But your grammar is terrible, and while I am impressed that you know Latin as well as you do, others in Italia will simply call you a barbarian if you don't speak our tongue well."

Hiccup grimaced and said carefully, "I have problems with the grammar and I keep to getting the words muddy."

Fishlegs blinked and kept himself from laughing; Hiccup had clearly intended to use the word _confusa_ , but had instead used _caenosus._   Cecelio, demonstrating admirable self-control, didn't say anything and didn't react beyond sharing a brief look with Fishlegs. 

"Well, improvements will come in time," Cecelio said, turning back to Hiccup.  "I could help you on the trip to my home, if you wish."

Hiccup nodded.  "I'll consider it."

"And when will we be returning, if you don't mind my asking?  Not that your home isn't amazing, but, well…"  Cecelio shrugged and grinned as Fishlegs translated. 

"Well, we've got a lot to take care of here at home first," Hiccup said in Norse, "but we'll be able to leave by Midsummer at the latest, I think."

Fishlegs translated that back to Cecelio, then made a thoughtful noise and said, "Actually, Hiccup, I've been thinking…"

"Oh?" Hiccup asked.

Fishlegs nodded and put down his charcoal stick and writing tablet, and glanced around the room.  Heather was occupied helping Fearghus with making another goblet, while Astrid and Wulfhild were watching them work, entranced, along with Cecelio.   "Well, here's my thought; you've got a bunch of stuff that you want to do before you leave for the South, right?"

Hiccup nodded.  "There's the shedding, the hatching, the dragons down in England, the thralls over in Fear Manach, checking up on that rumor of dragons attacks down in Brittany, and visiting Normandy, Gwynedd, and Alba to get the mail stations up and running, plus getting the merchants' ships converted to waveskimmers—which will be the most time-consuming bit."

Fishlegs nodded.  "So here's my suggestion," he said.  "I'll stay here, and supervise the ship conversion, while you go on a loop: down to Fear Manach, drop the freedmen off at Vedrarfjord, fly down to Brittany, and visit Normandy.  Then, on your way back, visit England to see about those dragons, and then get Gwynedd and Alba on the way home."

Hiccup cocked an eyebrow in consideration and nodded.  "That ought to cut a few weeks off of our preparations.  Good idea, Fish!"

Fishlegs beamed at him, and then Heather commented from the side, where she was standing ready with the pipe in hand, "And I'll go with Hiccup."

Fishlegs blinked.  "What for?"

Heather turned and said fluidly, " _Comprenez-vous ce que je viens de dire?"_ Fishlegs blinked again, as did Hiccup, and both Astrid and Wulfhild turned at the sound of the unfamiliar tongue.  Looking at all four of them, Heather said, "That's what they speak in Francia.  'Do you understand what I just said?'  No?  Then I'm going with."  She looked at Fishlegs and shrugged apologetically.  "Sorry, love, but… this is something I can do to help."

He nodded slowly.  And… he was willing to bet, she was going to start doing her job as spymaster.  He wasn't _thrilled_ that she had taken the job, but he understood why she'd accepted it.  And they'd talked it out at length last night, and he'd come to the realization that his lover _needed_ to take what had happened to her and make it into something useful, to help her new home, in order to be able to heal.  So he smiled and said, "I can live off of meadhall cooking for a few weeks, I think."

She grinned at him, and turned back to where Fearghus was expanding the next bubble of glass.  Cecelio had continued to watch the glassmaking, and seemed to be trying to politely ignore them as they talked in Norse.

Hiccup shook his head ruefully.  "Well, I guess that settles that.  Glad to have you with us, Heather."

Astrid snorted.  "Could you imagine showing up in Francia and not speaking the language?"

Wulfhild nodded thoughtfully.  "It would make things tricky, that's for sure."

###

**_The C_ ** **_ôte d'Albâtre, Pas de Calais, Francia_ **

****

Dogsbreath, Inga and Redsnout wearily circled the white chalk cliffs overlooking the sea below. 

Inga scanned the horizon.  "I don't see anybody," she said tiredly.

Dogsbreath nodded and guided Redsnout down to the top of the cliff.  It was exposed—too exposed, in Inga's opinion—but they'd be able to see people coming, and this way Redsnout could immediately take flight if necessary. 

They all practically collapsed, sprawling on the rocky grass atop of the cliff, as soon as they touched down, but Inga forced herself to get to her feet and started to collect rocks to make a firepit. 

Dogsbreath, seeing her at work, stirred and started to unstrap what meager supplies they had stolen from Henry's fortress three days earlier and from Saint Brieuc yesterday.  They'd given the fishermen a fine thank-you for their betrayal, setting several of the houses on fire—especially Christophe's—and stealing a full net of fish, half of which was now gone down Redsnout's gullet. 

The poor dragon was lying there exhausted, and looking miserable.  His hide was turning pale in spots, which meant that he would be shedding soon, according to what Dogsbreath had told her.  So they'd have funds, at least, when he was done and had his new coat of scales.  What they'd get for them, though, was an open question; many of the scales around his saddle—which had only been taken off _twice_ during their weeks of captivity—were cracked and damaged, and Redsnout had cried in pain when they'd been forced to put it back on two days ago.  They didn't dare take it off now, either, in case they had to flee in the middle of the night.  At least the arrow wound on his leg from their escape was bandaged after they'd removed the arrow.

They soon had a fire up, and were roasting fish as the sun went down, Redsnout sleeping behind them. 

Shivering, they huddled close to the dragon in silence.  And then Dogsbreath opened his big mouth.

"This is all your fault," he said sullenly.

"What?!" she snapped, exhaustion lending fuel to her anger at the sudden accusation.  "How do you fucking figure!?"

"We got captured because _you_ said we could stay and rest!" Dogsbreath shot back.

Inga saw red.  "And we never would have even _been_ there if you hadn't forced us to leave Berk in the first place!"

"'First place'!?  'First place'!?  Whose idea was it to have me shave my father's beard off!?" Dogsbreath bellowed at the top of his lungs, rousing Redsnout, who chittered, alarmed. 

But Inga paid the dragon no mind.  "It was a _stupid_ suggestion, you _moron!_ Anyone able to count past ten without taking their shoes off would have realized _that!"_

Dogsbreath sputtered indignantly for a moment before he found his voice. "Everyone knows that the Bogs are all about being clever and they only accept guys who can keep up!  That's what I thought you were doing!"

Inga snorted derisively as Redsnout rose and started to look back and forth between them nervously.  " _Right._   Because _clearly_ you're _prime_ material for bringing back to Bog with me!  Like you didn't chase after me and every other pretty girl in the village!"

Dogsbreath grimaced, the vein on his forehead standing out against the skin.  "Hey, I did everything you asked!  Every humiliating joke, every prank, because at the end of the day, you came back _to me!"_

"Because I thought it was funny to make Rolf's son dance!    It was so pathetically _easy_ to get you to do what I wanted!  I didn't _like_ you!  I barely even _knew_ you!" she screamed.  "You'd have to be a complete idiot to think I cared about you!"

Dogsbreath blinked and staggered back, as if he'd just taken a punch to the gut.  "You take that back or I'm leaving."

Inga sneered.  "You wouldn't just leave me here.  You wouldn't dare."

Dogsbreath reached down and grabbed his pillowcase.  "Watch me.  Or was everything from the last month a lie?"  He hopped up onto Redsnout's back, making Redsnout hiss slightly but give no other indication of his discomfort.  "Was it?"

Inga blinked, suddenly unsure.

" _Was it!?"_ he roared. 

"I…  you won't do it.  You won't abandon me here," she insisted.

"Watch me. Come on, 'Snout, we're going home."  He squeezed with his knees. 

Redsnout whined and balked.

"'Snout!  I know it hurts, but Hiccup can treat you when we get home!  Come on!"

Redsnout pointed his nosehorn at Inga, and her heart skipped a beat.

"What about her?  She just said that everything is a lie!  Come on!"

Redsnout snorted, and bounced, making Dogsbreath yelp and have to grab onto the saddle.  "'Snout!  What's gotten into you!?" 

Inga stared, shocked and unable to think, as Redsnout bucked and then threw Dogsbreath off of his back, knocking him to the grass near the fire. 

Despite the fight they'd just had, she ran to him and helped him up.  He'd reached a half-seated position when he realized and knocked her hands away—and then Redsnout stalked over and chittered loudly and angrily at him, his fangs only inches away from Dogsbreath's gut. 

Then it was Inga's turn to freeze as Redsnout turned to her, and chittered at her every bit as angrily as he'd scolded Dogsbreath.  Inga scarcely dared to breath as she stared the red-scaled dragon in the face, his breath smelling of fish and fire. 

Finally, Redsnout grumpily turned on one foot and marched off, his wings furled, back tense, and tail lashing back and forth agitatedly, and curled up on a patch of exposed rock not far from where they'd set their fire. 

"Wha… what was that?" Inga asked softly.

"I… I think he's upset with us," Dogsbreath said, panting slightly.

An irritated sarcastic whistle came from Redsnout that even Inga could decipher as _No, you think!?_

Cautiously, the pair of them rose and approached the fire again, on the opposite side from Redsnout, who was looking at them. 

Inga sat stiffly, looking at Dogsbreath and realizing that, yes, he'd truly meant to leave her here, and hunched in on herself sullenly.  She looked into the fire, and then glanced at Dogsbreath.  He was sitting in a similar manner, his shoulders tight and angry. 

She remembered for a moment one night back in Henry's fortress, only a week or so ago, when Dog had come in like that and she'd massaged his back and shoulders before making l… _having sex_ … and how tightly wound he'd been then. 

And now her secret was out.  She'd started this all… because he was a means to an end.  A means to her mother's revenge.

She snorted and said under her breath as she stared into the fire, "Are you _happy_ now, Mom?"

There was, of course, no answer.

They both sat there silently for… Inga had no idea.  But eventually, Redsnout warbled with irritation, rose from his stone, and walked over to Dogsbreath.  Shoving with his snout, he pushed Dogsbreath closer to Inga and then went back to his slab. 

Inga looked at him, and then back into the fire.  It was starting to die down, the flames having reduced to small tendrils dancing along the edges of the blackened wood.

They sat together, still in silence, and, entranced by the fire, Inga realized with a sudden start at some undefined point in the night that she'd started to doze, and was leaning against Dogsbreath's side.

And he was stroking her hair.

"I'm… I'm sorry," he said, as she bolted upright.

"Don't touch me!" she blurted. 

He scooted back.  "I said I was sorry."

She pulled at her hair slightly and huddled in on herself.

They sat like that as the clouds drifted by overhead and the fire crackled.  Finally, Dogsbreath cleared his throat slightly and said hesitantly, "I… right.  So… look.  I think you owe me an answer.  First.  Was it all a lie?"

She stared at him… and then looked away and down.  And in a small voice, she said, "No.  It wasn't.  I… I… I was starting to care about you."

He exhaled sharply.  "But you didn't before?"

She shook her head.  "No.  I, I was getting back at your father."

He quirked an eyebrow.  "Wait, what did my dad ever do to you?"

"Well, he was going to marry my mother and then she got banished to the Bogs…"

Dogsbreath's eyes turned round.  "Wait, _that's your mom!?"_

She nodded.

"By Tyr…" Dogsbreath breathed, and then his voice hardened.  "You know she was stealing and hoarding, right?  Dad asked for mercy and she was _only_ banished."

Inga blinked.  "No… she never told me that part."

"Well, I've heard it from a bunch of people that were there—all my life—so I'll believe them," Dogsbreath said and shook his head disgustedly.  "I wish you'd _told_ me, though.  I would have just helped you prank my dad _anyway._ "

"What?" Inga asked incredulously.

Dogsbreath snorted.  "Dad and I don't get along well.  He kept telling me how much I disappointed him, how much I was a disgrace to the family and my bloodline… shit, I wish you'd just _told_ me."

Inga chuckled weakly.  "Uh… sorry?"

Dogsbreath sighed and rubbed at his face with one broad hand.  "Yeah, I guess."

They sat in silence some more after that, and the fire died down further.

Finally, Inga asked softly, "So now what?"

"Well, what's done is done, right?" Dogsbreath said sourly.  "Can't go home without getting punished.  So either we go on like we already planned, or… do what, I have no idea."  He sighed and continued in a softer tone, "But… I mean… so you started this to get back at my dad for your mom getting banished.  Am I pissed with you?  Yeah."  He turned and looked her in the eye.  "But I need to know before we do anything else—do you like me at _all,_ or was it all to get back at my dad?"

Inga paused and then slowly nodded.  "I… I do… like you, that is."  She swallowed.  "I, I didn't at first.  Then it was to get back at your dad… but since we… um… _left…_ Berk, I've gotten to like you."  She paused for a moment and said softly, "You're strong—not just like that, but you don't let things get to you easily.  And when things go bad, you pick yourself back up and get on with it."

He smiled at that, his teeth visible in the near-darkness.  "Uh… okay.  I wasn't expecting an answer like that."

They sat again for a while in silence, and finally he spoke up.  "And… and I like you too.  You think fast and you're clever and… well…" he hesitated for a moment before forging on ahead, "and you're gorgeous and I like your jokes… even when I was the butt of them."

Inga blinked.  "I treated you like crap!"

"Yeah, but you were at least _clever_ about it!  Which is a lot more than the Thorston twins ever did."  He chuckled lightly.  "Peace?"

She nodded.  "Peace."

They sat together, looking at the dying fire.

"So, what next?"

Dogsbreath sighed.  "I don't know."

Inga thought for a moment.  "Well, our problem here was that these people aren't _Norse._   We couldn't understand them, they plotted behind our backs…"  She took a deep breath.  "Our homelands are to the east, right?"

Dogsbreath grunted in affirmation.

"Then we head there.  We'll be able to trade Redsnout's scales fairly, find out where the Empire is, maybe even follow your cousin's path…"

Dogsbreath turned and looked at her.  And smiled.  "See?"

Taken aback, Inga said, "See what?"

"This is what I mean.  You're clever!"  He cautiously reached over and patted her on the shoulder.  "I wouldn't have thought of it like that.  But you're right!"

A small smile teased at her lips.  "I… I guess?  Thank you."  Then a yawn ripped through her, and without a further word, she leaned over and molded herself against Dogsbreath's warm side.  "I'm sorry."

"It's okay.  And I'm sorry too," he said, and that was the last thing Inga remembered before she drifted off to sleep at last.

###

**_Uppsala, Sweden_ **

 

Tuffnut wandered through the market, Swift at his side.  The Nadder was currently licking his chops after having devoured a bowl of chicken stew that Tuff had bought for him, and the pair of them were getting lots of looks. 

He and Yngvarr had arrived yesterday on their return trip from Kyiv, where they'd dropped off Vladimir.  That had been fun—the Rus' had been _shocked_ at his return on dragonback, even more so upon finding out that it was just a courtesy and he hadn't been taken prisoner or anything! 

They'd feasted that evening with Grand Prince Yaroslav and his family.  Tuffnut and Yngvarr, along with Vladimir, had answered many of their questions—and while Tuffnut already knew from Vladimir that Snotlout had passed through Kyiv the year before, it was another thing entirely to meet a whole roomful of people who only knew him as "Sigurd Trondsson".  And he was apparently down in Constantinople now—and that was something Tuffnut was _really_ curious to see one day.

But first, they'd come back to the Norselands; Yngvarr had introduced Tuffnut to King Anund Jacob (and what kind of name was that?  It didn't sound very Norse…), and the two of them were currently talking.  Before he'd left, Tuffnut had overheard Yngvarr mention that he was going to be looking through some Christian archives at a place called Husaby, and he wanted the King's support.  They'd then dismissed Tuffnut to go to the marketplace.

The crowd was light, and mostly keeping back from the pair of them—except for a single man a little shorter than Tuffnut, with dark curly hair and dusky skin that made Tuffnut think of some of Johann's sailors. He approached and said in fluent Norse, "Are you the dragon-rider from Berk?"

Tuffnut glanced back at Swift, who cocked his head, and they shared a look before he turned back to the man.  "If I said I was from Kreb instead, would that change anything?"

The man snorted.  "Funny."  He extended his hand.  "Vidkunn Guthhersson, master trader, at your service.  I took your friend Sigurd Trondsson down south last year.  Can I speak with you?  I offer you my hospitality."

"Is Swift here included in that?"

"Of course.  Does he like his fish roasted the same way Hookfang does?"

"Actually, he likes chicken stew," Tuffnut said, "but he'll happily have some fish."  He turned to look over his shoulder.  "Right?"  Swift wasn't there.

Tuffnut continued to turn, only to suddenly run into his dragon's tail at face height.  Swift was leaning over and sniffing deeply at Vidkunn, and then gave a happy chirble and licked the trader before pointing at a leather pouch on his belt. 

Vidkunn blinked.  "You can still smell that?"

Swift gave an affirmative chirp, and Vidkunn laughed.

"What is it?" Tuff asked.

"A pouch that Sigurd gave me, that was filled with spare dragonscales from Hookfang.  It's a good pouch, so I kept it."  He reached down and pulled the pouch free.  "Look familiar?"

Tuffnut looked, and shrugged.  "Nah, but I'll believe you."

Vidkunn grinned and motioned for him to follow. 

A short while later, they were in Vidkunn's home; Tuff had lost track of half of the names of the family, and he was cheerfully listening to Vidkunn's eldest son—a fellow named Balli—tell him stories about Snotlout… Sigurd… Sigurdlout!… from their trip down to Constantinople.  Apparently his old buddy had been quite the badass, and Tuff was looking forward to telling Spitelout about how 'Sigurd' had chased off and killed an entire raiding party of horsemen all by himself. 

Meanwhile, Swift was being pampered by a pair of younger kids, who were feeding him fish, fresh off the skewer, and giving him a thorough rubdown.

Tuffnut was listening to Balli tell him about how the entire harbor of Constantinople had fallen silent at the sight of a tame dragon sitting on a boat when a different language caught his ear, and he looked up.  Vidkunn was talking with an older woman, with skin even darker than his own, in some tongue that Tuff didn't recognize. 

He turned back to Balli.  "Who is that?" he asked, bobbing his head in the direction of the elder.

Balli grinned.  "My grandmother.  She wants to know if you plan to stay with us overnight, or if you'll be returning to the king's hall."

Tuffnut grinned.  "Sure, I'll stay!"  He paused.  "Just let Jarl Yngvarr know?"

"Of course!" Balli said, and turned.  "Alfvin!"

One of his younger brothers came away from playing with Swift.  "Yes, brother?"

"Run up to the fort and let the rider's jarl know that he's accepted our hospitality overnight!"

The younger boy pouted for a moment, glancing at Swift, and Tuffnut said, "If you do it, I'll give you a dragon ride when you back."

The boy took off like an arrow from a bow, leaving the front door hanging half-open in his wake. 

Balli burst out laughing.  "Base bribery!  How crass!"

Vidkunn chortled from next to his mother, who was hiding a smile, the fine wrinkles around her eyes crinkling.  "But effective!"

Vidkunn's family were a chatty, gregarious lot and, after Tuffnut fulfilled his promise to the boy, they continued to chat through to dinner.  A platter of roast lamb came out, carried by Vidkunn's mother and his wife Hayfa.  It smelled amazing, redolent with unfamiliar spices.

"Thank you!" he said as they served him a slice and his mouth watered.  "By the way, what language is that, that you speak?" he asked as bread, fish, and roast vegetables were added to his plate by Vidkunn's mother, and Balli poured him a mug of beer.

"Arabic," the grandmotherly woman said in Norse with a smile.  "My husband traded with my homeland fifty years ago and brought me back with him."

"Aye, and she never forgave him for it!" Vidkunn said with a grin.

"That's not true!" his mother said with a cheerful smirk.  "Otherwise, you never would have been born!"

There was laughter at that, and Vidkunn added, "And Papa took me with him to visit my grandparents, and I met my wife."

Hayfa said wryly, "And every winter, I wonder why I forgave him."  She motioned to his plate.  "But, please, eat, eat!"

Tuffnut cheerfully carved off a piece of the roast and took a bite.  His eyes instantly watered and his mouth burned at the unfamiliar hot and spicy flavor, and he loved every moment of it.

After they had eaten and the fire had faded from his lips, and Tuff had given Alfvin his promised dragon ride, Tuffnut, Vidkunn and Balli moved off to seats around a firepit outside.  A earthenware jug of what Tuffnut recognized as wine was produced, and they sat and drank from small cups.  Swift was snoozing happily nearby, sprawled out on a flagstone behind the house. 

"So, Tuffnut," Vidkunn said, waving his cup slightly in Tuff's direction, "is it all right if I ask you some questions about your homeland?"

Tuffnut peered at him over the rim of his cup, the firelight dancing on the dark liquid inside.  "What, did Sno… _Sigurd_ not tell you anything?"

"Not me or anybody, he was notoriously close-mouthed about his home, even to those that he'd made friends with.  If not for the letters of introduction from King Magnus, I would have assumed he was an outlaw fleeing for safer pastures," Vidkunn said dryly.

Balli nodded.  "Although occasionally he let a few things slip."

"But after seeing firsthand just how useful a dragon-rider is to have along on a trade voyage, as a scout if nothing else, I have to ask if there are any more of your people available for hire," Vidkunn said.  "Coming back, it felt like I was wearing a blindfold—or at least an eyepatch."

Tuffnut shook his head.  "I doubt it… but I can ask."  A thought occurred to him.  "But there's something better than trade guard that Hiccup is offering."

"Oh?" Vidkunn asked.

With a grin, Tuffnut began explaining about the Dragon Mail, and Vidkunn and Balli were wide-eyed with interest by the end of it.

By the time they went to sleep, the jug of wine quite empty, Tuffnut had an official request to hand to Hiccup from Vidkunn about the possibility of mail stations in Uppsala, Kyiv and elsewhere—and an assurance that Vidkunn would _happily_ make introductions with local merchants, while he planned on running the one in Uppsala himself. 

The next morning, Tuffnut, his head pounding, was woken by the sound of singing and chanting coming from outside Vidkunn's house.  And someone was shaking him to wake up.

"Rider!  Rider!"

"What…?" he mumbled. 

"Rider!  They are here for you!"

Tuffnut blinked and looked up at the wrinkled face of Vidkunn's mother.  "What?"

"The priests of Uppsala and their followers!  They are here for you!" she repeated even more intently.

Tuffnut sat up and rubbed at his eyes.  "What do they want from me?"

"I do not know, but they are singing outside of my _house!"_ she said in accented Norse.  She shoved a mug of something steaming into his hands.  "Drink this."

Tuffnut eyed it skeptically, but when the old woman stared at him, he set his face and downed half the mug in a single pull.  To his surprise, it didn't taste foul, but was instead a cool astringent drink of some sort that helped sluice away some of the foulness that the wine had left. 

Dressing quickly, and giving a quick farewell to a worried looking Vidkunn, he went out the front door—

To thunderous cheers.

Two strong arms reached down and grabbed his upper arms to hold him aloft, while two more pairs of arms lifted his legs. 

"BEHOLD, ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF ODIN!" a voice boomed out next to Tuffnut's ear and he flinched—only for a second voice on the other side to call, almost as loudly, "AND ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF TYR!"

Tuffnut, his head ringing like a bell, tried to clap his hands to his head in an effort to stop the echoes seeming to bounce around inside, but couldn't wrench free of the grip on his arms as the second pair of men down by his legs boomed that he was one of the chosen of Thor and Freyr.  The men carrying him—men dressed like priests—shifted from carrying him practically on his back to almost standing on their shoulders, and he tried to shield his face with his arms. The sun was too bright, the people were too loud, and the priests were even louder.  And then they half-heaved him into Swift's saddle.

He forced his eyes open to find himself the focus of a crowd of a hundred people, as one of the priests stepped forward.

The crowd all bowed, and Tuffnut, his head still fogged with the remains of wine and sleep, tried to follow what the priests were saying, but it all came in a jumble, about how the dragon-riders had the support of the gods themselves… a great victory on the field of battle… the power of the gods shown…

Tuffnut blinked as suddenly there was another sound that sent the crowd to moving in a wave.

Yngvarr's friendly voice called out, "Excuse me, but what are you doing with poor Tuffnut there!?"

The chanting died down, and the priests all stiffened and drew back slightly as Tuffnut looked to see Yngvarr mounted on the back of Windleaf, his cheerful green Nadder.  There was a moment of tense silence, and then the priest of Odin stepped forward. 

"Jarl Herald!" he called out in a tone that sounded more like a proclamation than a greeting.  "Last summer, another dragon-rider came to our city!  At the time, we did not recognize him as having been touched by Odin and the rest of the Aesir, and he passed through on his journey to the south.  But since then, the gods have sent a sign of their favor!  A great victory over the oathbreaker and tyrant Harthacnut!"

Yngvarr nodded brightly.  "Oh yes.  I was there, in fact!"

The priests looked to him, and then to Tuffnut.  "Is that true?" the priest of Tyr asked him gruffly.

Tuffnut nodded, wishing that the pounding in his head would just go away already…  "King Magnus came up with the idea to have dragons lift a box full of rocks and drop them on the ships, actually," he said slowly.  "And Jarl Yngvarr helped man the box."

The priest of Odin looked at Yngvarr and bowed.  "We acknowledge and appreciate you and your lord's contribution to the great victory, but it was still led by those who follow the old ways, was it not!?"

Yngvarr bowed back.  "I will not dispute that in the slightest.  But, if you don't mind, I would like to have my associate back.  We have a bit of a trip to make today!"

"Thank you, Jarl.  And… and may I wish you a safe journey, as you travel with the chosen of the gods."

The priests backed away from Tuffnut and Swift, and the Nadder ambled over to where Yngvarr and Windleaf were. 

Tuffnut clutched at his head. 

"You all right there?"

"Wine.  Not beer.  Beer.  Can handle.  My poor head."

Yngvarr stifled a laugh.  "Come.  You've almost incited enough riots by accident for one day."

"It's not even mid-morning!" Tuffnut protested.

"Aye, and the cult here might have had you overseeing a _blot_ by midday if I hadn't intervened—and since the King and the cult of the old ways have a strained relationship, him being Christian and all, that might have caused problems for Magnus."

"Oh."

They said their goodbyes to Vidkunn's household, and then Yngvarr got him back to the King's hall and made him drink some water.  They were in the air by late morning.  Tuffnut was baffled by what had just happened, and, once his head stopped aching, he was going to try to get a straight answer out of Yngvarr.

Once his head stopped aching…

###

**_Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Astrid sat down tiredly on a nearby stool, and looked up at the preening Nadder, who cheerfully bent down and gave her a lick. 

"Hey!  That doesn't wash out!" she complained with a laugh, and the Nadder chortled and walked off.  Nearby, Stormfly gave an approving chitter at the glossy scales on the other dragon, and leaned over to examine before giving a scolding squawk at Astrid. 

"What?"

Stormfly pointed with her tail, and Astrid narrowed her eyes and peered closer, and then slumped.  "But… how…"

She'd missed a spot. 

Stormfly gave her stern headbob and pulled back, but as Astrid, giving her dragon a pointed scowl, went to haul herself back to her feet, Stormfly motioned for to her stay seated with a flap of a wing.  Astrid sighed at the overprotective dragon and said, "I'm fine." 

Getting to her feet, she picked up one of the odd polishing tools that Hiccup had put together.  It resembled a shovel or some other tool with a long handle, but at the end of the shaft, instead of a shovel blade, there was a weird connector that was then attached to a large pad of rags, allowing the human to rub down the dragon easily.  The connector was _weird;_ Hiccup had made a metal ball on the end of a stick, and put a collar around it, such that the pad could turn, twist, and even rotate.  He called it a _ball-and-socket connector_ , and said that he'd been inspired by some bones.

She was just glad that it worked.  And worked _well._   The dragons loved it, and all two dozen of the padded sticks were well in use.  Another few dozen of the blunted and padded pitchforks that they had discussed last year were likewise in use, with a bunch of _very_ happy dragons lying on the ground nearby as the Hooligans used the tools to give them thorough rubdowns.  More dragons were patiently waiting their turns.

Horsefeathers came by, pushing a laden wheelbarrow filled with shed skin and scales, as she worked over the missed spot. 

"Got anything for me, Astrid?"

She motioned with her elbow to the ground beneath her feet, which was littered with a fortune of dragon-skin and scales.  "Knock yourself out."

"Heh.  And then who would push the wheelbarrow?" Horsefeathers asked, and got out his padded rake and pan to start gathering the dropped scales and skin. 

Elsewhere, Astrid knew, Hiccup and Fishlegs were designing nests for the hatchlings, which would likely hatch within the week if they kept to last year's schedule—right around Astrid's natal day, and she'd had the realization that she likely shared that day with a large number of dragons.  It was a strange thought, and when she'd had it, she'd asked Stormfly how old she was.  She hadn't gotten an answer beyond a puzzled head-tilt, but part of Astrid's thoughts were still chewing on that idea, like a dog with a favorite bone.  She and her dragon—her best friend—might be the same age, down to the day…

She shook her head to clear it, and with a last grunt of effort, moved the polishing stick up and under the loose patch of skin on the Nadder's tail, near the base.  It came off in a sheet from the glossy new scales underneath, and slumped to the ground. 

Horsefeathers snagged it and, with a cheerful wave, took the now-fully-laden wheelbarrow off for sorting.  Hide that could be cured as leather would be taken over to the new tannery that they were building a ways off on the island, and the rest would be broken down into individual scales, which would then be brought over to the Berk treasury for use as currency. 

The now-finished dragon presented itself for inspection to Stormfly, who looked it over, huffed and gave a nod of approval.  It fluttered off, and Astrid gave her friend a look. 

Stormfly warbled cheerfully, but Astrid could pick up a mocking edge to it, and put her hands on her hips.  "You keep teasing me, and your chicken supply gets cut off."

Stormfly stuck out her tongue at Astrid, and chittered. _You wouldn't dare._

"Oh yeah?  Try me.  Chicken is for dragons who don't make their riders look silly," Astrid said with a smirk and turned around to greet the next dragon—only for a sudden wet tongue to hit the back of her head and drag upwards.  "EWW!" she yelped, as Stormfly laughed. 

Shoving her hair back down from the spikes that Stormfly had stuck it in, she glared at her friend, who was rolling over laughing. 

"You're going to pay for that!" Astrid threatened, even as she tried to keep from laughing as well. 

Then the next dragon—another Nadder—started to laugh as well, and she turned to glare at it as well.  Pointing the polishing stick at it, she said, "You think it's funny, do you?"

The dragon quieted and settled down, clearly inviting her to use the stick on the pale hide peppering its body. 

"One moment."  She turned and looked at Stormfly.  "I know that you're thinking this is all funny, but can you at least go get me a waterskin if you're going to laugh at me?  I need a drink."

Stormfly warbled and got back to her feet; for all of her teasing, she was being incredibly supportive and protective of her rider, and had made Astrid sit down more than once from the joint pain that she was experiencing from her pregnancy. 

Once Stormfly had headed off, Astrid set her shoulders and got to work. 

She had just finished as Stormfly came back up, a waterskin dangling from a carry strap held between her teeth, and Fishlegs and Meatlug brought up the rear, Fishlegs carrying a scratching stick of his own.  But before she could even accept the waterskin from her dragon, another pair of Nadders moved forward into her work spot, eyeing her and her polishing stick with anticipation. 

She sighed and laughed ruefully as the two Nadders sorted themselves out over which of them went first. 

Fishlegs laughed.  "Demanding, aren't they?"  He patted Meatlug, who gave a toothy grin.  "The Gronckles are so much better behaved."

Walking around the first Nadder of the pair, she gave Fishlegs a flat look.  "There was nearly a riot over there before from sheer impatience.  How is _that_ 'better behaved'?"

"Hey, that was a Hotburple that decided that he was more important, you can't blame the Gronckles for that!"

She rolled her eyes and nodded her head towards the scratching stick.  "If you're going to stand there, help.  Get around the wing joints."

Laughing, he did so, and brought her up to speed on the status of the dragon-scale shedding and collecting.  Thanks to the scratching posts, the polishing sticks, the itchforks, and several of the other inventions that Hiccup had produced—which had already been picking up names from the Hooligans—not only were they producing massive amounts of undamaged dragonskin, but more of the scales from the damaged skin were usable.  Also they were progressing much faster than they had last year, which wasn't a surprise, given that they'd had no warning or anything a year ago.  _Anything_ would be an improvement.

"Beyond that," Fishlegs reported, "we've nearly got the new nursery down in the bottom of the Rookery ready.  Double doors to keep escapees to a minimum, Nightmare-spit lamps for light, and I've got teams of Boulder-class dragons carving the nest-pits.  We'll be lining them each with a layer of cured dragon-leather backed by straw for padding, and if I'm understanding them right, they're big enough," he motioned with his hands to indicate a bowl about a yard across and deep, "to hold two to three hatchlings apiece."

Astrid blinked.  "That's still a few thousand pits."

"We're carving about five thousand, yeah," Fishlegs said with a grimace.  "I'm _hoping_ they'll be mostly reuseable for next year.  But we'll see.  And I'm worried we won't get all of them done in time."

She scrunched her lips to the side in thought and nodded.  "Well, we're kinda making this up as we go along.  We just have to do as good of a job as we can manage."  Pausing in her rubdown, she walked over to Stormfly and claimed the waterskin.  Popping the valve—one of Hiccup's new creations—open, she took a long swallow of the warm, leathery water, but she was thirsty enough that the taste didn't matter. 

Fishlegs nodded.  "I suppose."

Astrid shook her head and reclaimed her polishing stick.  "We do what we can, Fish.  Getting the dragons settled and raised isn't a competition."

Fishlegs smirked.  "That's not what I heard about earlier."

She rolled her eyes.  "So some of us got into a contest to see who could handle more dragons faster!  Is that a problem?"

He grinned.  "Nope.  By the way, Duckquack says you taught him some new words when you lost."

She scowled at Fishlegs, making him laugh.  "And you can't even claim that it's the baby, because Lopsides is more pregnant than you are!" he said, grinning.

She pointed the polishing stick at him in a mock-threatening manner.  "Keep talking, big guy."

He held his arms up and grinned. 

Shaking her head, she got back to work.  "So, I thought you and Hiccup were working on the nests?"

"We were, but Wulfhild came and dragged him off.  Apparently someone tried to kidnap a dragon and got stopped by one of our other guests, and she needed him to adjudicate," Fishlegs said soberly.  "Because she's not technically in charge of the dragons."

Astrid nodded in acknowledgment of the point.  They still had over a thousand visitors, and while the vast majority of them were behaving themselves, there had been a handful of incidents since Thawfest.  Nothing as bad as the poisoner… but enough that, when the shedding had started, there had been a proposal to set up this polishing field well away from the visitor tents, and it had been agreed to without question.  And, in another concession to the worriers' fears of theft, all of the people currently staffing the field were from the Old Tribe. 

Fishlegs grimaced, and then leaned in.  "And because the one that caught the attempted thief… was…" he glanced around to see if anyone was in hearing range, "Dagur."

Astrid paused.  "Oh shit."

"Yeah.  So apparently the thief will live… and since he broke hospitality, Dagur's actions are considered justified."  He gave a fresh grimace.  "Well… mostly."

His tone made Astrid glance at him.  "Define 'mostly'."

"Well, um… last year, Hiccup just banished the thief and his crew, remember?"

Astrid nodded and, at a snort from the Nadder, got back to work. 

"Well… the guy's eye… they don't know if they can save it," Fishlegs said with a shudder.  "He was stealing a Terror, and Dagur threw a rock at his head to make him drop the dragon… and, well, he _claims_ that he didn't know that end was pointy."

Astrid glanced at Fishlegs and said softly, "I've seen Heather throw knives."

Fishlegs stiffened.  "And she got _that_ training from Alvin.  You don't need to drag her into this," he said defensively.

Holding up her hands, Astrid said, "Sorry.  So… what's happening to the thief?"

Fishlegs sighed and let it drop.  "He'll live… just with an eyepatch probably.  And it didn't help that Dagur tackled him and knocked him to the ground.  But Hiccup plans on throwing him and his crew off the island regardless.  It's just a question of… Dagur."

They both sighed and continued to work in silence for several heartbeats.  Noticing the tension in Fishlegs' shoulders, Astrid said, "Hey, Fish?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

He looked her in the eyes.  "Thanks.  Just… she's been through enough, wouldn't you think?  But noooo, she has a murderous brother to deal with… and it's tearing her up inside."

Astrid nodded.  "So…"

"So?"

"How are you two doing?"

"Oh, um… good."  Fishlegs ducked his head a little over his itchfork, smiling.  "Really good."

Astrid smiled; while the awkward boy that had been her friend growing up was still there, the young man working alongside her had noticeably grown in confidence and poise over the last half year.  So she teased him a little bit.  "I'm glad.  By the way…"

"Yes…?" he asked carefully, clearly sensing a trap.

"Tell Heather that I have the jar of fruit-and-honey preserves she asked for."

Fishlegs flushed slightly, but his voice stayed admirably even as he said, "I'll tell her.  They're her favorite."

"Mmhm.  You don't say," Astrid said with a wink.

Fishlegs turned and gave her a look.  "How much has she told you?" he asked bluntly.

"Told me about what?" she asked with exaggerated innocence, even touching the tips of her fingers to her breastbone. 

Fishlegs rolled his eyes and got back to work on the Nadder.  "Yes, we sleep together.  Do you want to tease me some more?  Because I'll tease right back."

"If you want… but I'll stop if I'm making you uncomfortable," she said, slightly concerned that she might have overestimated his resilience.

He snorted.  "You can't _possibly_ be worse than Horsefeathers.  Or worse, my dad."  He scoffed.  "Of course, Horsefeathers has no right to talk either.  I remember how he was before his wife died."

Astrid barked a sad laugh, but said, "All right."

"But then again, you only seem to tease people you care about," he said analytically, "so I'll take it as a compliment."

She shrugged a bit sheepishly.  "That's how it was intended.  But I _am_ glad that you're doing well.  That both of you are doing well."  She peeled off another section of scales and her voice softened.  "She's really in love with you, 'Legs.  I mean, really.  If I wasn't with Hiccup and Wulf, I'd be jealous of just how much she loves you."

He grinned slightly, his eyes distant in some memory, and then nodded.  "Thanks.  And… well…"  He swallowed.  "I don't… I don't like this whole spymaster thing.  But _she_ needs it.  She's been running from the nightmares ever since we got… together, and she hasn't had _one_ since she accepted Stoick's offer."

Astrid paused, remembering her own last nightmare, just the week before.  And how Wulfhild and Hiccup had held her as she'd shaken in their bed.

"You all right?" Fishlegs asked, bringing her out of her reverie.

"I… yeah.  Nightmares."

He looked at her with understanding.  "Nightmares.  How bad are Hiccup's?"

"Bad… and mine aren't that great either."

Fishlegs blinked and slowly turned to look at her.

"What?" she asked.

"You… you have nightmares?" he asked, sounding surprised.

Astrid froze and turned to look at him as well.  "What, you think I'm immune?"

"I…"  Fishlegs blushed.  "I guess I did.  I'm sorry."

"Accepted," she said and she poked him in the belly with her polishing stick.  "And I'm so glad that you're there for her.  Just like Wulf and I are there for Hiccup, and they're there for me."

Fishlegs nodded and turned back to the dragon… but then paused.  "Wait.  Wulfhild is there?"

Astrid nodded.

"So… you three… _together_?"

"Heather really doesn't tell you anything?" Astrid asked, surprised.  "Well, all right then."  She turned back to the dragon, which was stomping its feet slightly impatiently.  "Yes," she said calmly, not looking in his direction.  "All three of us share a bed these days.  I thought that was known gossip."

"I tend to ignore most of that," Fishlegs pointed out.  "But… isn't that weird?  Sharing a bed with someone you don't love?"

Astrid swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and said softly, "I wouldn't know."

There was a pause.

"Oh."  Another pause.  "So… like your clanhead… old clanhead then?"

Astrid nodded and a sense of strange whimsy struck her as several individual scales bounced off of the dragon's side and hit her arms and chest.  "Gods, this is ridiculous!"

"What is?"

"This!  Look!  Two years ago, life was simple.  Kill dragons, survive another day.  Now…" she waved out at the field of shedding dragons.  "Look at us, Fishlegs.  I'm _married._   To the guy who I used to just ignore when he messed up because he was beneath me. I'm expecting a baby by Midwinter.  I've…" she swallowed and said it out loud for the first time, "I've fallen in love with both him _and_ with his… _our_ princess-concubine.  And while I knew that such a thing was possible…" she gave him a sheepish grin, "I wasn't expecting myself to enjoy a woman's touch _,_ you know?" 

Fishlegs seemed to consider that for a moment, and said in his analytical tone, "Given that the majority of stable long-term multiple-partner marriages in the village trend towards what you're experiencing, I can't say that I'm surprised.  You were already friends beforehand, and, well, intimacy helps in such bonds."

Astrid snorted.  "Well, I'm glad, for once, to not be exceptional."

"I… uh… didn't mean it like that.  So… how did that work out?" Fishlegs asked plaintively as they finished their current Nadder and it rose and shook itself. 

"One day at a time," she replied, "as is traditional."

He snorted.  "Right, because the Haddocks are _so_ big on tradition right now."

She laughed, but then continued, musing, "Look.  We _are_ growing up.  You have a concubine who you're going to marry next year.  I'm married and am going to be a mother, and isn't _that_ a scary thought?"

He cocked his head and then nodded in humorous and earnest agreement.  "Yep!"

That earned him a playful, if earnest, punch.  It just thudded into him without effect, making her give him a sour look.  He just looked at her innocently, and she gave him another thump, with a touch more force, and he jokingly said, "Ow," as he rolled with it. 

Rolling her eyes and giving him the occasional _thwack_ as a test, she continued, "Look at how much things have changed.  For Hel's sake, we have dragons as _pets_ now. We're freeing thralls across half of Eire.  We've become a regional power.  Everything _changed._ "

"That's true enough," Fishlegs mused, even as he blocked her next punch with a casual swipe of his itchfork, and then said sourly, "Now if only people's minds would change with it."

"Vikings.  Stubbornness issues," Astrid deadpanned.

Fishlegs snorted.  "True enough.  But I'm glad that things are working out for you."  He grinned and said, "Do you get the feeling that the gods look at the group of us and just laugh?"

She laughed, and punched him on the shoulder again.  "You're a good friend, Fish.  But I have to say that Freyja and Frigga must have laughed their heads off when they tied your heartstrings together with Heather's.  I _know_ they laughed when they tied mine to Hiccup's and Wulf's."

He snorted and patted her on the shoulder in return.

"So, what next?" she asked him, giving him a grin, but then shifting her demeanor to being more professional. 

He shrugged.  "Not much to tell beyond what I already reported.  We're on day two of scale shedding, and despite how annoying it is to be working all the way out here," he waved to indicate the field, halfway across the island from the village, "I don't want to give any more arrows to those voting for my grand-aunt's proposal."

Astrid scowled and nodded.  The vote was scheduled for Tyr's Day in less than two weeks, two days after her birthday.  She grimaced at the thought of how people would react to the thief that Fishlegs had told her about.  As it was, aside from Phlegma, several others were reacting increasingly negatively in the aftermath of the poisoner's attack—although thank Frigga that Princess Mór nic Echmarcach had recovered fully.  She sighed.  "At least people are willing to vote for yours," she said.

Fishlegs scowled in response.  "Officially, it's Stoick's.  I just helped.  But, _gods,_ the looks I'm getting from my clanmates…"

Astrid grimaced.  "That bad?"

"Worse.  I've had people suddenly stop talking when I enter a room several times now," Fishlegs said morosely.  "Or start glaring at me."

She paused and looked at him with concern.  "Fishlegs, I'm so sorry."

He shook his head.  "It needed to be done.  Stoick needed a scribe, and he trusts me to do it right.  It just… ouch."

"Ouch," she echoed, and reached over and clasped his shoulder with a hand.  "But we've got your back, all right?"

He nodded.  "I know.  And that means a lot."  He shook his head and forced a smile to his face.  "So, Lady Haddock—"

"Watch it," she said with a cheerful smile.

"Oh Master of the Dragon," he said unctuously, "how is it being pregnant?"

"Why?" she asked, grinning and rising to the change in topic. 

"Well, you're my friend… and, well…" he turned a bit pinkish.

"Heather's pregnant?"

He shook his head, and said quietly as his ears turned red, "Although not for lack of trying, but you knew that already…"

She nodded.  "True."  She turned and massaged her back.  "Well, I'm stiff, sore, my joints all ache, I've had morning sickness practically every other day for the past month, and my breath is as bad as a dragon's."

Stormfly chittered in protest and then made a pointed snort, like she was expelling a nasty scent from her nose. 

Astrid turned and glared lightheartedly at her friend.  "You stay out of this!"

Stormfly warbled sarcastically as Fishlegs coughed and Meatlug murbled in amusement from where she'd been dozing in the sun.

Astrid rolled her eyes.  "Everyone's a critic."

Fishlegs was trying valiantly to suppress his laughter.  "So, what else?"

"Well, Wulfhild's morning sickness is nearly as bad as mine, and she's all itchy and tired all the time.  And Stoick keeps _hovering_ , trying to be helpful.    It's like he _knows_ when it's safe to approach because I'm too busy throwing up or hurting."

Fishlegs shrugged and waggled his eyebrows.  "Well, you've heard what they've said about his wife, right?"

"Hiccup's mom?  No…"  She cocked her head.  Come to think of it, she'd barely heard anything about Hiccup's mother. 

"Apparently, she was some kind of unarmed champion, and could throw around _Stoick_ if she wanted to."

Astrid blinked, and then a wide grin sprouted as the image came to mind.  "I'd pay good coin to see that."

"Well, this is all going off of what my mom told me, so take with a grain of salt, but apparently she was some kind of peacemonger—like Hiccup, but even more passionate about it.  Her favorite trick was disarming people, then knocking them down, and lecturing them."  He shrugged with a grin.  "With that kind of skill, is it really a surprise that your father-in-law knows how to handle pregnant women safely?"

She snorted.  "That probably explains why I haven't heard about her really.  You know us Hoffersons.  We love our axes and swords."

"And other sharp things."  Fishlegs waggled his eyebrows again.  "Like Hiccup."

She stuck out her tongue at him and they laughed as the next dragon came over to help with having its scales peeled.

###

Hiccup looked across the table and resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.  "Yes, you did us a service by catching that thief, but you need to keep the scale of it in mind!  I can't give you a dragon, I can't give you an alliance, or any of that!  So can you think of something more reasonable?"

Dagur crossed his arms and cocked his head, thinking.  "How about a dragon ride?  Just you and me?  That way, you know I won't try to steal it, and I get the honor of having a ride given to me personally by the Dragon Hero?"

Hiccup blinked.  That was… oddly reasonable.  He glanced to Wulfhild.  "What do you think?"

She nodded.  "And I'll fly along with you."  _Just in case,_ her expression said, all worried and dubious. 

Dagur grinned… and there was just enough of an odd edge to it to make Hiccup's stomach feel a little bit queasy.  But since this looked like a nice, simple way to handle this particular issue, Hiccup nodded and turned to Toothless.  "What do you say, bud?  Up for a flight with a passenger?"

Toothless, his new scales dark and glossy, gave a cheerful warble and bounded over to the door. 

Dagur whooped and followed.  As they left the room, Wulfhild turned to Hiccup. "If he tries anything, drop him and I'll catch him."  Hiccup nodded, and Wulfhild gave him a stern look.  "I mean it, Hiccup.  Don't hesitate.  He's… not sane and not _safe._ "  She pulled him into a hug and said to his breastbone, "And I don't trust him with your safety."

Hiccup hugged her back without reservation.  "I know, but this way he can't keep harping on it."

Wulfhild nodded against his chest, and he kissed the crown of her head before letting her go. 

The pair of them left the chief's hut, to find Dagur giving Toothless a belly scratch.  The Night Fury was purring and boneless on the grass outside, and Hiccup just took in the scene for a moment.  It was cute, but he had to remind himself that this man was a brutal warlord and murderer who had killed his own father, threatened to kill his sister, and casually threatened Wulfhild when he hadn't even been on the island for an hour.  Letting his guard down because the guy was being a little nice to Toothless now might prove to be a fatal mistake later. 

Still…

He sighed, and got them mounted up.  A minute later, they were airborne, with Mistletoe and Wulfhild quickly bringing up the rear. 

Dagur was silent behind him as they reached cruising height, but then pointed east.  "And that's… that's Alba."

Hiccup nodded.  "Yep.  I think if we got a bit higher, we could see Beinn Nibheis.  It's only about fifty miles that way…" he waved in that general direction. 

Dagur laughed.  "Then what are we waiting for!  Higher!"

"All right then!" Hiccup laughed and up they went, Wulfhild and Mistletoe keeping pace.  They aimed for the top of a nearby cloud, and, with Toothless' wingflaps disturbing the mist below them, Dagur looked around in awe.  "There's… Alba… I can see my lands from here… there's Eire…" he fell silent, and Hiccup could feel him moving around on the saddle behind him, drinking in the view. 

Finally, as they cleared the cloud, he said, "And you just… share this."

"The view?  Isn't it great?"

Dagur grunted.  "Not what I meant.  Argh.  Look.  You're in control.  How are you keeping people from taking it away from you?"

Hiccup turned in his seat and gave Dagur a flat look.  "Do you _really_ expect me to answer that?"

"What?  Hey!  Listen, Haddock, I might be crazy, but I'm not _stupid!_   You've got all this power, and like the thief I stopped, people are going to want to take it away from you for themselves!  And that'll be some of your own people too!  They'll want to be the ones in charge of the soup ladle so they can dole out the soup as _they_ see fit!"

Hiccup scowled, but nodded.  "Yeah, we had some problems with that.  You heard about the raid on Brycgstow?"

"Yep.  Sounded awesome."

"Well, that was done by my cousin, who wanted to be in charge of the soup ladle, as you put it.  So he did something big and flashy to get himself support."

"And what happened to him?"

"We had a duel, and after he lost, he left to go south to the Roman Empire," Hiccup said.  Not for the first time, he considered the lack of news there.  Several of the merchants were _from_ the Empire, and they hadn't heard of a Norseman arriving with a dragon… but they'd left late last summer, so they might have left before Snotlout had arrived. 

He hoped so, but he was still worried for his kinsman, and his dragon.

Dagur, on the other hand, laughed.  "Oh, you sent him into exile!  Well, it's not as _permanent_ a solution, but it works!  Nicely done!"

Hiccup scowled.  "He left of his own accord," he said testily. 

Dagur chuckled.  "Of _course_ he did!  I believe you!  And here I didn't think you had it in you!"  He sobered suddenly and said in a very dangerous voice, "But you need to watch out.  Right now all of your people follow you because of what you've done.  But don't think that'll last forever.  I heard the debates in the village over the last week.  They want control, and if you don't give it to them, they'll _take_ it."

Hiccup turned and looked at him.  "Is that a threat?"

"A warning."  Dagur leaned forward on the saddle.  "We both lead Norsemen.  They might be full now, but they'll grow hungry for war soon enough."  He leaned back and crossed his arms.  "Trust me.  Mine are _always_ hungry."

Hiccup narrowed his eyes.  "Right.  So, Dagur, up for something fun?"  He made a hand signal to Wulfhild, and she waved back, questioningly at first, and then when Hiccup made another motion, she shook her head and waved _No, No, No!_

"Sure!" Dagur said cheerfully, his earlier menace gone, and then he cocked his head.  "Uh, what is it?"

Hiccup reached over and unclipped both of their belaying lines.  "This," he said, and, nudging Toothless into a dive, rolled them both out of the saddle. 

Dagur screamed and flailed in fury and terror as they fell through the sky towards the sea far below, shouting threats of retaliation, but Hiccup waved to him, as did Toothless.  He continued to flail, and drifted away from the pair of them, and, with a sigh, Hiccup and Toothless maneuvered after him so that he'd stay within reach.  Hiccup called out, "Hey, stop flailing!  Try to keep yourself straight!  Or it'll be harder to catch you!"

Dagur seemed to pause, and his torrent of profanity and threats cut off for a moment before he tried to correct his spinning.  But he wasn't getting the hang of it. 

"Toothless, help him!" Hiccup called, and, with a huff, Toothless drifted over, caught and righted Dagur, orienting him so that he'd fall correctly, and then backing off with a ripple of his wings.  Dagur, no longer flailing out of control, looked up at Hiccup, and copied his motions, and gave a shout of exhilaration. 

Behind and above them, Hiccup could see and hear Wulfhild and Mistletoe screeching in a dive.  Hiccup could picture her expression—both she and Astrid _hated_ when he did this, and he was so very much going to pay for it later.  But for the moment, he enjoyed the feeling of flying through the air unassisted, and laughed as Toothless poked him in the shoulder and made him spin. 

A few feet away, Dagur was holding himself taut and straight like an arrow and cheering in exhilaration.  "This is amazing!" 

"I know, right!?" Hiccup bellowed back, and glanced 'up' at the rapidly approaching waves and, based on his growing experience with sky-diving, made a quick estimate before he called over to Dagur, "And angle yourself towards me, all right?  Unless you want to practice your _really_ high dives!"

Dagur looked 'up' and blinked, and then wordlessly shifted to point himself at Hiccup and Toothless.  They clipped themselves back into the saddle and Toothless spread his wings to brake, and Dagur held on tight as they decelerated back to a more normal speed. 

At least _this_ time they were well free of the sea stacks, and came back to cruising at hundreds of feet above the water's surface.

Dagur glanced down over the side.  "Hey, look, there's lots to go before we hit the water!  We didn't need to stop that soon!"

Hiccup and Toothless laughed and they banked to turn back towards Berk.

A few moments later, Wulfhild and Mistletoe caught up.  "HICCUP!" she bellowed.

Dagur snorted.  "In trouble with the missus?" he commented from behind Hiccup.

Hiccup shrugged cheerfully.  "Wulfhild, look, we're fine and we stopped well above the waves!"

She glared at him.  "You didn't even bring your wingsuit!"

"Yes I did!  But Dagur didn't have one, and letting him go splash wouldn't have looked good!"

Wulfhild gave him an unamused, narrow-eyed glare, and Hiccup just grinned, unrepentant, before he turned to his passenger.  "So, Mormaer Murchadh, does this count as sufficient repayment?"

Dagur blinked and grinned.  "If I say no, can we do it again?"

Wulfhild huffed, exasperated. 

One round of skydiving later, with Wulfhild giving Hiccup a look that communicated quite clearly the depth of her irritation, they headed back to Berk.  She _really_ didn't like Hiccup's enjoyment of skydives, and Hiccup knew that he'd have to apologize tonight for scaring her.  Thankfully, with her sore joints from the pregnancy, a nice massage with some of the scented oil he'd bought from one of the merchants would likely be sufficient.  He'd gotten it the day after Thawfest, and had twice reduced both Wulfhild and Astrid to happy moaning puddles lying bonelessly on the mattress since then. 

As they approached Berk and the usual cloud of dragons flying around it, Hiccup spotted another dragon riding double and waved.

Cami and that red-haired Alban girl—Merida, if Hiccup recalled correctly—waved back.  Dagur tensed behind him, but didn't say anything more until they landed. 

"So," he said casually, stretching out his arms behind his back, the fingers interlaced and the joints popping, "you said the Bog girl got a dragon because she's got a blood tie to the tribe?"

Hiccup nodded, knowing where this was going.  "But that's currently under discussion, and all training of new riders is suspended for the moment," he said, for the first time grateful to Bladewit for that stipulation. 

Dagur nodded, clearly thinking. 

And then, without warning, he spun on his heel and shot out one hand to grab Hiccup by the throat.

There was just enough time for Wulfhild to cry out in shock, for Toothless to rear up and bare his teeth, for Hiccup to see Dagur glaring into his face with every sign of murderous rage—and then Dagur released his grip and gave a gentle shove, moving away laughing.  Not even a malicious laugh, but what sounded for all the world like honest friendly amusement. 

"Wasn't really going to hurt you."  He beamed.  "Just a little scare, right?  Now we're even."  And he turned and started to amble off, seemingly entirely unconcerned.

Hiccup said cautiously, "Well, I guess then, uh, we'll see you later!" _Or not, I hope._

As he and Wulfhild and their dragons walked up towards the chief's hut, Wulfhild said quietly, "Is it wrong of me to consider pointing him at Twiglet, after how she harassed Heather?"

Hiccup winced at that image.  "Probably." 

* * *

**_AN:_ **  
_AHH I’M 33!  Have a double-length chapter for my birthday!_

_Two notes:_

_I made a research error that has been corrected; Prince Mor should be Princess Mor, and the details from last chapter have been edited to correct this. A thank you to Quetzelcoatl for spotting that error!_

_Second, because I legit forgot to mention it last week, and I owe her an apology for it, I want to give a big thank you to wikelia/astridthevalkyrie for the proper Arabic name for Oleander._

_Third,_ ThisIsNotBerk  _ _drew fanart of Hiccwulfstrid (acceptable OT3 name?) at Thawfest and shared it last night for my birthday!  Aaaaaah!  *runs in circles, screams and shouts in excitement*  I've linked it over on the Appendix.__


	60. A Threat Perceived

**Chapter 60: A Threat Perceived**

_It is better to live | than to lie a corpse,_  
_The live man catches the cow,_  
_I saw flames rise | for the rich man's pyre,  
_ _And before his door he lay dead_

_The lame rides a horse, | the handless is a herdsman,_  
_The deaf in battle is bold,_  
_The blind man is better | than the one that is burned,  
_ _No good can come of a corpse._

_-Stanzas 70 and 71 of the Hávamál_

_One factor that has been cited as the reason for the success of the Norse Reformation is, oddly, the acceptance of non-Norse into their society.  Part of the theological basis of this were these words from Odin's own lips on proper conduct and wisdom, which served as a reminder that no man or woman was unwanted or unneeded._

_These stanzas were often repeated and interpreted in a light of acceptance and brotherhood among those that were different, as "man rejoices in man."  Further, those defending this perspective of integration and acceptance found fit fodder in the sagas of the gods and their lives, which are full to bursting with the sorts of behavior that were rejected by those who did not accept difference.  Tyr was missing a hand, and had two fathers.  Loki was fluid in form and concept, being both male and female at times and places.  Thor was prone to dangerous rage.  Odin was missing an eye, lay with men, and swore blood-brotherhood with a stranger. Hödur was blind.  Freyr gave up his weapon for the love of a jotunn woman._

_Furthermore, on the topic of general egalitarianism, it is worth noting that this acceptance was not reserved solely for men.  The Aesir respected Skadi's claim of having been wronged by them for the death of her father, and Freyja earned the respect of all, claiming half of those who died in honor for her hall._

_And for those whom the gods did not set a sufficient example, among mortal men, Hiccup the Wise was missing a foot, and his father, Stoick the Lawgiver, was missing an eye and a hand, and both of them sought to reach out and include others, and attempted to act with kindness and respect to those not of their own people.  And while they were the leaders and would have received more acceptance from their followers simply due to that position and the social deference that came with it, it should be noted that Stoick's best friend from childhood preferred men and was missing two limbs, and his personal aide was a woman of a different faith who chose to never marry, and Hiccup's inclusion of others is literally proverbial._

_This acceptance of those who were different, who were strangers, who were outsiders, gave the Reformed Norse a strength in diversity that stood them well, especially in those early years…_

_—The Second Flowering Of Yggdrasil: An Analysis Of The Norse Resurgence, 1710_

**_Bog Burglar Visitor Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

**_April, AD 1042_ **

****

The sound of drunken singing came in through the shuttered windows, but two sets of breathing were the only sounds being produced within the confines of Cami's private bedroom—the primary privilege of rank she had, in the crowded spaces of the island at the moment.  Even with more than half of the guests who had shown for the festival gone, the island was still packed. 

And they had made use of that privilege _extensively_ , this afternoon.

Cami rolled over in the furs and tried to think.

First off, she was _reasonably_ sure that what had just happened was, in no way, a violation of hospitality.  A violation of good manners, perhaps, in seducing one of the other guests, but that was all.

Cami eyed the discarded dress on the floor and grimaced slightly.

Nope.  Not a violation of hospitality.  Just a political mess waiting to happen.  Of course, it helped that she wasn't a _man._   That would have been much more fraught. 

Cami slumped, and then turned to look at the other figure in the bed.  Unbidden, a fond smile crossed her face and she ran her fingers through the messy, curly red hair.

"Camilla?" came the sleepy yawn. 

"I'm here," Cami nodded, and Merida rolled over.  Giving Cami a hesitant kiss, Merida sat up, making the furs slip off her bare form.  

The kiss deepened, and Cami inhaled Merida's sweet scent and cupped her cheek.  The two rolled in the bed, Cami half-consciously guiding Merida's more clumsy movements with her other hand.

It had been a week since the festival, and the two of them had been inseparable.  Her parents had encouraged the friendship, looking at Cami's close ties to the Hooligans.

But they hadn't encouraged _this._

The two of them moved together, each of them clinging to the other, Merida copying Cami's actions with a hesitant, shy smile and a will to learn. 

Some time later, they were again sprawled intertwined on Cami's bed, Merida dozing lightly and using Cami's bicep as a pillow.  Cami looked at her new lover and slowly ran her fingers through the red curls, her heart feeling like it was going to burst in her chest.  Tomorrow.  Not even tomorrow, because Merida would have to return to her parents' quarters soon.  But they'd be leaving tomorrow. 

And that was one of the biggest problems.  Cami would be heading back to her village soon, along with the rest of her people, and they wouldn't see each other again for months…

She swallowed.  The thought of the elder Dunbrochs marrying Merida off—and of Cami not finding out for weeks or even months—scared her.  She nuzzled the top of Merida's head and inhaled her scent.  Because, she'd realized by now, that infatuation was over.  She was in _love_ now. 

And she only could hope that it was mutual.  But they hadn't talked about it.  They'd just come here after the noon meal to talk and had instead ended up in bed together for the first time.

Bracing herself, she sighed and gently shook Merida awake.  "Hey."

Merida blinked and yawned.  "Hey yourself.  Time for me to go?"

Cami shook her head.  "But… but I want to talk with you first."

"About?" Merida asked, sitting up and looking a little tense.

"Us."  Cami took a deep breath and was about to speak when suddenly the front door opened up and a voice issued forth that made icicles of pure fear _run_ down Cami's spine. 

"Merida!" Elinor's voice called out.

They looked at each other and _dove_ out of bed, scrambling for their clothes. 

"Merida!" Elinor called out.  "Where are you?"

Cami found her undergarments—hopelessly tangled in her leggings, and one of Merida's boots.  She tossed the latter to Merida, and it landed with a _thump._

"Merida!" Elinor's voice called up the stairs a moment later.  "Answer me!"

Merida was trying to haul on her dress, but the sleeves were tangled—

They shared a look of horror as the sound of Elinor's footsteps on the stairs sounded, and Cami bolted for the door. 

There was a polite but firm knock at the door.  "I can hear you in there!  Merida!  Come on now, it's time for dinner, and we'll be saying formal goodbyes to the chief!" 

Cami dared a glance; Merida was frantically trying to untangle her dress, and… it wasn't going well.

"Merida!" The door opened and Cami pressed herself again it before it opened more than an inch, and shoved her face over to the door. 

"Hi!  Just a minute!"

"Camilla?" Elinor asked, surprised into dropping her usual formality.  "Why didn't you answer me?"

"Uh…"

Elinor's eyes tracked down and widened.  "And why are you naked?  What's going on!?  _Where is my daughter!?"_   With that sudden anger in her voice, she shoved the door open with surprising strength, and sent Cami sprawling. 

Elinor marched into the room, right above Cami, and froze. 

Her heart sinking to somewhere around her feet, Cami tracked upwards, following Elinor's gaze, to see Merida holding the rumpled dress in front of her to cover herself.

"Mum, I can explain," Merida said frantically.

" _Explain!?_ You… you… Merida, do you realize what you've done!?" Elinor started to shout, only for Cami to pull herself to her feet and draw her attention.  "And you!  Is this why you were so friendly with her?  So that you could seduce her to your ways?"

Cami stared Elinor in the eyes and said as directly as she could, "What 'ways'?  No, I was tryin' to be a friend—at least at first!"

Elinor looked her over.  "You're as naked as a wee babe.  I'd say we're _well_ past 'at first'!" she said bitingly. 

"Mum!  You told me to make friends with her!  'She's close to the dragon-tribe'!  Remember!?" Merida fired back.

"I said _friends!_   Not _fornicate!"_

Cami snorted.  "At least I'm not a man, so you don't have to worry about her gettin' with child.  Isn't that the real reason for that rule?"

"That and keeping herself pure for marriage!" Elinor yelled.  "We're not heathens like you!  These sorts of things matter!   You've put our entire holding at risk!  Do you have any idea what this will do to her marriage prospects!?  She can't dally with you!  She'll be ruined!  No man of any worth will marry her—"

"Then I will!" Cami interrupted, crossing her arms.

Elinor ground to a halt, and Cami heard a noise like a cross between a gasp and a cat being stepped on from Merida's direction.

"What!?  You… women can't marry _women!_ "

Cami stared the woman who would hopefully be her future mother-in-law in the eye as she leaned against the footboard of the bed with her bare rear touching the wood, unfolded her arms so as not to seem defensive, and braced them against the wood before saying, "In _Bog,_ they can."

"Well, we're not _in_ Bog!" Elinor said caustically.

" _AND_ , by virtue of long-standin' treaties between the Bog Burglars and Hairy Hooligans of Berk… _here_ they can!" Cami said, and glanced over at Merida. 

Her lover was staring at her, slack-jawed, the dress dangling limply from one hand. 

Hoping that she hadn't just forever destroyed any chance of actually following through on what she'd just… well, _proposed,_ Cami turned back to face Elinor.  "You told her to be friends with me because of the Hooligans?  Well, how about that instead?"

Elinor's eyes had gone wide, and then they narrowed.  "You're…"

"Lyin'?  Oh, sure I do a fair bit of that, but how _stupid_ would I have to be to lie when you can ask anybody in the village right outside for the truth!?" Cami rebutted.  "No, women can marry women, and men can marry men here, and for heirs, they take concubines—of either sex!—and if you don't believe me, I'll introduce you to my cousin Nanna, who is married to another woman, and who has a man for a concubine!  Their house is a short walk from here!"

Elinor blinked and her chin set.  She was clearly thinking, and Cami glanced over at Merida, who was pulling the dress on haphazardly.  Apologetically, she said, "This is what I wanted to tell you before…  and I'm sorry I sprung it on you."

Merida smiled and looked down.  "I… uh… well… this is a surprise."

Cami smiled painfully.  "Aye.  So… love," she said, using the endearment for the first time, "it's up to you.  You…" her voice caught in her throat and she had to swallow to clear it, "You say no… and that's it.  I don't want to trap you in this.  I'll swear up and down that we're only friends, that you're a pure virgin, that—"

Merida took two steps towards her and pulled her into a kiss—right in front of her mother, who made a noise that Cami had never heard before and couldn't be bothered to classify.

Merida broke it after a moment, and said, "Mum?  Which would you rather have?  Me be a queen to a simpleton like Lulach?  Or a lady to a monster like Dagur?  Or a…" she glanced to Cami questioningly.

Cami found her voice after a moment and supplied, "Chieftess…" in a breathy voice, barely able to dare hope.

"Or a chieftess with a blood tie to _this place?_ "

Elinor inhaled sharply and nodded before turning to Cami.  "Get dressed.  We're going to go talk with my husband."

###

**_Saint Olaf's Hospital,_ ** **_Nidaros_ ** **_, Norway_ **

 

"…and we'll plant the sage here, the nettle here, the yarrow here and the elderberry over there," Svanhildr said to Ruffnut, who nodded.  They and a number of the staff from the hospital were hard at work as they plotted out the physic garden of medicinal plants and herbs.  They'd acquired the plot of land behind the hospital on the outskirts of the city, and were planning on putting every square foot of the several acres to use.  Svanhildr had compiled a list of over a hundred plants that she and the other herbalists wanted to cultivate for the hospital, and already samples were arriving from the personal gardens of the healers across Norway.  A small forest of stakes and string were laying out the pathways and beds of the future garden, and there was a cheerful air of excitement.  Spring was here, the air was warming, the sky was brightening, and the queen was waddling with the new heir in her belly.

Ruffnut was restraining herself from ripping off any heads, but the _litany_ of congratulations from _everybody_ , including most of the population of the city who had come by at some point or other to watch the garden being laid out, was rapidly growing tiresome—almost as tiresome as the baby herself. 

At just over seven months along, Ruffnut was of the opinion that she looked as if she had taken an inflated pig's bladder and shoved it under her maternity smock, and _felt_ like she had filled that bladder with water.  Or maybe wriggling eels.  The baby would _not_ stop moving, and Ruffnut hadn't slept through the night in over a month without some tiny foot or fist hitting her someplace tender. 

At first, she had loved it when she could feel the baby moving. 

Now she just wished that her daughter would give it a _rest._

Magnus, of course, was still firmly of the opinion that it was a boy, and, demonstrating just how much she loved her husband, she hadn't inflicted any serious injury on him yet. 

A sudden cry of excitement came from nearby as Ruffnut and her people were planting bearberry bushes.  She looked, and saw people pointing into the sky, and followed the line.

And grinned.  A dragon was flying in. 

Mail was coming.

"We'll break soon for an early luncheon," Ruffnut said, and shared a look with Svanhildr.  "I'm sure there'll be messages in there for me."

"Aye milady!" her people chorused, and set to work with a will. 

Isak arrived a little while later, panting and, she'd guess, having just run flat out from the fortress.  "Milady Ruffnut, the king… the mail…" he panted out.

She grinned and reached out to tousle his hair.  "Thanks, Isak.  Walk back with me?"

He panted, bent over with his hands on his knees, and nodded.  "Of course, milady."

She looked around at all of the workers.  "Go, have lunch, and I'll be back soon!"

A chorus of acknowledgments came, and she, Isak and her thanes walked slowly up the hill back to the fort. 

As soon as she was recovered after the baby came, Ruffnut swore to herself that she'd go flying for a whole afternoon and take a ten mile run, just because she _could._  

Magnus was waiting by the doors to the fort, and as he saw them approaching, he ran out to meet them. 

Grinning, she pulled him into a hug the instant he reached them, and gave him a kiss.  Irritated at his easy mobility or not, there was still no question that he made her feel safe and secure. 

Breaking the kiss, she asked, "So, any news?"

He grinned from ear to ear, his eyes lighting up.  "Oh, yes."

When he didn't say any more, she elbowed him lightly in the stomach.  "Annnnd?"

"Well, your parents say hello, there's a letter to you from them, and another one from Hiccup, Astrid and Wulf, and…" his grin widened, "I'm going to be an uncle."

Ruffnut blinked.  "Wait, Wulfhild is pregnant?"

"Yep.  _And_ Astrid."  Magnus rubbed his hands together in glee.  "And given their letters to me, I think they worked things out between them fairly well."

"How well?" Ruff asked, giving him an amused look.

Magnus waggled his eyebrows.  "Well, they've been sharing a bed with the three of them since midwinter…"

Ruffnut barked a laugh.  "Sounds crowded!"

"Indeed!" Magnus echoed, but then he sobered.  "And… after all of that… all of the arguing, and the threats from…" his eyes darted towards the fort—Einar's fort, "and all of that, I'm so _happy_ that Wulfhild found a place where she's happy with two people she loves."

"Said that, did she?" Ruffnut asked as they approached the door.

"More or less in as many words, yes.  And Hiccup, and Astrid.  None of them came out and _said_ it… but, well, I dare you to read those letters and _not_ come to the same conclusion," he said as they entered the fort, nodding to the door guards as they passed through the main gate. 

"I'll take that challenge," Ruffnut said cheerfully.  "It'll be nice to read something from those two about how happy they are _now_ , before Astrid finds out that she can't fly, run or do anything physical for months."

Magnus tried, with great effort, not to laugh, screwing his lips together and the skin around his eyes crinkled. 

So Ruffnut helped and poked him in the belly.

The laughter burst forth as a great guffaw that ebbed to a chortle. 

As he finished chuckling, she smirked.  "So, anything else?  How was their Sigurblót?"

Magnus raised his eyebrows and exhaled pointedly.  "Aside from one incident with a hospitality breaker, apparently quite good… and impressive.  Over three _thousand_ visitors."

Ruffnut stopped dead in her tracks and turned.  "You're joking."

He shook his head.  "Nope.  Wulfhild gave me the full list.  It's awe-inspiring.  Visitors from as far away as the Roman Empire!"

Ruffnut was staring at Magnus, only for Isak to make a questioning noise, so she turned to look at him—and he shrank back as Magnus did the same.

"What is it, lad?" Magnus asked kindly.

"But… but I thought that we traded with the Romans all the time!" he asked.  "What's so impressive about them going to Berk?"

"Well, lad," Magnus said, kneeling down to look Isak in the eye, "It's always us going to the Romans.  They think they're too good to come see us up here in the cold North.  So if they made the trip to Berk, it's a tremendous sign of respect to our allies.  And they're in the east, like us, and Berk is in the west.  So not only did they come all the way north, they also traveled the whole distance west to get there, and that's a major voyage."

Isak grinned.  "Thank you, sire.  That makes sense."

Magnus smiled back, and Ruffnut saw fond and affectionate smiles on a number of the thanes and other staff around them at the interaction between her young personal aide—which was what Isak had become by this point—and the king.  The lad had become something of a mascot, and was well liked by the staff.

They continued on their way and reached Magnus' office.  As he poked through the mailbag, she settled herself down into the cushioned chair that had been set aside for her.  Another month, though, and she wouldn't be able to get out of it without help. 

Magnus handed her a piece of paper and she unrolled it without thinking—and then paused.  "Not parchment?"

Magnus shook his head.  "Apparently they got in a large shipment from those visiting merchants."

Ruffnut shook her head, amused, and started to read.  She was almost done with her parents' letter—written in charcoal so that it could be erased and the paper reused—when the office door opened and Yngvarr came in. 

"I heard that there's news from Berk?"

"Ayep," Magnus said.  "And most of it good!"

Ruffnut looked up from the letter.  "There was a poisoner who tried to kill a visiting noble, and almost got Astrid," she said pointedly.  "And then there was a whole thing with some visiting Eirish, and I missed seeing Cami, and one of the Hoffersons tried to kill Heather."  She scowled.  "Lots of good things, but those were pretty bad."

Yngvarr winced.

Magnus added, "But things are working out with Wulfhild, Hiccup and Astrid, at least."

Ruffnut saw Yngvarr blink and his face seemed to set a little.  "Working out _how,_ sire?"

"Wulfhild is expecting, as is Astrid," Magnus reported cheerfully.

While it was subtle, Ruffnut didn't miss that Yngvarr's eyes widened slightly, and his nose twitched.  "I see."

She wondered what was going on there—but it apparently had to do something with Wulfhild's concubinage. 

Rather than confront him—she knew that Yngvarr would be able to dance away from the conversation in a heartbeat, and she had no chance of controlling it—she said lightly, "I'll be sure to tell them all the horror stories—and give you a chance to set up a betting pool for them as well."

Yngvarr just gave her an innocent look.  "Betting pool, milady?"

She just stared at him, deadpan.  Unlike whatever it was with Wulfhild, _this_ she knew about, from at least three different sources.

Yngvarr shifted uncomfortably until he cracked under her glare.  "Well, there _might_ have been a slight wager…"

"Or ten," she said tartly.  "Or a spread on dates and gender."

Magnus snorted and looked at his herald.  "I warned you."

"Sire…" Yngvarr said in a disapproving tone.

"Oh, I swear she didn't hear about it from me."

Ruffnut just gave both men a glare.  "Yngvarr."

"Yes, milady?"

"I want ten percent of that pool to go to the orphanage and hospital."

He bowed.  "It will be done, milady."

"Good.  Also, you can tell the cooks that we'll be having dinner in our rooms and that they should knock first."  She slung an arm around Magnus's shoulders, who looked amused at being claimed in such a fashion.

Yngvarr grinned.  "Of course, milady."

The happy moment was interrupted by the door opening again.  "Ah, Lady Ruffnut, there you are.  Sire.  Jarl," Einar said as he came in without knocking or asking for permission.  He held aloft another piece of parchment.  "Ma'am, just a quick moment—"

"What is it _this_ time, Jarl Einar?" she asked, exasperated.  He seemed to be trying to use her pregnancy to push her even further into irritation—and it was working.  She held onto her temper by a slim margin. 

"Oh, just a proposal for Lord Hiccup's Dragon Mail that one of my people suggested," he said cheerfully.  "I assumed that you wanted to know about it, but I could easily just handle it…"

Her face set in a flat look, she held out her hand, and with a cheerful smile, Einar put the parchment into her hand.

Then her eyebrow rose and she motioned Magnus over.  "What do you think?"

Magnus leaned down over her shoulder and looked at the parchment.  "Huh.  That's actually rather clever.  But there are some problems with it that I can immediately see—resupply, for example."

Ruffnut sighed, but looked up at Einar, who was standing off to the side, looking distinctly smug.  "Thank you, Jarl Einar," she said, and the words tasted sour on her lips, "for this idea.  We'll pass it along to Hiccup as soon as we send the mail out."

Einar grinned, and there was a bit of a mocking edge to it as he bowed and said, "I live to serve." 

###

**_Mead Hall, Isle Of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

 

Fintan, holding his breakfast tray, listened to the Hooligans sing songs and tell tales of their gods in their stone mead hall as they ate.  The last few weeks since he'd arrived on Berk had been some of the hardest labor of his life, and he had enjoyed every moment of it. 

He'd exchanged his food chits for a bowl of porridge with vegetables, a small loaf of bread, a small bowl of fresh butter, a boiled egg, a tankard of whey, and an even smaller bowl of mashed apples cooked in honey to spread on his bread.  He'd gotten nearly the last of it, and was looking forward to savoring every bite.  But he'd gotten drawn into the tale being told as he'd waited in line for the food, and had moved nearby so that he could continue to listen with a glad heart as the skald, Chestnut, sang the tale of Thor and Loki having to sneak into the hall of the giants to retrieve his stolen hammer, Thor in a dress to impersonate Freyja.  The bards of Fintan's home sang similar tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and, aside from not knowing the tales… it felt much like home when he'd been a free child, and not an enslaved adult, listening to the stories told and feeling at peace, surrounded by those who would protect him and who treated him well. 

He'd never dared to dream that he'd find such a peaceful place again in his life. 

As the tale ended, he saw a group wave him over.  They were sitting at one of the trestle-tables, surrounded by dragons.  Curious, he made his way over. 

"Hello there!  Come, sit with us!  You're Fintan, right?" said one of them, a woman about his age. 

"Aye…" Fintan said cautiously.  "And you all are…?"

"Oh, "I'm Una nic Colman, I work in the leather shop, this is Murchadh mac Flannchadh, he's in the smithy, that's Maire nic Asgierr, she's a weaver, that's Oisin mac Eoghan, one of the masons, and that's Maghnus, one of the brewers," she said. 

Fintan did his best to commit it all to memory, and politely didn't inquire after Maghnus' lack of a patronymic.  That wouldn't have a happy explanation.  "So… why'd you call me over?" he asked instead. 

"Well, you're the subject of a bit of gossip," Oisin said, in between eating a bread roll with large bites. 

Murchadh patted the bench next to him, and Fintan politely sat down next to him with a tired huff, his plate making a thud on the wood of the table, as a Nadder snacked on something that smelled of marjoram and garlic behind the smith.  "But first, how goes it?" he asked.

Fintan shrugged.  "I think there might be a spot behind my right knee that isn't stiff and sore, but I'm not willing to test it," he said with a wry smile.

"Aye, I hear that," Murchadh said, taking a hungry bite of his loaf of bread.  "Lots of work to do."

Maire the weaver pointed her spoon at Fintan—and her own dragon, which was a breed that Fintan didn't recognize, curled up and around her shoulder.  It then vanished, making Fintan blink.  "So, I hear Hiccup has taken a liking to you," Maire said with a smile.  "What did you do?"

Fintan shrugged sheepishly, still looking for the disappeared dragon.  "I… uh… when he came to Vedrarfjord back during the winter… well, all of the freedmen in the city, or near enough, came to see him… and I may have… purely caught up in the moment, you see… have gotten the whole crowd to… um…" he blushed.  "Well, we all called ourselves his friends and took oath to him."

They all looked at him, surprised.  Then the dragon reappeared next to Maire, a light blue-green in color, and disappeared again.  This time, Fintan could still see its shadow, though.  Apparently the person-sized dragon could make itself change color…?

"And he likes you for this?" Maghnus the brewer asked tartly.  "Here I thought that the boy wasn't a glory-seeker."

Fintan shook his head and started to cut his bread roll in preparation to buttering it.  Steam issued from the warm roll as his knife sliced into it.  "No, no, he was _horribly_ embarrassed about the whole thing.  No, why he thinks I'm his friend, I don't know, but he came to my rescue—"

"From your old owner, yeah, we heard.  Everyone's been talking about it," Maire said with a nod.  "That's the gossip we're wondering about."

"So I have no idea why he considers me a friend," Fintan said, buttering the roll.  "But I'm grateful.  The first time… I was just a face in a crowd.  But the next…?" he shrugged.  "He didn't have to do that.  I embarrassed him.  But he came to my rescue, personally, and told off the man who wanted to take my thrall price out of my hide… and…" he leaned in, "he is planning on paying my old master a visit."

The others at the table looked at each other and appreciative grins started to spread. 

"Given what he did to _our_ old owner," Murchadh said, "that sounds like it will be entertaining."

"Wait, _your_ old owner?" Fintan asked, surprised—and spotting the fading collar calluses at last.

"Ayep.  We're all freedmen from Vedrarfjord, sent over as tribute last summer," Maire said cheerfully.  "Imagine our surprise when we get here and are told as soon as we step onto the island that we're free!"

"I… I can imagine.  I heard that from a passing bard, up in Fear Manach," Fintan said. 

"Aye, but then you got yourself to Vedrarfjord, right?" Oisin asked.

Fintan nodded.

"Yeah, we didn't have that time to think and hope and all that.  We went from being thralls one moment, to being freedmen the next when Chief Stoick tells us all that we're now _free,"_ Maire said with glee.  "Gave me an awful turn!  I was afraid he was one of those masters who like to play games!"

"He's not, though," Una said softly, and slightly wistfully.

Fintan glanced at her and carefully kept his face under control.  She was around his age, in her mid-twenties, and if she wasn't having romantic notions towards the chief, he'd eat his new hat.  Instead, he cracked open the hardboiled egg and sliced it to put on the bread roll. 

Maghnus the brewer scowled.  "Well, I know we're still not part of them, whatever they say."

"Oh, not this again," Maire said, turning back to her plate.

"Maghnus," Murchadh said patiently, "you turned down the chance to have a dragon already."

"That's not the issue and you know it," the brewer said hotly.  "Look at this last week, with the shedding!  None of us, even those of us with dragons," he motioned around the table, "were allowed anywhere _near_ the Rookery!  Instead, we got stuck with all of the scutwork—"

Maire interrupted him, pointing her spoon at him emphatically.  "Look.  They're not perfect.  But they all grew up with one another, Hiccup changed the whole world on them, what, three times now? And they're still trying to get their feet underneath themselves again.  So they're having trust issues.  Is that a big surprise?  No.  Are the Jorgensons being utter asses about the whole thing?  Yes."

"Aye, and the Ingermans aren't being much better, no matter how much Fishlegs tries to get behind and push," Murchadh said.

"It doesn't help that Heather _was_ a traitor and they're lovers now.  They all think he's wrapped around her finger," Maire said.

Maghnus slapped the table.  "That doesn't change the fact that they _don't trust us._   Despite all the high and noble words from Stoick, we're still a second caste here, like it or not!"

Maire glared at him.  "Don't you go and blame the chief for this!  You know he's dead set against the whole thing!"

"Then why hasn't he done anything?" the brewer shot back.

"Do you think he _hasn't_?"  She pointed around the room.  "We're here, we're freed, we're _paid,_ we still have our dragons that those of us who were _smart_ got before people started getting their dander up," Maghnus bristled at the cheap shot, but she kept going, "and there is _absolutely_ nothing keeping you here if you don't want to be, Maghnus."

Fintan shrugged and interjected.  "If you have any scales saved up, move off to Veisafjord or Vedrarfjord.  If you're getting paid anything like I am here, you'll have a solid nest egg to start something with if you've been here since the autumn."

"Nobody asked you," the brewer said petulantly. 

"No, but he's got a point," Maire said. 

"Why do you care?  You're being courted already," Maghnus said nastily to her.  "You've practically got your pick of men willing to tie you to the village."

She shrugged.  "I do.  But that doesn't matter here, because what _I_ do has nothing to do with what _you_ do," she said.  "You're the one who brought it up."

Maghnus scowled, picked up his plate, and walked off to another table.

Fintan watched him go.  "What's his problem?"

Oisin shrugged, his massive shoulders making the motion rather impressive.  "He didn't believe we'd be allowed to have dragons," he patted the head of his Gronckle, who was sitting behind him, "and then, when the whole deal with Heather came to light," they all looked around the table sharing glances with much more history than Fintan could understand, "the Jorgensons and a bunch of the others in the tribe started looking at outsiders with suspicion."

Fintan nodded.  "And that's why I've found so much work for me to do these past couple of weeks?"

"Aye.  It's a whole big argument going on right now; the village is short on hands, but half of them are running scared at the thought of someone stealing dragons for some other lord, and blocking anyone from being brought in to help."

"I noticed—but I'm here!" Fintan replied. 

"Because they need the hands, but they're trying to figure out a way to get the work done without you," Oisin said.  "I helped Hiccup and Fishlegs put together their new laundry last month, and _that_ place is already saving so much work.  So the ones that don't want outsiders here will happily ship you back to Eire as soon as Hiccup comes up with something else that makes you unneeded."

"And how does Hiccup feel about this?" Fintan asked. 

Maire shrugged and smirked.  "He runs and hides in his workshop if he can whenever it comes up, but when they corner him, he's very much against their attitude—he wants to bring everyone in he can, and thinks the ones against people like _us_ are being scared idiots."

"But he still comes up with ideas for new things that save on labor," Murchadh said pointedly at Maire.

"True," she acknowledged with a frown and a shrug.  "He actually came and gave me a visit the other day.  Wanted to see my spindles and my loom to see if he could design something faster, so I'm curious to see where that'll go."  She took a bite of her bread and said with her mouth full, "At least this vote is over soon.  But with some of the attitudes around here, I'm surprised he hasn't been challenged to a duel yet."

Oisin smirked.  "Because Astrid is waiting for someone stupid enough to challenge him.  I guess you missed it a few weeks back when one of the Ingermans was raising a ruckus over this whole thing, and she commented that it sounded like a challenge, and they backed down real quick."

Murchadh shrugged and set his own spoon down with a wooden clatter.  "Yeah, about that…"

"What?" Fintan asked, curious.

Murchadh scowled.  "This whole thing with women warriors… it's been most of a year now, and it _still_ feels unnatural to me."

Maire glared at him.  "What, because they're smart enough to recognize that we're capable of fighting too?"

Fintan kept his mouth shut.  Fintan felt wise.

Murchadh's scowl grew more aggressive.  "It just strikes me as unfair to women to make them fighters—"

"When the alternative is dying from dragons?" Oisin put in.  "They needed everyone to fight, Murchadh.  And they did very well, from everything I've heard."

Murchadh gave the younger man an inscrutable look.  "But that's not a threat anymore.  So why do they need to—"

"Keep proving ourselves to men like you?" Maire said acidly. 

The smith looked at her in turn, exasperated.  "Look, I'm not saying that you need to prove anything to me.  I just find it discomforting that women are expected to fight here.  They… _you_ shouldn't be exposed to the horrors of fighting."

Maire glared at him.  "So, instead we should be quiet and let the brave menfolk get slaughtered, while we get carried off as war-booty?  Oh, sure, that wasn't _my_ fate, but I saw it often enough.  Me, I just got sold because of my father's debts."  She scowled. 

Murchadh held up his hands.  "Sorry, but I'll stand by what I said.  I find it disturbing that Hiccup lets his wife fight his battles for him."

Oisin choked.  "You're kidding, right?  Or did you miss the English fleet whose arse he personally kicked?"

"He used his dragon to beat them!  That's different!"

Fintan interrupted.  "No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is!  Toothless did the fighting for him!"

"And they work together!  Besides, saying that he somehow cheated by fighting with his dragon, well…" Fintan waved his arms expansively, "How then is a sword not cheating?"

"What?"

"Well, by your argument, if you a sword to beat your enemy, then your sword does the fighting for you.  Are you suggesting that your entire calling has no purpose in making swords and armor, and that we should all just solve our fights with fists?"

Murchadh blinked and looked at him.  "Say again?"

"You smith," Fintan said, using small words.  "Smiths made swords, axes, arrowheads.  Why, if not count?"

Murchadh looked at him for a long moment and then said, "I'd at least expect the man to be able to fight using his own body."

"He did.  If I've heard the tales correctly, he was the only one to get in range of the bows of the English, too.  I mean, I'm _assuming_ that he'd have to get that close in order to capture the King right off of his own ship," Fintan said reasonably. 

Murchadh scowled at him.  "I'm just saying—"

"You're just saying that the man who you owe your freedom to, who we _all_ owe something to, you find effeminate, and you don't like how his wife can fight.  We get _that,_ " Fintan said mercilessly.  "But I don't see what business it is of yours if Lady Astrid can beat a man senseless—unless you're planning on saying that to her face.  In which case, please let me know, I want to start a betting pool first."

The smith scowled and stood.  "I have more of those mail satchels to make in the smithy," he said, and left.

Maire grinned at Fintan.  "Nicely done.  I mean, I wish he'd listened to _me_ at all, but that was fun to watch."

Fintan shrugged.  "I feel a little embarrassed, actually.  I got into so much trouble for that mouth of mine when I was…" he gestured to his throat. 

Oisin snickered.  "I can see why!"  He then sobered a bit and shrugged.  "Murchadh's not a bad man, though.  This just… isn't what he's used to, and he doesn't know how to settle himself."

Maire grimaced at Oisin and then sighed.  "I suppose there's some point to that.  But only _some._   Like it or not, he's here now, and dragging in that shite from outside here isn't welcome."

Oisin nodded.  "Oh, I love it here, no argument from me!"

Fintan nodded as well, emphatically.  "And what they're doing back in Eire…"

"What?"

"Amazing.  You're both from Vedrarfjord, right?"

They scowled and nodded.  "Aye," Oisin said, a sour look on his face.  "Not originally, but I spent a few years there."  Maire nodded in agreement.

"Well, the Hoffersons are completely changing the place.  It's amazing.  When I left, they were cleaning it up, building mills, giving people jobs…"  He grinned.  "Why they're doing it, I don't know, but I can't argue with the results."

"They're doing it," a thick accented voice said from behind him, "because that's what we do around here."

He turned around on the seat to see a solid wall of a man standing behind him.  He looked up into the chief's bushy beard. 

He looked back down.  "Lord Stoick—"

"No need to give me that," the chief said and looked down at him.  "Things going on well for you lot?"

The three of them nodded.  "Good, good.  So, Fintan, right?"

Fintan nodded. 

"Aye, so, you're wondering why they're building up the Eire towns?"

"Well… yes.  Most lords would just start taxing a place that they've taken over, not building it up," Fintan said to his chief, his lord's father, and the leader of the people whom, even at their worst, he still admired.

Stoick shrugged.  "I'm not most lords," he said mildly.  "Neither are the Hoffersons."  He smiled at them.  "I've heard these questions before, so I actually have an answer for you."

Fintan blinked.  "You have?"

"Aye."  Stoick sat down on the bench that Murchadh had vacated, apparently completely missing how Una was hanging on his every word.  "It's the Dragon War again."  He waved his arms around to encompass the island.  "We got raided… oh, two or three times a month, every month outside of winter.  We'd have a flock of dragons descend on us to steal everything they could, to feed the Green Death to keep themselves from being eaten."  He scowled.  "But we didn't know that.  We just had to spend every day trying to make as much extra food, figure out everything that we could in order to keep up with the losses from being raided.  So… we got very very used to building tools to help us build more tools, and helping each other build those tools and sharing each others' burdens and needs… so that we'd have a hope of surviving the next raid."  He shrugged eloquently.  "Habit's still there."

"So now what?" Fintan asked.

"Now?  Now I wipe thralldom off of your homeland, one bit at a time.  And we help you build tools, just like we helped ourselves build them."  He smiled softly at them.  "Because, as far as I'm concerned, as far as the _law_ is concerned, you're part of my tribe now.  And that means that you all have claim to the same obligations that anyone in my tribe can call on."

"You really mean that?" Maire asked him, eyes wide.  "I mean… I was pretty much given the loom and spindles… but…"

"Aye.  I did and I do.  Food, lodging, basic tools, teaching… you want more than the basics, you have to work for it… but I'll happily give you what you need to start with.  Because that's how we work," Stoick said evenly.

Fintan looked him in the eye, trying to find some hint of falsehood.  "Just like that?"

"Just like that.  So, Fintan… what is it that you want help getting started?" the chief asked.

"Your son's already promised to help me with that, milord," he said after a moment. 

Stoick smiled at him.  "Aye, he did.  Well, if you need help getting started with anything, let me know." 

He stood and made to leave.

"Wait!" Fintan suddenly said. 

"Yes?" the chief said.

"Tell me of your gods.  Is what you do… helping like this and working like this… is this what they command?" Fintan asked.

Stoick grinned and sat back down.  "For some… yes.  For others… well…"

Fintan listened eagerly as his lord spoke intently about his gods—and Una gave Fintan occasional grateful looks that amused him.

Stoick was midway through telling the tale about Thor wrestling with the jotunn when the big Alban lord approached, his face a bit gobsmacked.

"Excuse me, Stoick," he said politely.  "Can I have a moment of yer time?"

Stoick nodded, said, "Pardon me, Fintan." Fintan nodded, and Stoick turned to face the other man.  "Aye, Fergus, what is it?  Did you solve whatever it was that was delaying your departure?"

"Actually… that's what I'm here to ask yeh about," Fergus said cautiously.  "So… uh…"  He sheepishly rubbed at the back of his head.  "The Bog Burglars.  _How_ close allies are they?"

"We're bound to mutual defense, trade… I think my great-grandmother was one of them.  And I've known the chieftess since we were wee tots," Stoick said gamely.  "Why?  Did they give some offense?"

"Heh.  No.  Well… um…" Fergus took a deep breath and said, "The heiress… Camilla?"

"Aye…" Stoick asked as Fintan watched with increasing fascination. 

"She… oh, this feels _so_ strange… she asked for Merida's hand in marriage."

Fintan blinked. 

Stoick, in contrast, beamed and started to laugh uproariously.  "You're joking!"

Fergus shook his head slightly.

Stoick's laughter deepened.  "Ah hahaha!  Oh, congratulations and condolences!  Cami as yer daughter-in-law!  Hahahaha!"

People were looking at them—well, at the laughing chief. 

"So… what would that mean for our relationship with you?" Fergus asked. 

Stoick shrugged.  "Well, she's your heir, isn't she?"

Fergus shook his head.  "One of my sons is."  A glint of humor twinkled in his eye.  "Which one, I'm not sure."  Stoick snorted, and Fintan smirked.  The trio of wee devils had been making quite the reputation for themselves.   "But she's not my heir," Fergus said. 

Stoick shrugged.  "Well, I guess she'll be co-chieftess of the Bogs then."

"Who are yer allies," Fergus said in a questioning tone.

"Aye.  But she likes you, right?" Stoick teased, but then sobered.  "If you're asking if she'd get a dragon of her own, probably not.  But would she be able to call on us for aid on your behalf?"  Stoick reached out a hand.  "For a friend and for an ally of an ally… yes."

Fergus blinked and a grin grew across his face.  "Well, that settles that.  And… and she's so _happy._ "

Stoick grinned.  "Glad to hear it."  Then an eyebrow twitched.  "Actually…"

"What…?" Fergus asked cautiously.

Stoick gave a polite bow, his body language filled with good humor.  "Mormaer Fergus, while I know that you have much to discuss on this subject, and plot and plan and negotiate… given that the Bogs' own home is small and far, and my home is in the middle between you two, tell your family that I formally offer Berk as the place for the nuptials."

Fergus' eyes went round, and Fintan couldn't blame him.  Even without a formal treaty, that was as good as an endorsement of that alliance from Berk.  Fintan, meanwhile, was still trying to wrap his mind around the thought of two women marrying each other.

After a few more moments of polite pleasantries, Fergus walked off, looking stunned, and Stoick turned back to Fintan.  "Now, where were we?"

"Uh… milord Stoick… quick question…" he asked slightly numbly. 

"Aye, lad?"

"How does that _work?_ "

"Does what work?" Stoick asked, puzzled. 

"Two… two women marrying each other?"

Stoick shrugged those massive shoulders.  "In bed?  I have no idea, although judging by how satisfied those couples I've seen are, I'd say 'fairly well'."

Fintan gave a slightly desperate laugh, as Maire chortled. 

"No, I mean… how… inheritances and children and… all _that,"_ he asked.  "I'm… just… isn't being a noble or king all about having the children to carry on the line?"

Stoick grinned slightly lopsidedly.  "And that's the good question.  Aye, either they adopt, or take a concubine."

"But how will having another woman help them…?" Fintan asked slightly plaintively. 

Stoick grinned.  "Who said the concubine had to be a woman?"

Fintan's eyes went round.  "Oh," he said in a little voice as Una and Maire snickered behind him. 

Stoick glanced at them chidingly, and the two women were at least polite enough to hide their laughter behind their hands.

Stoick reached over and patted Fintan on the shoulder.  "Don't worry, you're not the first and definitely not the last newcomer to the tribe to be surprised by that.  But it's part of how we adopt people into the clans—not just through marriage, but through actual adoption and concubinage."  His eyes narrowed slightly.  "And that's one of the reasons why the argument about the new law says that restricting dragons to those in the clans isn't too onerous—because it's _not_ just marriage."

Fintan nodded weakly, the ramifications dancing through his head.  "I…I see."

Stoick grinned at him, and said, "You asked for tales of the gods?  Here, let me tell you a different one."  And with that, he settled in and started to tell Fintan of the story of the parentage of the god Tyr… from Odin and the jotunn lord Hymir. 

When he was finished, Fintan was a little stunned, but on the other hand, he'd already had the thought several times that the Norsemen's tales of their gods were not really that different than the stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the other tales his old master had told him during his long-ago apprenticeship.  Cúchulainn and Ferdiadh were _heavily_ implied to be lovers, to give one example…

He shook his head to clear it. 

"You all right there, lad?" Stoick asked.

Fintan nodded.  "Just… well.  Not the sort of thing I expected of Vikings."

Stoick chuckled.  "Aye, you're not the first to say that."  He scowled slightly.  "But, aye, if Odin did such, who are we to say that it is wrong?" 

"Something wrong?" Maire asked.

"Oh, just old wounds.  Not everyone agrees on that, even around here."  He stood.  "In the meanwhile, I have duties to attend to, as do the lot of you.  I'll happily tell tales later, or get Chestnut to tell them."

He stood, and Fintan bowed politely in his seat as the chief walked over to his steward and the pair of them were quickly discussing trade and food and supplies. 

Fintan put his elbow on the table and braced his cheek against his hand in thought.

"You all right there, Fintan?" Maire asked. 

Fintan glanced at her, and shook his head—and then resisted the urge to snort, as, next to her, Una was still giving Stoick a worshipful look from across the room.  But he replied anyway.  "I'm all right.  Just… this place is strange… but in a good way.  An _amazing_ way.  And who am I to question it?"

Oisin raised his tankard with a grin.  "I'll drink to that!"

###

**_Rural Farm near Ribe, Denmark_ **

 

"Papa, look!"

Jannick Krestensson, carl of Denmark, turned to see his middle son, Mark, pointing up into the sky.

He followed the boy's line and his eyes widened to see a dragon on the wing, two people on its back.  Even from this distance, the dragon was visibly tired, its wings flapping with minimal energy.  He followed them with his eyes as they tried to keep in the springtime clouds… but couldn't help but dip below them.  Finally, they coasted and started to drift towards one of the nearby woodlands.

He turned to his older sons and brothers and said, "Come!"

Grabbing stout tools, they set out after the dragon and its riders. 

Jannick wondered why they were here, but he did not have to wonder long, as the woods were not large, and he and his family knew them well.  There were only a few places where a dragon might set down when it was that tired, and they found them in the third meadow.  Spreading out, they cautiously emerged from the treeline around the perimeter of the meadow, and the pair of riders—looking tired, worn, and dirty—froze in the process of unloading the sacks tied to the saddle, and the dragon tensed.

"Stop!" Jannick called.

The pair looked around them, and the man spoke, "We don't mean you any harm!  We're just… just passing through!"

Jannick raised his ax… and then, holding it up where they could see it, he set it aside against a tree stump.  "We mean you no harm!  You are from Berk, yes?"

The man nodded slowly.  "Yes."

Jannick waved his brothers down.  "Then we owe you our lives and our freedom."

The young man—much younger than Jannick, perhaps at the age of his eldest—blinked in exhaustion.  "What do you mean?"

"Come, bring your woman and your dragon.  I offer you hospitality," Jannick said formally.

The man and woman both tensed.

"What is wrong?" he asked.

"The last one to offer us hospitality betrayed us to his lord, who took us as thralls," the man said.

Jannick scowled and spat.  "I would not do such a thing!  Not when I and my brothers have experienced Hooligan hospitality!  Not when we were fed and given medicine and our names were told to our family so that they would not wonder about our fates!  Not when we were flown home on the wings of dragons and freed without a ransom!  Not when a flock of more dragons helped us bring in the harvest so that we would not starve!  My family owes your tribe a debt, a debt four times over."  He nodded towards his three brothers, all of whom had thrown their tools aside and were approaching cautiously, afraid of startling the riders and their dragon into literal flight.  "We are not dead or thralls, and our farm is our own because of your chief and heir's mercy!"

The pair of them looked at each other, and Jannick, his honor and his obligations pricking him pointedly, tried to assure them.  "We mean you no harm!  But look at your poor dragon!  He is exhausted!"  And it was; while the beast was clearly trying to keep itself tensed for battle, its wings and tail kept drooping.  "Please, let us help you… as your people helped us!"

The pair looked at each other, and then slowly nodded.  Clearly expecting a sudden betrayal, they stepped forward and started to gather their things. 

Jannick walked up to them cautiously.  "Please, let me help… my guests."

They were tense—not that he could blame them, given what they'd said.  But he owed their people a debt of honor—several—and he remembered how he had been treated by them.  He and his brothers had come with the intent of destroying them… and he and his brothers had been plucked from the chill waters after their ship had burned… and brought home.  For nothing other than kindness and mercy, even to those that didn't deserve it.

Jannick would live up to their example on how to treat guests.

Gently cajoling them forward, he guided them back to his farm after sending his brothers on ahead for food—especially fish for the dragon, he remembered that much—and other preparations.

As the sun set that day, Jannick looked over the three of them as they huddled by the barn near his house, having refused to be shut inside.  The dragon was sleeping, and it looked much the worse for wear; Jannick could count its ribs, despite the meal of fish that it had eaten.  Meanwhile, the man was doing his best to remain awake and watchful as the woman settled down to sleep.  But he dropped off too, only a short while later, and Jannick covered him up with a sheet, tucking it under his chin. 

"You are my guests… and by my honor, I will treat you as such," Jannick muttered.

His youngest—whom he'd once believed that he'd never see again, when he'd been kneeling in the Hooligans' training pit, a seawater-soaked captive—came out to find him.

Returning to the house with his child, he found his wife, Gerda, waiting.  "How are they?" she asked.

"Scared.  Tired.  Hungry.  They haven't been treated well, wherever they've been," he replied.

She nodded.  "I sent word to the neighbors.  More food to feed the dragon will be here on the morrow or the day after."

He smiled softly and took her hands in his own, remembering the day he'd been returned to his farm, after having watched the world fly by underneath him in a wheelless cart, the clouds alongside, the waves far below.  She'd wept and embraced him, and told him that she hadn't believed that he'd be home—and then told him about the dragons that had come and helped harvest the food in the fields before it had rotted.

The food that they'd be feeding to their guests… had been harvested in part by their own people.

And Jannick was not the only one in the area that owed them a debt. 

The next morning, finding that they were still there, he took them to the bathhouse.  As they scrubbed the filth from their skin and hair, he asked if they were willing to give him their names.  If not, he'd understand. 

The pair of them shared another look, and then nodded.  And the girl spoke up.  "I'm Inga Roswynnsdoittor of the Bog Burglars, allied tribe to the Hooligans.  And this is… my betrothed, Dogsbreath Rolfsson clan Jorgenson, and his dragon Redsnout."

Jannick bowed and grinned.  "Betrothed, eh?  Let me offer you my congratulations.  And where were you bound?"

Dogsbreath looked him in the eye and said, "We're heading to the Roman Empire, where my cousin has taken service."

Jannick thought for a moment, and nodded.  "There are traders in Hedeby, on the other side of the peninsula, that go to the Empire, I know that much.  After you've recovered, perhaps go there to see if you can find a guide?"

They shared another look and nodded.  "Thank you."

###

**_Abbey Of Iona, Isle of Mull, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

 

Murchad mac Flainn ua Máel Sechlainn, Abbot of Iona, looked at the three parchments in front of him on his writing desk. 

Despite having read all three of them multiple times, he read each of them once again.

_Father Sechlainn,_

_I set myself about this evening into my night's prayers early, and was interrupted by a most insistent summons that I come outside as once. Argument took place upon our very doorstep, and I was fetched after our sanctuary, our place of worship, the home of the Most Heavenly Father, was threatened with fire from the belly of the demons which the devil worshipers to our east ride upon._

_They demanded that the woman with them, she who has obviously clasped the devil against her bosom, be allowed to enter this place of study and worship. To tempt the brothers within from their path.  As is right, the door warder turned them aside. When coercion worked not in their favor, they turned to threats, to burn the monastery to the ground.  The warder rushed to me, and I met them, face to face._

_Though they have the faces of a man and a woman, and their fire-spitting demons were left at distance, I could feel the touch of the Fallen One about them. But they are crafty, these tempters who ride upon the backs of demons. They promise much with their honeyed tongues; food for an empty belly, medicine for the sick, and building supplies to restore what has been lost in raids.  Their words, their deeds offer temptation, but it is a temptation I will not take.  For mine own soul, and the souls of those who reside here within, I will turn them away._

_I will turn them away, for I know not what hidden designs might be concealed within their proffered kindness.  Many forms take the honey-coated words from the serpent's tongue, to draw away the flock from the path of what is good and righteous._

_"All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me." I will not be tempted by the words of the Devil, no matter the mouths through which he speaks._

_—Abbot Berach, Carn tSóir Monastery_

With a sigh and a rub of his fingers against his temples, Murchad closed his eyes.  What was the truth here?  Berach's note?  He knew the man personally, as both of them came from the same _tuatha._  

But then there was the report from his own man that he'd sent to the heathens' festival.  He looked to the middle parchment.

_This isle is a place of wonder.  I saw a dragon with a leonine cast to its features literally lie down among a flock of sheep, which were unafraid of it.  It is a place of beauty, where even the meanest of their people lives in splendidly kept homes, and they rejoice in song and art.  I spoke with the chieftain, and for all of his fearsome appearance, he was gentle and understanding, extending his hand above and beyond the duty of hospitality.  I mentioned that Easter was upon us, and rather than dismissing the holy day as the practices of outsiders, he called upon the Christian princess of Norway who dwells among them—as the Hero's concubine, carrying his child, and yet he treats her with the love and respect due to a wife.  While their heathen ways allow for one man to cleave to more than one woman, against the strictures of the Lord, it was clear to me that there was genuine fondness between them. Furthermore, she corroborated my statement without hesitation or fear._

_What followed is something that I can only describe as a miracle.  In_ two days, _a chapel was sited and constructed for our use, made of stone and painted wood, with windows to shutter against the weather and space for eighty persons.  I watched as it was built, seeing dragons carrying in stones for the walls, and timbers for the roof… all while hundreds—_ thousands _—of others were pouring in and the heathens found themselves stretched to their limits in providing for those multitudes, and yet they made this for us.  The princess freely attended the consecration, a mark of their acceptance of our ways._

Dúnchad had also included a sketch of the chief and his family as they sat greeting their guests, and it made Murchad feel odd to look upon it, seeing dragons sitting as if they were dogs by the hearth.  The young monk—even younger than Murchad—had even volunteered to return to Berk as a missionary, and Murchad was giving serious consideration to approving his request. 

But the last parchment… it gave him pause. 

Abbot Crínán, of the Dunkeld abbey—one of the other great monastic houses of the Isles, Murchad's equal, and the Mormaer of Atholl in his own right—had sent him a message that worried him.

_By their fruits you shall know them, thus Spake the Lord._

_My friend, you know as well as I do that King Mac Bethad is a tyrant and kinslayer.  My grandsons live in hiding after the death of their father, and I have been forced by threats against my lands to stay quiet against this injustice, knowing that if I were to raise my banner and attempt to avenge my son, he would crush me in battle, and my strength of arms is not such that I would be able to claim victory._

_But by their fruits you shall know them.  And the Lord works in mysterious ways.  I do not think it a coincidence that only a month after Mac Bethad slew my son in battle, a new power rose—a_ just _power, tempered with kindness and wisdom.  They have given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, taken in strangers, clothed the naked and more.  I have even heard that the new Queen of Norway, who is one of them, has begun establishing a hospital to heal the sick.  I thus hope that my grandsons, living in exile, can be considered as living in prison, and thus merit their aid by that same accounting._

_But you, my friend, are closer, and have had more interactions with them.  I thus ask for your advice.  I plan on asking the Hooligans of Berk to back my grandson Malcolm, and restore him to the throne that was taken from him by the man who killed his father, in the interests of peace and justice.  For I know that they are heathens, but from what I have seen, they are filled with the spirit of the Lord and His teachings.  What advise you?_

Murchad held his face in his hands.  Crínán was over twice his age, and he was coming to _Murchad_ for advice?  It seemed more to him that it was a step to subtly enmesh him in Crínán's plot against his king. 

But if Crínán was attempting to subtly enmesh, Murchad felt little compunctions about subtly dodging. 

Taking out several pieces of parchment, he began composing his own reply—a very noncommittal one.  That was followed by a report he intended to send to Rome on the next supply run to Francia.  To that, he added a fair-copy of Berach's note… and a copy of Dúnchad's report from Berk.  For the moment, his plans were simple: he would send volunteers to missionize to the Hooligans and see if they could be brought within the fold of Christ.  But for the time being, he was not planning on taking further action.

 

###

**_Constantinople,_ ** **_Roman Empire_ **

 

The armorer came over to Sigurd and his friends, carrying a suit of armor that jangled slightly as he walked, and placed it on the arming stand. 

Sigurd looked it over with a critical eye, examining it inside and out.  It gave a pleasing jangle, at least.  It was based on the Roman _klivanion_ armor, with metal plates laced together in rows and circles to cover the chest, gut, back, shoulders, and upper arms, with a leather backing.  But this leather was freshly shed-and-cured dragon-hide.  Which, in theory, would make the wearer at least somewhat fireproof. 

He stripped down to his tunic, putting his leather jacket onto another arming stand and patting it gently for a moment.

Gudmund, leaning casually against a wall nearby, asked, "You all right there, Sigurd?"

"Yeah.  I'm just not looking forward to the next part of this test," he said honestly. 

Gunnar, standing behind the armor stand, winced.  "I can not find it in myself to blame you for that, my friend.  But come, you will be fine.  The coat is thick, and even if the armor is flawed, we will be able to get it off of you before you are badly burned."

Sigurd gave Gunnar a half-grateful look; his friend was a great voice of reason, and he was right.  He reached out for the thick quilted arming jacket, called a _kavadion,_ shrugged it on and tightened the ties as Gunnar and Gudmund helped.  This, at least, was familiar territory, as it was his own _kavadion,_ which he regularly wore under the normal heavy armor that was issued to each of the Varangians. 

With the _kavadion_ on, he looked at the new _klivanion_ armor and took a steeling breath.  He could do this.  It was just… anxiety-inducing.  When the dragons had started shedding weeks ago, the Roman Army had had a collective fit.  _Everybody_ had wanted some or _all_ of the scales and hide, and behind all of the meetings and polite yelling and people claiming precedence, it had seemed to Sigurd as being little more than a bunch of drunk Norsemen all claiming the honor of being the first to drink from the ale barrel when tapped.  But the Greek Fire units had wanted some to make armor for their fire-men, the infantry wanted some to make armor for their troops, even the paymasters wanted some to use as money…

Finally, for reasons that he still didn't understand, they'd worked things out.  The dragon-riders would have armor—like the set in front of him—made for each rider, with the remainder of the hide going to the infantry that would be acting in support of the dragons, in order to have armor made for them. 

And then someone had suggested that he, Sigurd, as the only person with an _existing_ set of dragon-hide armor, _test_ the Roman version to see if it was flawed in comparison with his jacket and trousers. 

And the best way to do that was put it on and let a dragon breathe fire at him.

As the weight of the new armor settled around his shoulders and Gudmund and Gunnar helped tighten the ties and close it up, he focused on breathing deeply and calmly.  He'd checked the leather backing, and it was all dragon-hide—and not replaced with cow-leather, as Thorred had worriedly suggested at dinner last night. 

The armor secured, Benjamin handed him the helm—made of iron and more dragon-leather with scales of iron sewn onto it, with each metal scale having a dragon-scale riveted to it—and Sigurd placed it on his head.  

It was time to give this a try. 

He walked out into the yard, his friends following him at a short distance.  Hookfang was dozing nearby in the springtime sun, his new scales glossy. 

Snotlout remembered a year ago, when he'd started shedding on the way back from Brycgstow, and how cranky and itchy he'd been.  He couldn't say that he'd seen seventeen winters—not with the paltry light chill that they called winter this far south—but his seventeenth natal day was in five weeks, if he'd figured correctly, and… well…

Hopefully he'd live to see it.

He waved to Hookfang, and instructed his best friend to breathe fire at him.  Hookfang cocked his head, but when Snotlout repeated his instruction, he obeyed, spitting out a light stream of fire at Sigurd, who braced for it. 

Heat washed over him, the fire clinging to the armor and burning.  He could feel the heat, but it was bearable.

The armor worked!

He waved to Hookfang to cease, and, still confused, his friend did so.  And he turned and gave a thumbs up.

And then his human friends were running over, stamping out the remaining guttering fire, cheering and backslapping him.

Their armors would be made next.  According to Jorn, they wouldn't be sent out again until those were completed—unless there was an emergency.

But for the moment, he didn't have to worry about them being burned by their own dragons. 

Small victories.

###

**_The Hatchery, Isle of Berk, Alban_ ** **_Hebrides_ **

****

Astrid watched with glee as the egg cracked open.  A small beak emerged, and the baby dragon gave a weak coo.  Reaching into the nest, her hands protected by fine gloves—babies or not, they'd learned last year that the hatchlings could give nasty nips—she gave the baby its first meal, a finely chopped herring, which quickly vanished.  It gave a stronger coo, and she stroked its head and crest with the tip of a finger, smiling—and giving a small sniffle.  All of the babies were giving her emotions a ride like her _very_ first on Toothless' back, and she'd had to fight back a few bouts of tears from her mood swings teaming up with the hatchlings over the last few days. 

The baby curled up in the remains of its egg and went to sleep, and Astrid moved on to the next little nest to check on the inhabitants.  They'd gotten most of the scale-lined stone pits finished in time, along with a tunnel to connect the Rookery undertunnels—now known as the Hatchery—to the Broodery, and moved the viable eggs over through the new passage.  Doors at either end would confine both the heat from the Broodery and potential escapees from the Hatchery, and Nightmare lamps gave light in sconces along the wall.  Workers wandered around, helping and feeding the newborn hatchlings, with a number of the smaller dragons that could fit through the human-sized spaces assisting as well. 

Watching the hundreds of babies being born…

It was one of the most amazing and fulfilling moments of Astrid's life.  The eggs would rock back and forth, and then a small crack would open at one end… and a little beak or nose would stick out a moment later. 

They were adorable, and while Astrid was well aware that in another two weeks, they'd be an utter handful of chaos, fettered only by the double doors and the watching workers, for the moment, they were the absolute cutest things in the whole of the world.  Even the baby Gronckles and Whispering Deaths were enough to elicit coos of _awwww…_ from the onlookers.

Several hours later, she'd lost count of how many hatchlings she'd helped, although Fishlegs hadn't.  He was keeping careful count of how many and of what types were being born. 

As the dinner hour approached, and the rate of the hatchings coming out of their eggs died down further, the majority of the workers in the Hatchery left to prepare themselves.

Tonight was the Thing.  It had originally been scheduled for two days earlier, on Astrid's birthday, but that had turned out to be the peak of the hatchings, causing the postponement of the vote.

Entering the hall, Astrid and her family made their way to the head table.  The room was packed; while there were still dozens hard at work in the Hatchery, and Astrid's family in Vedrarfjord,, every other member of the Old Tribe was present—and those that weren't here had left proxy votes with the attendees.  Astrid herself held her parents' votes, and those of several of her cousins. 

Stoick stood over the table.  "I call this Thing to order!" he called out, and the room slowly quieted from conversations down to mere murmurs.  "All right!  We all know why we're here!  Like a year ago, it's the dragons, and how we go about with them!  There have been two proposals to the law—one from Clanhead Bladewit of the Ingermans, and one from myself!  If any of you wish to address the Thing—briefly," he added with a scowl, "before Clanhead Bladewit and I make our final arguments, now is the time."

The speeches that followed did stay brief; the tribe had been arguing over this point for months now, and it really was unlikely that any speech _now_ would change someone's mind.  However, a handful of people did stand up to address the Thing.  Clodgall, as full co-author of Bladewit's proposal, gave a rationale on tradition.  Gobber was next, and he and his half-brother passed each other to and from the speaker's stand.  Astrid felt a shiver from the looks that they gave each other.  But Gobber was cheerfully informal and matter-of-fact for Stoick's proposal. 

Rikard was next, speaking for Stoick's and for the sense of general acceptance of outsiders, dry and fatherly.  Then Astrid's grand-uncle, Sigmund clan Hofferson, apologetic to his father and clanhead but determined, spoke in favor of Bladewit's.  Hammeredge clan Ingerman spoke for his mother's proposal with strength and a degree of worrisome grimness; as he returned to his seat, he gave Fishlegs and Heather poisonous glares. 

Gruffnut clan Thorston was outright threatening and angry, citing the poisoner from Thawfest no less than three times, and argued strongly for Bladewit's proposal.  He was followed by Hardnut clanhead Thorston, who reproachfully appealed for Stoick's proposal, followed by his twin sons, Thicknut and Chestnut, who did the same.

Finally, Stoick turned to Bladewit, and she gave a polite nod and a waving motion. 

Stoick nodded and returned to the speaker's stand; as he scanned the room, Astrid's heart hammered in her chest.  "So, we've heard all the speeches, made all the arguments.  It's time to vote!  A show of hands, by those present, for my proposal!"

Hands went up, and Astrid started to breathlessly count, including her own.  The rules were simple: a majority of six out of ten of the adults of the tribe was the victor, so the total needed was around three hundred and fifty votes. 

Her heart fell.  There was no way that there were enough hands raised…

Stoick seemed to notice the same.  "And now, those in favor of the Clanhead's proposal!"

More hands rose. 

Many more.

The proxies were called, and Astrid, her heart thudding in her chest, cast the nine votes that had been entrusted to her. 

It wasn't enough.

Three hundred and eighty-one votes for Bladewit and Clodgall's proposal. 

She and Hiccup and Wulfhild shared horrified looks between them as their tribe agreed that control of the dragons would be entrusted to their clan… but at the cost of keeping them reserved only to the Old Tribe and "allied clans."

They'd told their new people that the dragons didn't belong to _them._

###

**_Foothills of the_ ** **_Southern Ural Mountains_ ** **_, Near Bashkort_ **

 

The hunter crouched at the mouth of the small cave, small bones littering the grass nearby. 

This was it.  The beast was inside.  He could hear the distinctive fluttering of those leathery wings, smell the scent of the scaly hide and the smoke of its breath…

He crept inside in a crouch, his spear in hand.  In the dim light from the daylight outside, he took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, and then moved forward.

The dragon, or something else, had smoothed out the stone of the cave walls, which at least made the footing easier.

And then, in the near-darkness, he saw it.  A vast uncertain shape, noticeable only because of the way it breathed and moved in the blackness.

It was asleep, and he cautiously walked towards it, his spear at the ready.

And then… underfoot… He stepped on something.

And it snapped. And the sound echoed.

And the dragon's eyes opened in the darkness. And its jaws opened towards him. 

With a yell, he clutched his dragonskin cloak around himself as the sudden heat blasted at him. He dodged to the side, spear and cloak-hem clutched in hand, and crouched low, the glow of the beast's breath giving him bare light to see by. 

The dragon was flaring up in front of him, its neck and wings extended, screeching at him. 

He howled back at it.

It rushed at him.

He darted to the side, and the dragon attempted to climb up the side of the cave, but, with a well-timed swing of his spear, he tripped it.  It fell to the cave floor with a thud, the wound that he had given it in the winter visible as a hideous scar along its leg.

It tried to roll out of the way, but he slammed his spear-butt, shod in metal, onto its wing.  It screeched in pain and snapped at him as he stepped onto the wing to immobilize it. 

He saw a light from its throat—warning that it was about to breathe fire again—and spun to put his cloak around himself.  Heat hit him once again and he could smell bits of his hair burning, but the thick locks denied the fire a bite on his scalp, much like trying to light a log versus shavings for the firepit—and he'd made sure to soak the locks in water before entering. 

Its breath exhausted, he swung the iron-shod spear butt at it, knocking the snake-like head to the ground. 

Walking over to it, he prepared to kill it with a single thrust from his spear into its brain, when it looked up at him submissively.

He hesitated for a brief moment, and then, with an intimidating shout, flared up at _it,_ raising his arm and spear in front of it.  He could see it clearly in dim and guttering light coming from behind him—almost certainly the remnants of its fire-breath _._

It cringed and lowered its head before him.

He pointed his spear at its head and then, when it lowered itself even more… he put his boot atop its head.

"You belong to me now," the dragon-hunter said to his first tamed dragon.  "Your life belongs to _me."_

###

**_Inbhir Nis, Mormaer of Moray, Kingdom of Alba_ **

 

Looking around at the solemn faces of his assembled privy council, Mac Bethad drummed his fingers on the table in the secure council room and took a deep breath to ready himself.  "All right.  So the spies are back from the Hooligans' festival.  _Please_ tell me that we have good news?"

"Some good, some bad, and others to be determined," Taskill reported. 

Mac Bethad sighed.  "Start with the bad news."

"Well, the bad news is simple: by this time, the eggs that were laid last autumn will have hatched.  According to the numbers we gained, that will be twelve _thousand_ additional dragons for the Hooligans."  He took a deep breath.  "If we do not find some way of impeding their growth, their future conquests will not stop with us.  No, we are looking at the seed of a new Roman Empire, to span the known world."

Mac Bethad nodded, holding back a grimace.  "Noted.  What else in the bad news?"

"Our own dragons are still young and it will likely be another year before they're at the proper colt stage.  That being said, I do have a suggestion for later…"

"Aye, aye, save it.  What else?"

Taskill sighed.  "This isn't from the spies, but from a message we received this afternoon from the mail riders."  He looked around the room.  "Merida Dunbroch is getting married." 

"Who is the groom?" Gruoch asked.  "Not Haddock, I hope!"

Taskill snorted.  "No, not him.  But his wife's second cousin, a… this sounds absurd, but I swear to you it's the truth… the heir _ess_ of the Bog Burglar tribe down in Deheubarth."

Gruoch blinked.  "That fabled all-woman Norse tribe?"

"Not a fable, milady," Taskill said.  "Quite real.  And, it seems, long term allies with the Hooligans—to the point where the husband of the current chieftess is the first cousin, once removed, of Haddock's wife, and the _heiress_ is her second cousin."  He took in a deep bracing breath and said, "And for obvious reasons, marriages between women are accepted by their law, and the Hooligans accept them as well—and before you ask, yes, they take male concubines for procreation." 

The entire room seemed somewhat stunned at that, and then Mac Bethad leaned forward across the oaken table.  "Fergus is going to have a marriage bond with the Hooligans?"

"Through one step removed, yes," Taskill said simply. 

Mac Bethad rubbed at his eyes with thumb and forefinger.  "Have him watched.  Closely."

"It gets worse, sire."

"How so?"

"Well, during the festival, Fergus impressed Chief Stoick… such that he publicly declared the man his friend and gave him a third of the winner's pot," Taskill said.  "I have not been able to determine if it was a bribe… but Stoick offered Berk as a place for the wedding, and Fergus accepted."

That sent a murmur around the room.  "With that sort of backing, Fergus could make a bid for the crown," Mac Bethad said levelly.  "Is that their plan?"

Taskill sighed.  "It seems so.  Or, at least, I have found no evidence to contradict it.  Furthermore, there were several instances over the winter that have raised my hackles.  I believe that they are preparing to begin raising an armed force in earnest."

"Expand," Mac Bethad ordered.

"From several factors.  First, while I accept that the Hooligans have long since had the law against thralldom, they have never applied it on the scale that they are doing so now—and furthermore, while it has been part of their laws, this is a distinction that many miss, and instead, those freed from thralldom are ascribing it to the actions of the Haddock clan personally.  As a result, they are rapidly accumulating a substantial number of devoutly and _directly_ loyal freed thralls.  First there was the overthrow of Veisafjord over the winter, and, I just found out, during that same visit, there was apparently a meeting or rally of them in Vedrarfjord when Hiccup and his immediate inner circle overnighted with his in-laws.  From what I heard, at the culmination of the rally, after many statements of gratitude and thanks from the freedmen, they then all swore allegiance _to_ Haddock, _personally."_

Mac Bethad swore.  "And there's the army."

"Exactly.  Apparently there is an ongoing debate among the Old Tribe of Berk on who they will grant dragons to—and it seems that many of them favor it being limited to their own numbers, unsurprisingly—but ultimately, they forget that they are but a few hundred, and the Haddocks command the loyalties of an equal number already, _and_ both Stoick and Hiccup have opposed that measure."  He shrugged.  "Should it be necessary, a purge of the Old Tribe could be accomplished with ease, and their numbers replaced with those personally loyal to the Haddocks.  Furthermore, I've noticed reports of legends being built up around Hiccup as a caring leader figure to the freedmen and to others.  There was the incident in Vedrarfjord with the rally, the helpful visits to the various villages in the Highlands near their lands over the last year—the story of Haddock reimbursing Glenfinnan for their raided cattle has spread like wildfire—and now a freedman rescued very publicly at their festival from his former master.  From what we've found, it would _not_ take much to cultivate a fanatical sense of loyalty among the freedmen to Hiccup and Stoick, at which point…" he spread his arms helplessly, "put them on dragons, and there is his army."

Mac Bethad grimaced.  "I see.  Aye, that hangs together.  But how can we defend against such an attack?  Especially if it comes from within our own vassals?"

"Well, there I have some good news to report."

Mac Bethad exhaled slowly through pursed lips.  "Well, I did ask for the bad news first.  What's the good news?"

"First and foremost, in regards to that one matter… the expensive one with Earl Siward's steward?  It seems to have paid off.  The seed has apparently sprouted, and we should have luck there, if all goes as planned," Taskill reported, and more than one person at the table looked at them curiously.

"Good," Mac Bethad breathed.  That was one of their best chances to make a lasting impact.  "What else?"

"There was a poisoner at the festival, and, based on the description of the jar of poison he was using, I think it is highly likely that it is the oleander that was originally ordered by Jarl Mildew last year, and sold to someone else when he wasn't there last autumn."  He quirked an eyebrow.  "I plan on seeing if our men cannot retrieve it from where the Hooligans are holding it."

"Good.  Do so," Mac Bethad said. 

"Further, while Raghnell," Taskill nodded towards the steward, who nodded back, "has already reported on the increase of the number of merchants in our waters from Berk's festival, and the taxes from them, I've taken the liberty of having two of them—for redundancy—place an order with that same Moorish alchemist for more oleander.  He is located in a city called Seville, far to the south, so it will take some months, but if we can hold off the Hooligans from conquest for that length of time, we will _finally_ have an adequate weapon against them."

Mac Bethad nodded.  "Excellent!"

"Furthermore, I have more good news, of a lesser sort," Taskill said, and pulled a sheaf of parchments from a satchel.  "Alan and Gregor were able to sneak into Hiccup's workroom in the village smithy and copied these."

He spread the parchments out on the table, and Mac Bethad leaned forward to examine them.  "What are these?"

"Weapons, sire.  Designs for weapons, made by Haddock himself."  He tapped one.  "This is for some sort of powered ballista; the bow is larger than a man's spread arms, and is pulled back by this capstan here, using this chain to drive the motion of the bow-string.  And this," he tapped a second parchment, "is a net launcher, designed to tangle dragons in mid-air.  And before you ask if these are flights of fancy or practical designs," he tapped a third sheet, " _this_ is the very weapon that Haddock used to shoot down the Night Fury and start this whole mess."  He smiled wolfishly.  "It is called the 'Mangler,' and given the reported damage to the dragon's tail… I see no reason why it cannot continue to live up to its name."

Mac Bethad looked at the sheets of parchment, and, for a wild moment, felt a sense of relief.  These stolen designs… they might be his kingdom's chance at freedom before it was conquered by the new power that had appeared in his hinterlands barely a year before. 

"Find some trustworthy craftsmen and put them to work immediately on building those weapons," he said.  "We will need them as soon as possible—as many as possible—and cost is no object."

"Aye, sire," his marshal said.  "We'll get right on it."

"Good.  Now, what else is there, Taskill?"

"I have one more piece of good news to share, sire," he said. 

Mac Bethad exhaled in relief and excitement.  "Please, Taskill.  I imagine that you've save the best for last."

"Aye, sire."  He coughed to clear his throat and smiled.  "We've all come to the realization that we need more dragons."  He unfurled a map.  "I've found some."

 

* * *

 

**_AN:_ ** _Thank you all for reading!  I'm expecting a fair bit of screaming after that last scene, so I'm gonna go Hide Under Rocks._

_On a more practical note, before anyone asks (again), let me be absolutely clear: no,_ **hatching** _dragon eggs don't explode in this story; having an explosion of that size as shown in the Gift of the Night Fury short would kill the hatchling--plus also there's the fact that it's canonically mentioned that several breeds of baby dragon sleep in their eggs after hatching, which would be difficult if the eggs always explode.  In this setting, a small number of the eggs will explode during development if the firebreathing organs develop incorrectly._

_On a final note, a quick heads up; I have advanced carpel tunnel syndrome in both hands.  Tomorrow, I have a doctor's appointment to hopefully start treatment.  I don't know what condition my hands will be in after that, or how long it will take to heal.  But between that and other circumstances, I might not be able to post a chapter next week, although I will do my best.  If that is the case, I will continue to post through to the end of Book II and then go on my hiatus as planned, even if that takes me into November._


	61. Is A Threat Achieved

**Chapter 61:  Is A Threat Achieved**

_Prior to the Dragon Era, the Kingdom of the Franks was highly decentralized, with effectively independent great lords ruling over their demesnes.  The King of the Franks was essentially only one lord among many, a set of circumstances that had developed since the death of Charles the Fat in 888 AD and the ending of the Carolingian Empire._

_The causes of this decentralization from the previously strong centralized empires of Charlemagne and Charles the Fat were numerous, including the effects of Viking raiders (some of whom settled on the north coast of France in what is now Normandy), a general grab for power and land by the noble and ecclesiastical classes, and a corresponding loss of power by the peasantry and royalty.  In particular, the feuding between the great nobles and their knights had a chilling effect upon the Frankish kingdom…_

_During the centuries prior to the Dragon Era, trade within the kingdom essentially ceased.  Illiteracy was the general rule not only for the peasantry, but for many of the nobility as well.  While towns did exist, they were pale remnants of the Gallo-Roman economic network, typically surviving as the seats of ecclesiastical bishops or secular nobility, or as local market centers…_

_The knights, in particular, were problematic in their effects.  While certainly of military importance in providing defense against Vikings and other knights, they had become a hereditary caste since the era of the Carolingians.  In competition with each other, they had a strong incentive to make war as a way of proving their valor and skill in order to be most attractive as potential vassals to the greater nobles, meaning that they viewed conflict as a first solution to any problem.  The conventions of the noble_ habitus _only did so much to stem this tendency towards violence as a means of problem solving, and Frankish knights tended to view anyone that wasn't a noble or knight as an impediment that could be slain out of hand, on the battlefield or off, and often enjoyed petty destruction for its own sake.  The situation became such that the Peace and Truce of God was first implemented in the late 900s AD to try to put religious strictures against who and what the knights could simply kill and destroy._

_—A History of Old Francia, 1432, Oxford Press_

**_Nidaros, Norway_ **

**_May, AD 1042_ **

 

Ruffnut woke as the sky outside started to brighten in earnest from the twilight that made up the night during this time of year, and tried to sit up in bed.

And failed.

Her belly was a little mountain around her middle, and her bladder had been squeezed down to an itty bitty little pocket, or at least it felt like it. 

Magnus groaned and rolled over next to her. 

She hated him for a brief moment for his ease of movement. 

"Need help?"

"Yesss…" she said through gritted teeth. 

With a loving smile, he helped her out of the clutches of the mattress and over to the latrine closet, where, for the fifth or sixth time since going to bed last night, she had to relieve herself. 

With a thud, she laid back in the bed a minute later, and gave him a flat stare. 

"Three weeks is what the midwives said!" he said defensively, holding up his hands in a blocking gesture. 

She grabbed his tunic and hauled him down to eye level.

"Get.  This.  Thing.  _Out. Of. Me."_

"Working on it…" he said in a half-strangled, half-amused voice. 

She sighed and let go.  Sagging a bit, she said flatly, "Next time, _you_ get to carry the baby, okay?"

"I'm _pretty_ sure that's not how that works…" the king said, amused.

She groaned, and, with a heave, hauled herself out of the bed.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing.  I just want a different view from the ceiling," she said curtly.  "And my ankles hurt and I want a walk."

"Okay."  Magnus rolled out of bed and hauled on a dressing gown, and tossed her one.  "Then I'll walk with you."

She sighed and felt a bubble of love pop up somewhere around her squashed stomach.  "Thank you."

He grinned at her and she felt her heart melt a little bit more.  Leaving their quarters hand in hand, they walked to the stairs, which she took carefully.  A few thanes followed them from their posts outside the king's rooms, along with a few other servants, including the midwife that Karin had personally recommended for her Queen's first child.  In Svanhildr's absence, her having left for Berk yesterday, Ruffnut felt prepared.

At the moment, though, she felt like she was leading a parade.  But, despite some initial stiffness, her legs and ankles felt better after they walked for a few minutes.  One of the household servants came up to let them know that breakfast would be ready shortly, and she waved him off with a smile.  It was less crowded here since the Rus' had left to start rowing home—although Yngvarr and Tuffnut were flying Vladimir back to Kyiv directly. 

Turning to Magnus, who was still holding her hand in his own, she said, "So… dragon mail is up and running?"

He grinned.  "Indeed."

"Will I get to do any runs?"

"Maybe, although, honestly, I'd rather you stay someplace safe, but I have no issues with you and I taking a tour of the kingdom on dragonback at some point."

"Hmm… that does sound appealing," she said with a smile. 

"There are some places that I'd love to show you," he said with a grin.  "Beautiful vistas, the most amazing mountains and fjords…"

She grinned.  "Sounds great to me."  With a sigh from her compressed lungs, she leaned up against her husband.  "So… as I recall from overhearing the other day… the local wealth of things around here are improving dramatically."

"That's putting it mildly.  Our tax income has tripled since last year," Magnus said, "and it's all thanks to the dragons."  He gave a happy sigh.  "And your hospital… I thank God for giving you the inspiration to ask for such a thing.  It's immensely popular, and, aside from the 'political considerations' part, it's done such good for our people…"

She gave her own matching happy sigh and said, "I have an idea for something else to do, if you're interested."

"Always, love."

"Do you know about the ancient Greek theatre?"

Magnus blinked and then gave her the oddest look.  "No…"

"Fishlegs had a book on it… and, um, Tuffnut and I… uh, _borrowed_ it when we were younger."

Her husband snorted.  "Of course you did.  Did Fishlegs ever get it back?"

"Um…  _eventually?"_

He laughed.  "I see.  So, about the theatre?"

"Well, the Greeks had a different skaldic tradition than we do, but it sounded awesome; rather than just _stand_ there and recite the epic poetry and verse and all of that, they would put on a _play_ to tell the story.  And I always thought that that sounded _really_ cool.  I mean, reading it out of a book was so _boring._   But imagining a group of people acting out the story with these big masks and telling the story in pieces… well, my apologies to Sigvatr, I love a good saga, but I'd also _love_ it if we could see about maybe doing some plays here—tell the stories of the old gods… or maybe even some bits from your new one.  I mean, it's all there in that book of yours, but I don't speak or read that language, and I'd love to see some of what's got you and the others so inspired."

Magnus blinked at that, and how passionate she was about it, and then grinned.

"Theatre, huh?  First a hospital for the healing of the people, and now plays to help educate them?  Are you _sure_ that you're the evil prankster that you insisted you were during our courtship?"

She grinned at him.  "Don't tell anyone.  It'll ruin my reputation if they find out.  People might doubt that I'm a devotee of Loki." 

He snorted.  "Oh, you are.  But the Liesmith turned his gifts to evil ends in the old tales, and you're having fun turning my kingdom upside-down for good ones in the new tales you're writing, aren't you?"

She gave him her most innocent look.  "Now why would you think something like that?"  And then cracked a grin as he rolled his eyes at her, his eyebrows lifted in eloquent, wordless sarcasm.   "Maaaaybe…"

"Well, if it's a theatre and plays that you want, love, then that is what you shall have."  He gave her a grin.

She leaned up against him.  "Thanks, Magnus."

"Of course."  He patted her hair and the baby decided to get in on the act and kick her in the stomach. 

"Oof!"

"You okay?"

"Yeah, but the baby is having fun kicking me in tender spots," she said with a grimace.

"Well, let's give him some food, shall we?"

"You're so certain that it's a 'he'," she said in an irked note.

"Well, yes.  Someone with that much skill at punching and kick—ow!"

"You were saying?" Ruffnut said sweetly as she released his earlobe.

Rubbing at it, he gave her a hurt look that turned into a laugh after a moment.  "Fine, fine, point taken.  So, what do you think, love?"

"I'm thinking that we've picked one name for each option already, and so long as he or she has all of the right number of hands, feet, fingers and toes, I'll be happy to have him or her _out_ of me."

Magnus laughed, and they went to breakfast. 

 

###

**_Winchester, England_ **

 

"'…and we thank Your Grace for the Church's support in these trying times," Emma dictated to her personal clerk.  The scribe's quill scratched quickly as he kept up with her words, and while she paused to let him finish, there was a polite knock at the door. 

"Enter!" she called, and a young page entered and went to one knee.  "Yes, what is it?"

"Lady Emma, your royal sons bid you to attend on them.  There is urgent news from Denmark, and they ask for your council."

She nodded.  "I see.  I will be along shortly, once I am finished with my correspondence."

"Thank you, my lady," the boy said, rose, and left.

Once she finished with the remainder of the letter to Prince-Bishop Wilhelm of Strateburgus, she swept through the halls of the fortress to her son's audience chamber.  Entering, she hid her usual frown at her youngest son's haggard appearance.  Ever since returning from Berk, Harthacnut's consumption had been growing worse, and she feared that soon she would be burying another child.  He was picking at a bowl of honeyed fruit, and given how much weight he had lost, she was worried at how his usual favorite seemed to barely interest him.

Her other surviving son, Edward, was already in the room, looking out a window with his hands clasped behind his back. 

Readying herself, she drew herself up to her full height.  "My sons, I am here.  There is news from Denmark?"

Harthacnut looked up, and despite herself, Emma drew in a breath at the sight of the dark rings of fatigue around his eyes.  He took in a breath to speak, and fell into a fit of coughing. 

Emma watched, feeling helpless, as her youngest surviving child grappled with his deathly illness—and, unlike her daughters, Harthacnut had no children.  Edward was his co-king and heir… and it seemed likely that he would soon  be the sole bearer of that mantle. 

Finally, the coughing subsided, and in a rough and gravelly voice, Harthacnut said, "Yes.  There is a dragon-rider and his beast near Ribe.  But when Sweyn demanded that they be arrested and surrendered to him, the traitors holding them said that they would resist with arms, citing that the rider and his mount and his woman are under their hospitality."  He suppressed a light cough with a closed fist over his mouth.

Edward spoke up, still looking out the window.  "So Sweyn has asked for assistance and instructions."

Harthacnut scowled.  "Aye.  He has much latitude, but starting a civil war among the Danes is beyond that."

Emma considered for a moment.  "Why is the rider there?" she asked.

Harthacnut gave a wry smirk.  " _Supposedly_ , he is there on his way down to the Roman Empire to take service with the Varangians.  But assuming that rumor from Berk can be trusted, he's an outlaw, wanted for assault and theft, both against his own father."

Emma breathed, "Oh, _interesting_."

"Aye, I thought so," Harthacnut said.  "And I believe that Haddock will want him back."

Emma scoffed.  "Of course.  So what do you need my council for?"

"Well, we discussed, and Edward believes that rather than fighting our way through an uprising, it would be better to send a herald with an offer of inclusion into the Thingmen to the rogue rider."  He slammed his fist on the table, making the dishes jump.  "But I feel that _crushing_ them and reminding them all of who is _King of the Danes_ would be a better course."

"Would you give him entry into the Thingmen?" Emma inquired.

Harthacnut shrugged.  "Possibly, but probably not.  He'd make better bait for Haddock, I feel, and I would not insult the Thingmen by including him among their number… although that might make him into better bait."

"He is an outlaw, though," Edward pointed out.  "It depends on how thoroughly he's turned against his tribe."

"Aye, but then he would be one dragon-rider against hundreds," Harthacnut said tartly, looking at his older half-brother, and Emma had the distinct feeling that she was seeing the latest repeat of that point.  He turned back to Emma, and said, "But we're discussing what to do when we have the bird in hand while he's still in the bush.  So, Mother, do you have any thoughts on the matter?"

Emma considered for a moment and then nodded.  "Send the herald to begin with.  Like a bird in the bush, the rider would be easy to startle into flight, and losing him because he flew off would be a waste of effort.  If he turns that down, then take to arms and attempt to capture him that way.  And wait on punishing those that refused to surrender him until he has been separated from their company and they do not have the support of a _dragon_ in resisting your forces."

Harthacnut and Edward shared a glance, and then both of them nodded.  Harthacnut gave a polite bow to Emma.  "Thank you, Mother.  Your insight is, as always, well appreciated."

 

 

###

**_Cherbourg, Normandy, Francia_ **

****

Viggo took in a deep breath of the air of home. 

Well, close enough.  His family's home was further to the south and inland, but he had taken his men for a brief visit to Normandy, to see family, do some recruiting… and pick up news. 

The port of Cherbourg bustled around him, and he felt a sense of homecoming.  He hadn't been back in several years, but it was like slipping on an old, well-loved, well-worn glove.  The sounds, the language, the architecture… even the air itself, all of it seemed to welcome him home.

He basked in it for a few minutes, eyes closed in the spring sunshine, enjoying himself, and then put it away.  There would be time enough for that later.  He had his own sentimentalist streak, and he knew it, but he only let it out on special occasions. 

Despite having put that sense of sentiment away, he was still smiling as he walked down the wharf.  From here, they'd be going to Rouen and his family's seat, but first, they needed supplies.

Heading to the supply shop near the harbor, he walked in.  Ordinarily, he would leave this sort of thing for his subordinates, but this close to the dragon-rider tribe, he wanted to soak up as much of the news as he could _personally_.  His brother was competent enough in gathering information, but there was something to be said for getting those impressions directly.

As he walked in, the supplier was busy talking with another man—a cooper, Viggo quickly surmised after listening to them for a moment—and he waited patiently as the pair completed their transaction.

Then his eyes narrowed as coin changed hands.  In addition to a handful of bronze coins, a number of fresh-looking dragon scales were also piled in the supplier's palm as he passed the payment over to the barrel-maker. 

Well, well.  _That_ was interesting.

Leaning on the small table in the room, he politely looked up at the supplier as the man walked over to him.

"What can I do for you, good sir?  M'name's John," the ship supplier asked in a friendly tone and an accent that was much less refined than Viggo's own, but that was to be expected, as Viggo's family were nobility. 

"Hello, John, my name is Viggo," he said with a charming smile.  "I'm just passing through home on my way up to the north."

"Oh, aye, you have the tongue of a well-bred Norman, that's for sure," John said with a smile.  "Haven't seen you around these parts, though.  New ship?"

"More or less.  I was down in Italia, near Iron Arm's group."

"Oh?  And how is Tancred's son doing?"

Viggo grinned… and told a bit of the truth.  "Fairly well.  His troops have conquered a significant chunk of southern Italia away from the Romans; they've had three battles last year, at Olivento, Montemaggiore, and Montepeloso, and he won all three."  He neglected to mention the attack by the Roman dragon-riders. 

John clapped in glee.  "Ah, that's fine to have from one that was there!  I had heard rumors, but you're the first to tell me direct.  His father would be so proud."  He frowned.  "Passed last year, did you hear?" 

Viggo shook his head.  "No, I hadn't."

"'Twas sudden.  One of William's brothers inherited, with the others off in Italia with him."

Viggo gave an acknowledging nod.  He knew that William Iron Arm had eleven brothers and two sisters from general rumor.  "Well, he made it to, what, three score?"

"Aye, thereabouts.  So, you've been down south?"

"Indeed, but I've decided to explore… new opportunities," Viggo said, nodding towards the stack of dragon scales.

John turned and looked, and then cackled.  "You and half of the traders within a few hundred leagues, son!"  He leaned back and laughed.  "Oh, things are changing up north, that's for sure!"

Viggo, schooling his face into interested curiosity, wanting to betray nothing from what he'd learned from the Church dispatches, simply said, "I heard a rumor that someone had managed to put down a giant dragon and had succeeded in cleaning out a nest… and I figured that treasure would await."

"Oh, son, you don't know the half of it!" John leaned back in his chair and said, "So, if you're heading for Berk, I think you'll need some supplies first.  What do you say?"

Viggo hid a smile as the supplier walked right into where he wanted him.  Putting a cynical but light scowl on his face, aiming for just enough to suggest his 'irritation' at having to buy supplies in order to hear the gossip, he said, "Oh, I suppose.  What would you suggest?"

"For a cross-Channel voyage, oh…" the supplier listed off a series of items, and Viggo let himself roll his eyes a touch. 

John wasn't _too_ greedy, but, as he finished listing, Viggo said mildly, "I'm sorry, but you seem to be under the impression that I'm running an entire fleet here."

"Oh, I'm sorry, but you said that you came up from Italia.  It seemed reasonable to assume that you hadn't made the voyage in a single ship," John said with a smile as they got down to negotiate.

A third of an hour later, they had haggled out a solid manifest of supplies that were actually needed, along with some superfluous materials that Viggo thought he might be able to find a use for, and with a sigh, he 'gave in' to the other man. 

"So, there's that.  Now, from your dire hints, you've been suggesting that things have changed up north.  What's been happening?"

"Oh, all sorts of things," John said with a grin. 

Viggo gave the supplier a flat look, not trying to conceal his irritation.  To be honest with himself, he probably knew more of the specifics of what had happened last year than the supplier did… but all of _his_ news was going to be dated and stale by at least six months. 

And ship suppliers heard _everything._

John leaned in conspiratorially.  "Well, you heard about the dragons, but, oh, lordy, you're missing nine parts out of ten!"  He grinned with the expression of someone enjoying the ability to measure out a drab of gossip.  "Well, let me bring you up to speed, young sir.  'Bout a year and a half ago, one of them Viking villages in northern Alba had a little… hiccup."

Viggo carefully kept the knowledge of the boy's name off of his face, for fear of betraying awareness of the man's cute little in-joke.  Instead, he just nodded and said, "What do you mean?"

"Well, y'see, it seems that they had settled too close to a dragon nest, up in the Hebrides, and were carrying on a merry little war with the firebreathers, because, well, Vikings," the Norman ship supplier said, apparently well aware that his own blood would weigh in at a significant share of Norseman stock and having a bit of fun with it. 

"So, seven generations they're having that going on, and apparently making a very good accounting for themselves.  Then, about a year and a half ago, the chief's heir found a way to trick one of the dragons into accepting him as one of their own and managed to break it like a horse to the saddle, using guile and secret magics.  One of the deadliest of the dragons—the _Night Fury,_ the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself."  John steepled his fingers together in enjoyment that Viggo could feel, and grinned at his 'guest.'

"Broke it to the saddle, you say?" Viggo asked carefully.

"Aye.  From all reports, he has a magic harness on it that allows him to control it absolutely, to make it fly the way he wants it to fly, and it is utterly docile to him, like any dog taught that a man is its master.  And it has such power.  It can lift ships clear from the water to drop them on the seas or rocks below, it has such strength at its command," John said with gusto.

Viggo blinked and thought furiously for a moment.  He rather doubted it, as a dragon of such size would be well in excess of what the witnesses that Harthacnut sent had reported.   Bardic exaggeration, he supposed.  Especially since he'd heard about the methods actually used to carry ships by the Berkians.

"Surely you're joking!" he carefully said, hoping to draw out more, and motioned the man onwards. 

"Ah, but you haven't heard.  He already dropped one ship onto the fortress of Vedrarfjord last year, as a lesson to its king—one that wasn't heeded, as the man required a second lesson."

Ah, good, fresh news, or at least leaning towards it.  "A _second_ lesson?" Viggo said, in a tone that encouraged expansion from his gossip-monger. 

"Aye.  Last autumn, after dealing with the King of England, he conquered the city of Vedrarfjord in an afternoon.  Just to stay sharp, mind you."

"What do you mean?" Viggo asked.

"Well, _officially,_ " he winked at Viggo, making his opinion of the excuse clear, "it was because the King had been sending in spies to try to steal dragons from him.  But they could have just gone in and taught him another lesson, or sacked the place for what they wanted and moved on.  But they conquered it instead."

Viggo pursed his lips thoughtfully.  "Sounds dangerous.  I take it that I can scratch that port off of my charts?"

"Nay, nay, good man, it's still there.  Thriving, apparently.    About five or six days' sail to the northwest, around the tip of Cornwall.  They didn't sack it at all.  They took over and started running the place."  He leaned in conspiratorially again.  "Apparently, they put out a call for artisans just a week or so ago.  Anyone with skill or training with their hands can get sponsored by the new chief for both travel and basic shop stakes."

Viggo quirked an eyebrow.  That was definitely fresh news.  "Oh really?"

"Aye.  I heard half a hundred men say that they were planning on picking up stakes and moving off already.  And they got coin to spare over there, that's known.  They're flush with dragon scales," he motioned to the pile on the countertop, "and they've got silver in scads, from the King's ransom."

"King's ransom, dragon scales… what happened up there?" Viggo asked, his impatience only half-feigned. 

"Oh, aye, right.  We got off track, sorry."

"It's alright.  You were saying that he broke the Night Fury to the saddle," Viggo said with strained patience.

"Aye, aye.  So they gathered the tribe, chieftain and all, and went to challenge the nest queen and king.  I saw one of the queen's scales," John held out his hands, indicating a width of nearly two feet, "and they defeated it in epic battle.  The chief apparently disowned his son at first, before the battle, for the crime of not killing a dragon when he had it in his power, but took back his son when he and his mount killed the royal dragons."

"Royal dragons?" Viggo asked.  This he hadn't heard.

"Aye.  One green, one red, and both giants, as big as villages—and with appetites to match, according to the tale—if their thrall-dragons didn't come back with food, they'd be eaten themselves.  But the Hero and his beast managed to outfly and outfight both."  John grinned with relish.  "The first he killed by igniting its own breath in its mouth, and the second, he had his own dragon blow apart its wings in midair and made it chase him to the ground, where it hit and blew itself to tiny pieces."  He clasped his hands together in a satisfied way.  "It was a victory not without cost, for the fires they sparked took his leg in the aftermath."  John spread his hands and moved his shoulders in an expressive shrug, with the manner of a storyteller with a rapt audience, waiting for them to get on with it.  "But…"

"But…" Viggo echoed, and motioned for him to continue.

"But the Hero is supposedly a smith without peer, practically a wizard in the forge, with skill over metal unmatched this side of Heaven itself.  He crafted for himself a new leg, wrought of silver, steel, yew, oak, thorn and gold, and gave it the facsimile of life and the quickness of flesh, and upon it he can walk and run as well as a normal man."  He gave a smug smile and leaned back.  "But that was later.  After the battle, his father took him back into his family line, and the dragons of the nest, their king and queen gone, bowed their necks and gave their allegiance to their new lord."

Viggo scoffed.  "So, you're telling me that there's a tribe of Vikings within a few days' sail of here that has an entire nest's worth of dragons at its command?"

"A' _yep_."

"What are _you_ still doing _here?_   With a threat like _that_ on the horizon? _"_

"Ship supply.  And business is picking up, with all of the traders like yourself wanting to get in on the business," John said matter-of-factly, standing and walking over to a large cask in the corner.  "Want a drink?  It's fresh-brewed."

Viggo nodded, looking around the shop as the man bustled to get them some drinks.  The usual barrels and crates of sailing supplies—food, tools, pitch, oakum, rope, sails, and so forth—lay around him. 

The basket of dragon teeth in the corner behind the counter wasn't typical, though.  Nor was the neat stack of cured dragon leather below it.  Both of them were in an iron cage closed with a lock and bolted to the floorboards. 

Viggo gave a light inner whistle as he mentally calculated their values.  At least a year's pay for a substantial portion of his crew was just sitting there, admittedly well secured.

John handed him a foaming tankard and followed his gaze. 

"Aye, see the fruits of trade?  You ask why I'm willing to stay within range of dragon-riding Vikings?"  He cocked his head in the direction of the valuable pile.  "That's why.  Because this Stoick the Vast, their chieftain, apparently understands that shearing a sheep gets you more wool than skinning the sheep.  Oh, aye, they've gone a-conquering a bit, and from all reports, one of their younger hotheads sacked a _burh_ in England last year, and another rogue burned some lords keeps over in Brittany a few months back, but raiders they ain't."  He grinned.  "And so the scales and skin have been flowing.  I got that in trade from one of the merchants who was up there for their Thaw Festival a month or so ago."  He grinned.  "It's a new day and age, Viggo."

"It's one village!" Viggo protested, trying to hide his own anticipation as they got to the actually important matters. 

"Aye, one village of _dragon-riding Vikings,_ with a genuine Hero running around.  When you have a Hero who singlehandedly smashes entire war fleets, it don't _matter_ how tiny his home is."

"Smashes war fleets?  Are you talking about the English?" Viggo asked. 

"Aye, I am," John said, putting his elbows down on the table and leaning forward on them.  "How much _did_ you hear on the trip coming north?"

"I heard a great deal, but most of it I dismissed as ridiculous hearsay, embellished by second-rate minstrels paid in third-rate beer," Viggo said primly.  While he had actually heard a great deal on the trip north, he was more than willing to play the uninformed to get more out of the loquacious supplier.

"Ha!  That's a good one," John said.  "But, no, I had eight ships from the fleet of Harthacnut the Dane hiding in that harbor out there just this past autumn, and they were scared stiff of the one man, the Hero.  I mentioned that one of their hotheads went and sacked a _burh?_   Well, Harthacnut the Dane didn't take kindly to that, and raised his army to go burn them out.  Stoick, the chief, led the first wave of dragon-riders to fight back, but they got repulsed by arrow fire." 

He took a drink from his tankard and then continued as Viggo motioned for him to get on with it.  "Then, in the middle of the dark night… his son took charge, and singlehandedly smashed the fleet, with fire and his Night Fury.  A half of seven score ships never made it home, and the half that survived were only granted life by his mercy when they retreated from the scene of the battle."  He gave a satisfied little chortle.  "When a man has that kind of power and says that he desires peace… and _shows_ that desire…"  He trailed off and shrugged. "It says much that Harthacnut now has a peace treaty with him, and the only place that they've conquered supposedly attacked them…"  He pursed his lips in a considering expression.  "I think I'll believe him."  He scowled.  "Especially given how things are around here."

Viggo nodded.  "How bad is it here at the moment?  I've heard rumors, but, as I said, I was down in Italia…"

"Bad.  You know William the Bastard is our duke now, yes?"

Viggo gave a curt nod of acknowledgment.  The young, illegitimately-born duke had just passed his thirteenth birthday by Viggo's estimate, and his father, Robert the Magnificent, had passed away on pilgrimage to Jerusalem seven years ago.  Viggo had been busy cleaning dragons out of the passes of the Alps at the time, and he remembered having heard the news. 

"Ever since Duke Robert passed, things have gone from bad to worse around here.  Not that they were that grand beforehand.  But then they _really_ went straight to Hell when the Archbishop passed five years ago.  Right now, we have, oh, I think four or five little private wars going on right now between our _noble_ lords."  He scowled.  "They all want to be duke, so William is being passed like a hot rock between his regents and protectors—they have the bad habit of dropping dead."  John held up a hand and started to count off with raised fingers.  "Alan of Brittany.  Poison.  Gilbert of Brionne.  Ambushed while riding.  Turchetil de Pont-Audemer.  Stabbed to death.  Osbern de Crépon.  Slain a few months ago in the duke's own chambers."

With a whistle that wasn't at all feigned, Viggo nodded.  "Well.  That doesn't sound at _all_ stable."  He scowled slightly, still completely unfeigned.  "And I thought it was bad when I was a child."

"Ayep," John said sourly.  "We haven't had anyone lay siege to the city in a while now, but if these knights don't stop quarreling, it's only a matter of time."

Viggo shrugged.  "It's the way things have been, ever since the Charles the Fat's empire collapsed a hundred and fifty years ago," he said, and then hid a wince as he realized he had just demonstrated his own learning to the supplier.

"Eh?  Well, I suppose.  And it's gotten better since my father's time," John said irritably.  "But _I'm_ not covered under the Peace And Truce, and let me tell you that _I'm_ considering taking those Vikings up on their offer!  Sure, I'm no craftsman, but they'll surely have need of a good harbormaster to help run their busy harbors, right?"

"Mmh.  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  What need a ship when one has dragons, I would wonder?" 

"For one's visitors, I'd say," John rebutted.  "And they've made allyship with the king of Norway, so they'll have lots of those with their own ships."

Viggo held back a smile.  More news.  "Allied with Norway?"

"Aye.  The Dane came to attack Berk because Magnus of Norway had signed treaty with them, and taken one of the Hero's boon companions to wife, and he got jumpy at the thought of being between berserkers and dragons."  John shrugged.  "Can't hardly blame him, really.  But all he managed to do was wet down the ropes on _that_ friendship.  Magnus ended up giving his sister to the Hero as a concubine, in order to tie themselves tight to," he smirked, " _one village_ of hard-drinking Vikings."  His smirk grew deeper.  "According to the fellas who attended their festival, she apparently caught over the course of the winter, as did the Hero's wife."

Viggo allowed his eyebrows to climb up his forehead as he digested this development.  "He's married?  To whom?"  He did already know the answer to that, but he was rapidly assessing everything he knew about Magnus and his kingdom and court.  That Hiccup had now a blood tie to the kingdom of the Norse was worrisome… but Norway was also a Christian kingdom.  Which meant that it answered to the Church… 

Well, well.  _That_ tidbit was worth the extra materials he had purchased from John, all on its own.

John grinned, unaware of Viggo's thoughts.  "A beauty from his own village, apparently."  He stood and walked over to a stack of parchments and rummaged for a moment.  Whatever it was, it was near the top of the stack, as he had it in a few moments. 

"Got this as a clean copy off a monk from the monastery at Iona; we do a bit of trade with them and they sent a representative to talk with the chieftain, Stoick."  He grinned.  "Take a look," he said, and laid the parchment down. 

Viggo looked at the parchment; it was a sketch—or a copy of a sketch, at least—of four people sitting in thrones, with four dragons sitting at their sides, done in a reasonably realistic style.  It lacked color and a great deal of detail, but, all the same…

Stoick was immediately identifiable from the witnesses descriptions and reports, although Viggo rather doubted that he was _that_ tall.  The beard, though… that he could believe.  Hiccup… was more muscular and heavily built than the witnesses had reported, and the dragon at his side was extremely large, which also contradicted the witness reports.  The two women were primarily distinguished by height and their dragons, although Viggo was willing to wager that that was due to the crudeness of the sketch's detailing. 

Not looking up from the parchment, trying to make as many detailed notes in his mind as possible, Viggo said, "Very nice.  Which one is the wife?"

John tapped one of the two women, the one flanked by the spike-laden dragon at Hiccup's immediate right-hand side.  Sharp-class, he was willing to wager, for both of the women's dragons. 

"Does she have a name?" he asked with a touch of humor.  "I mean, I might be showing up with a 'gift', and you know how important that personal touch is."

John snorted with amusement.  "Aye.  Astrid is the girl's name, and you're not the first to ask that, not by _far_.  I wouldn't recommend jewels or perfumes, though, although what else you can give is an open question.  She's a shieldmaiden, apparently, and the Hero made her a magic ax that can burst into dragonfire as her morning gift."

Viggo quirked an eyebrow.  "A magical flaming ax?  Truly?  Well, I suppose that it really _is_ hard to shop for the person who has everything," he said whimsically.   

"You think I'm joking?  All right, have fun," John said dryly.  "She won first place at their ax throwing competition, too."  He laughed.  "I had _three_ men in here a few days ago whining about it."  He gave a smirk.  "Honestly, that's another reason I'm considering packing up and heading out.  I have three daughters, and I would very much like for them to be safe."

"And you think that a Viking lord will offer them safety?"

"Given everything I've heard... aye.  Moreso than here, at least."  He scowled.  "Anyways, I've bent your ear long enough.  I'll get those supplies out to you before the tide turns.  Where are you bound to next?"

"Rouen, to see my family, and then up to these dragon lords to see what deals I can make," Viggo said. 

John whistled.  "Be careful.  There's been some fighting in the area around the Seine, and they're completely willing to press merchant vessels into service—whether the merchants like it or not."

Viggo gave him a nod and stood.  "Thank you," he said to the supplier. 

"Oh, not a problem.  Best of luck to you.  I look forward to becoming one of your regular stops, and welcome home!"

Viggo grinned and left the shop. 

###

**_Fear Manach, Eire_ **

 

Fintan mac Ionatan flew through the air, sitting in an otherwise empty skycart.  Below him passed his homeland, green and fertile.  League after league of Eire disappeared beneath him. 

Ahead of him, his oathsworn lord and unexpected friend _,_ Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, flew on Toothless' back, and his wife and concubine rode their own dragons in formation with the flock of Gronckles carrying the carts.   Also in the flock were Hensteeth clan Ingerman, who flew on his mount, a Nightmare named Toast, and a grizzled old Viking named Fritjof clan Jorgenson, who rode his two-headed Zippleback, Nott and Delling—named, as Fintan understood, after the Norse gods for night and dawn. 

Behind them lay the ringfort of the _rí ruírech_ of the Uí Néill.  His envoy had already returned from the Thawfest, and the king had formally agreed to the outlawing of thralldom from not just his lands, but from those _tuatha_ that were sept to his as well. 

Fintan had stood in the back of the group and watched as the king—who had made war specifically for captives and glory—swore to abide by the agreement, and had felt an incredible sense of vertigo.  Just like that…

Strange days indeed. 

And now, writ in hand, they flew to the place of nightmares and dread for him.

He pointed to the height-distorted but still familiar bounds of Lough Erne, and they flew down.

The ringfort, surrounded by fields and other forts nearby, was apparent from this height.  Once, it had been Fintan's world.  Now…

It was so _small._   And crude.  And dirty.

He saw it now, not as the grand estate it had once seemed to him, but as a small settlement, bounded by a round wall of stone and wooden logs shoved into the ground, hosting perhaps two hundred people at most.

The agony and pain of what had happened to him here… faded.

Because this was, to him, what Eire was, and had been.

And he looked to what Lady Astrid's parents were doing with the cities in the south, and saw what Eire _could be._

Flanked by the other dragons and their riders, the Grockles lowered the skycart to the field in front of the ringfort's main gate.  As it touched down on that field where, not so long ago, Fintan had repeatedly been made to weed until his fingers bled, he looked around.   The thralls had fled for the ringfort, and the guards, headed by Tuathel, were assembling by the gate.  .

With a wave, Hiccup called out, "Hello the fort!"

Tuathel stepped forward, flanked by his personal retinue of _láech_ , and said in his deadly mild tone, "You again?  What brings you to my door?  Planning on purchasing another _daer-fuidiri_ from me?"

Hiccup just turned to Fintan, who caught the eyes of a few of the _daer-fuidiri_ peeking up over the top of the ringfort's wall.  They gasped with recognition.

And they hadn't believed him when he had spoken of escape.

Well, here he was now.

Unspooling the scroll with the seal of the king, he recited from memory the words that were written upon it.  That no man nor woman nor child of Fear Manach would live as one of the _sen-cleith_ , _bothach_ or _fuidir_ from this day forth, in accordance with the laws of the Uí Néill.

And once he was finished, Hiccup, his lord and friend and savior, turned to his former owner.  "That's it."

Tuathel scowled.  "Well, what if I say they aren't free?  I am still king of Fear Manach!  Why should I corrupt my own laws when a foreign Viking threatens me?"

"Because the king you are sept to _orders_ it," Wulfhild said pointedly.

"I am _sept_ to him because it aids me to be so, not because I cringe in fear of him."  Tuathel crossed his arms.  "I am still king over my own lands and my own property."

"Shall we tell your overlord that you are disobeying him, then?" Astrid asked.

"Go ahead.  Find out how serious your puppet is about you pulling his strings."  Tuathel leaned forward and added acidly, "I rather doubt that he'll actually _do_ anything.  Unless you actually threaten him, at which point, your efforts to disguise your hand are uncovered."

There was a sudden blur of motion, and Tuathel's confident air suddenly vanished, as Astrid's ax seemed to appear a few inches under his chin.  "Well, if that's the case..." she said as Tuathel's guards drew their own weapons in alarm.  She ignored them and said, "You have an heir, right?  Will he be more willing to listen?"

Tuathel glanced down at the ax that was brushing his beard, but otherwise didn't seem too willing to move, or even breathe. 

Hiccup commented dryly, "I think it's time for Plan B, love."

Astrid gestured slightly with the ax, making Tuathel twitch.  "Are you sure?  I can lop off the problem at the source."

"Noooo..." Hiccup said in a drawl, and dropped a large purse—the size of a loaf of bread or a man's head—which clinked of coin at Tuathel's feet, and gestured for Astrid to step back.  She did so, pouting exaggeratedly, and resheathed her ax on her back.

Tuathel eyed her carefully, and then bent and picked up the purse.  "What's this?"

Hiccup scowled.  "A payment for the thralls you have here.  Use it to _hire_ some people to work for you, instead of stealing their lives."

Tuathel looked at him, befuddled.  "I don't understand."

"We're buying your thralls from you," Hiccup said.  "Since you're right—I do want to keep to the law.  But the _new_ law is that you don't take more.  _Ever._   And I'll be listening to see if you obey that one."

Quirking a skeptical eyebrow at Hiccup, Tuathel opened the purse and shook out several silver coins and shiny dragon-scales.  He looked up at Hiccup.  "I don't understand," he repeated.

"I said, that's payment, like you tried to claim from Fintan here."

"No, I understand _that._ "  He hefted the bag, considered for a moment, eyed Astrid's ax on her back, and nodded.  "I accept your payment.  But what I don't understand is _why."_   He pointed to Fintan.  "He's free.  Why come back for the rest?  And why pay for them when you could have just _taken_ them?"

"Because I think it's the right thing to do," Hiccup replied.  "Because I think people have a right to be free."

Tuathel's confusion deepened, a new expression of bewilderment on his face, as if he had just watched a dumb show performed by deranged lunatics.

Hiccup shook his head, seemingly amused.  "So, if that's done... let me collect my new people and we'll leave as soon as we can."

Tuathel seemed to jerk back to awareness and nodded.  "Aye.  I suppose.  Go, take them, and don't darken my doorstep any longer than you have to!"

"Trust me, we don't plan to," Hiccup said, and nodded to Astrid, who reached into a saddlebag and pulled out a pair of giant shears that Hiccup had designed specifically for cutting collars with a minimum of fuss. 

Hiccup turned to Fintan, Horsefeathers, and Fritjof.  "Go."

They nodded and, the two Hooligans following Fintan, the three of them went to push past Tuathel and the rest of his men.

"What's this?" Tuathel asked, an edge of belligerence in his voice.

"They're getting the people from inside; Fintan knows them... and knows where to find them all."

Tuathel scowled, but stepped aside.  "Be quick about it."

Fintan nodded, and practically ran into the ringfort; memories began coming back, but he shook them aside.  First they went into the kitchens, and gathered the _daer-fuidiri_ inside, Fintan explaining the situation to his former fellows.  He was so anxious, it felt like a dream, or like he'd stepped back and was observing himself going through the motions of what they were doing.  As Fritjof shepherded the kitchen workers to the gates, Fintan and Horsefeathers went to the _daer-fuidiri_ barracks, and gathered the people there.  Horsefeathers took them in hand, and started to guide the mass of surprised, anxious and excited people over to the gate.

And Fintan found himself eyeing one spot along the wall of the ringfort.  "You go on ahead," he said.  "I'll keep going."  Horsefeathers nodded, and Fintan pulled himself away from the group.  As he walked to the dairy-barn, he told himself that  the rest of them could wait.  It was selfish, but he had to find... her.

There were several milch cows grazing outside. Fintan hesitated and started to turn back, not knowing what he'd find inside and increasingly afraid to look …  but he turned once more and went into the barn. 

And there she was.  Sitting on a stool, milking a cow determinedly. 

She turned and he tried to hide his reaction, for she had new scars upon her face.

"Roisin?"

"Fin?"

She stood, her face disbelieving, and looked at him.

"But… how?"

"I… I got to Vedrarfjord after they captured you… and… I came back…" he stammered out.  "Sheena… Sheena, come with me, you're free!"

"What?  How?"

"You have to meet him!  He's more than the tales said he was!"

"Who?  Fin, _who?"_ she asked, looking at him with worry.  "And _how?_ "

"I'll explain as we go.  Come on, help me get the rest of everybody together, we're leaving as soon as we can."  He reached up and gently touched the collar around her throat.  "And you can get rid of that."

She reached up and clasped his hand... and all thoughts in Fintan's head vanished.  They gazed at each other for... who knew how long.  But then the oily voice of their former owner came from behind him.  "I see.  Well, this explains much."

Fintan froze, and then slowly turned. Tuathel mac Uaithne was standing behind him at the entrance to the dairy barn, looking at the two of them, a sword in hand. 

"And here I was wondering why the babe did not favor me."  He pointed the sword at Fintan.  "I take it that you are the one who truly sired the child?"

Fintan looked at the sword and swallowed hard, and then realized that he had put himself between Tuathel and Roisin unconsciously. 

 "I'll take that as a yes," Tuathel said dryly, and then his eyes narrowed with rage and he lunged and swung his blade at Fintan.

Startled, Fintan jumped back, and the sword whistled through the air where he had been standing. 

Recovering from his lunge, Tuathel hissed at him, and Fintan shouted to Roisin, "Run!  Find help!"

"I'm not leaving you!" she said, and threw the milking stool at Tuathel, who ducked enough that the heavy wooden stool hit him in the shoulder and knocked him back a foot or so.

Fintan grabbed Roisin by the arm and darted for the back door of the barn.  

"Hold still so I can kill you, you bastard!" Tuathel roared as he ran after them.

"My parents were married!" Fintan shot back as he ran  for the house, trying to push Roisin ahead of him. 

His foot slipped on the mud a bit and he staggered, arms flailing as he tried to regain his balance, and then he screamed in pain as Tuathel's sword chopped into his back.

Then there was a roar, and he felt a rush of air, and Tuathel screamed, the sound of which seemed to rapidly move away.

Picking his head up, he looked and saw that Stormfly and Astrid had picked up the sword-wielding nobleman, and were flying off with him.  Watching, he saw Stormfly shake him like a rat caught by a cat, sending the sword fluttering to the ground, and then drop him to hang from a high branch from a nearby tree.

Tuathel was screaming at the top of his lungs as he clung there.  Fintan was was admiring Tuathel's full-body grasp on the wavering branch as Hiccup and Toothless came running up to him.

"Fintan, are you okay?  I'm sorry, we were busy with the freedmen and didn't notice he'd gone... What happened?"

He put his head back down for a moment onto the mud; he was already muddy, what could it hurt?  Lifting it back up after a moment, he looked up at the man he had sworn an oath to, as Astrid and Stormfly sat in a tree near the one that Tuathel was dangling from. 

"Well, um, remember how I told you that Roisin's baby might have been mine?"

Hiccup nodded and then, after a moment, went, "Oh.  I see."  He glanced at the man dangling in the trees forty or fifty feet off of the ground, and then back to Fintan before extending his hand down to him.  "Didn't take it well?"

"Not in so many words, no," Fintan said, taking the hand and getting hauled to his feet. 

Standing again, his lord turned to him and asked, "May I?"

Fintan gave a mute nod, and Hiccup turned to look at the man dangling from the tree.  He called out, "You just attacked a friend of mine!"

Tuathel, his face red with effort, managed to call back, "He—"

"I know what he did, and you know what?  I don't care!  She's not a piece of meat for you to fight over!  We're going to leave with every single freedman before you try to murder them too in a fit of pique, and you can get your own damn self down from that tree!"  He turned to his wife, who was still sitting on her dragon in the tree near to the struggling nobleman.  "Come on, Astrid.  Let's get ready to leave." 

She gave Tuathel one last look and then turned to her husband with a questioning and hopeful look on his face.

"No, you can't kill him."  Hiccup gave one last glance at the swaying tree.  "This time."  Tuathel jerked a little bit at the end of his arms as he carefully worked his way over to the trunk of the tree.

Hiccup walked to the base of the tree and looked up.  While he did that, Fintan walked over to Roisin, who was watching everything with huge eyes.  Hesitantly, the habits of longtime caution and secrecy still there, she walked the last little bit and hugged him.

As they stood there in silent embrace, he and she watched his friend and lord address their former owner in tones of fury.  "Tuathel!  That's twice now we've kept you from attacking Fin!  _There will not be a third._  Am I clear!?"

"Aye, aye, just let me down!"

Hiccup stared at him for a long moment and then turned to his wife.  "Astrid, drop him off in the forest somewhere and come back."

Tuathel's crop of personal _láech_ were standing nearby in a huddle; they wouldn't act without his explicit permission and Wulfhild and Mistletoe had them well cowed.  They were more used to dealing with _daer-fuidiri_ like Fintan and the occasional bandit than they were to staring down a Razorwhip and a Night Fury who were clearly daring them to try something. 

Toothless, in particular, was just… _smiling_ at them. 

As Astrid and Stormfly carried off the screaming man to drop him in the middle of the forest, Hiccup turned and addressed the men-at-arms.  "Judging by the sound, she's probably going to drop him in the lake.  You _might_ want to go see about helping him."

They turned and fled.

Hiccup turned to Fintan and Roisin, a smile on his face.  "How's your back?"

Fintan blinked as the wound suddenly made its presence felt again; he hadn't forgotten about it, exactly, but it had seemed somewhat unimportant in the moment.

"Uh… it hurts, but not really that bad?"

Hiccup turned and picked up the dropped sword, examining it critically.  After a moment, he scoffed.  "It looks like it hasn't been sharpened in months, and this iron is shit.  Literally.  Wait, no.  I've literally seen Hotburples shit better iron than this."

Fintan, despite himself, laughed. 

Hiccup set the sword's tip on the grass and, balancing on his new peg—which was an even more complicated piece now than it had been before, a weird little device that let him swap between pegs designed for different terrains—put his foot on the middle of the blade, and pushed. 

It bent.

Hiccup rolled his eyes as Fintan laughed and Roisin gasped.   "Calling this a sword is a professional insult," his lord griped, and he dropped the bent blade on the ground.  "Come on.  Let's get that wound cleaned up and looked at before it festers, although I'm betting it's more like a clubbing wound than a cut."  He turned.  "And you must be Roisin."  He bowed with a smile. 

She shrank back a bit,  and Hiccup frowned. 

Fintan looked at her.  "He's a good man, I promise."

Hiccup just bowed.  "I'll give you two some space.  Figure we'll leave shortly for Vedrarfjord, but take your time, okay?"

Fintan nodded, staring at Roisin.

Hiccup's distinctive footsteps receded into the distance, and Fintan just looked at his lover.

"You're okay…" he said reverently.

"You're… Fin, _how?_   What did you have to _do?"_   She looked around, taking in the dozen and more dragons currently walking around the estate, and the dozens of thralls who were walking around in a daze.  Some, Fintan knew, were distrustful of the Hooligans, while others were just in shock, and still others were trying to figure out what the catch was.

He just smiled at the dark-haired woman in his arms.  "I will tell you all about it, I promise.  But I swear to you that I am a free man, and the only thing I owe him," he nodded in the direction of Hiccup, conversing with Toothless, "is my allegiance, freely given."

"So you gave yourself to him to free me?"

"Not exactly.  But I would follow him to the ends of the earth, Sheena, if he asked it of me.  He… he's a good man.  You'll see."  He shifted the conversation.  "So… the baby?"

She slumped a bit.  "The baby…"

Sudden terror hit Fintan.  "What?  What's wrong?"

"The babe… she was born sick.  She still lives… but the midwife says that she probably will not survive."

Fintan felt his stomach drop to around his shoes, and nodded.  "Well.  We'll bring her with us.  If she lives, then she will grow up in a better life.  If she doesn't… then she died free and surrounded by love."  He held her, and they stood in silence for a moment. 

A short while later, they were flying to the southeast, over the same lands that he and she had taken weeks to cross on foot.  If all went well, they would be landing in their new home before sunset. 

###

**_Vedrarfjord Keep, Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

Hiccup looked at Fintan and Roisin as they sat off to the side in one of the Vedrarfjord fortress's chambers. 

His friend was being extremely supportive of her, and she was currently experiencing that fairly common reaction of newly freedmen—shock, surprise, and a feeling of disbelief. 

He'd just come to deeply enjoy those moments as his own reward for doing the right thing.  The moment of supreme realization that, no, it wasn't a lie, it wasn't a trick, it wasn't a dream… that they were their own persons once again—if they hadn't been born to the collar in the first place—it was the sort of thing that brought a smile to his face and warmed his heart.  Astrid was smiling next to him in a similar manner, and Wulfhild was doing her best to hide the gloating expression on her face. 

Footsteps on the wooden floor came from next to him, and he turned to see his father-in-law standing there with an approving smile on his face. 

"They make a cute couple, don't they?" Hákon asked rhetorically, his tone approving. 

He grinned back and said, "Yep."  Both Astrid and Wulfhild made approving noises of their own. 

"You realize that you've left us a mess, though," his father-in-law observed.  Not blaming him, but pointing out the problems.  "Once word of this spreads, half of the people that have lost thralls to us will be coming here for compensation."

"I've been thinking on that," Hiccup said with a nod, "and I'm thinking that working out some kind of rule would be best; I want to avoid what Wulfhild warned," he nodded in her direction, "that people will be taking thralls specifically to 'sell' them to us, or other scams like that."

"Aye, I've been having similar thoughts."  Hákon shrugged.  "But this was a drop in the bucket.  Sixty-seven freed, but thousands more are still enthralled across the island, in one form or another."  He nodded in the direction of the two young lovers currently standing in the corner of the room, arms clasped around each other.  "There are a hundred and fifty or so _tuatha_ —and of those, less than forty have freed their _sen-cleith, bothach_ and _fuidir._ "

Hiccup nodded in recognition of the point.  "But it's been less than a year.  I'd say we're doing pretty well!"

"Aye, but many are going to be trying what I've heard of Ulaid: making them officially free, but saddling them with debt that they need to work off—debt that will take a lifetime or more to be free of."

Hiccup grimaced, Astrid folded her arms and Wulfhild sighed.  It's going to be a painful fight, isn't it?" he said sadly. 

"Aye, son, it will.  But we've been fighting it in our own way for a hundred and fifty years already on Berk.  And it worked for us."

Astrid snorted.  "For certain meanings of the word."

Hiccup nodded to Hákon and asked, "So… what do we do now?"

"Well, son," and Hiccup felt a thrill at the welcoming tone in his father-in-law's voice, "we had a few thoughts.  First is pretty straightforward; Hiccup's precedent aside, if the thrall gets here ahead of those chasing him, tough luck.  But we also have patrols running around the region, and we've had a few encounters with thrall-hunters.  So Gunvor had an idea; we tell the thrall-hunters to leave, and give them, well, a bribe. So long as they turn around and don't come back."

Wulfhild made a noise of objection, and Hákon looked at her.  "Yes?"

"That'll add up quickly.  How are you going to keep it from draining the city purse?"  She shrugged defensively, and said, "I don't like speaking out against it, but… it is a risk."

"We've been thinking on that," Hákon said, "and what we came up with as a potential solution was that we'll make a special purse for paying out those costs.  We'll be taxing the more wealthy members to pay for it."

Hiccup and both women frowned.  "Wait, aren't the 'more wealthy members' here usually the riders out on patrol?" Hiccup asked, and Astrid nodded in agreement.

Hákon nodded.  "Aye.  I'm a bit worried there that some people might get greedy and overlook things… but, well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Hiccup rubbed his hands through his hair.  "And I can't think of anything better."

"Thank you.  But I also have another idea to help pay for it."  Hákon gave a rather predatory grin. 

"Oh?"

"Aye.  Right now, our two cities here are becoming the great marketplaces for the entire southeast of Eire.  We're instituting some gate taxes for the merchants to help pay for the road and harbors and the like, and even then, we're starting to starve Dubh Linn of traffic."  He spread his arms out a bit in a satisfied way. "We're trying to figure out how best to structure things, but right now, everything that we've been building and putting coin into is starting to build on itself.  And the taxes are going to go right back into that."

Hiccup tried to visualize that and, tilting his head, he found that he couldn't.  "Could you give me an example?"

"Aye.  We built some of your mills along the river, started building roads, got some Timberjacks sawing wood, and started adding to the shipyards, among other things."

Hiccup nodded.  "I follow so far."  Both Astrid and Wulfhild made noises of agreement.

"Well, the wood planks from the Timberjacks are being used to build both ships and houses.  Our fishing fleet grew fourfold over the winter, and we had more houses built for everyone coming here.  And more people means that there's more demand for everything; we've had smiths come in, and weavers making both clothes and sails.  Someone started a ropewalk to make more nets.   And still more people have been taking the bark left over from the Timberjacks' mill and preparing it for writing; while it's not parchment, it's better than nothing., Also, the tree-roots are being used in the new smokehouses for smoking food… and we've grown the _number_ of smokehouses five times over, too.  And each one of those jobs needs people, and while I'm helping fund a lot of the starting costs, even a small tax on that much activity is starting to build on itself—and with every new business and every new person, it grows bigger."

Hiccup blinked.  "Wow."

Hákon grinned.  "Aye.  While we're still spending silver from the bride price…" he glanced at Astrid, who huffed fondly and rolled her eyes, smiling, "a lot of the silver we've spent has been coming back to us—and then right back out again, either in the form of the funds for Bed Rights and Food Rights, or in help for starting businesses.  I think that there's something like three and a half thousand pounds silver out there right now—but we're getting over a pound a _day_ back in taxes _now_ , and that looks like it'll keep growing."

Wulfhild whistled, impressed, and Hiccup nodded in agreement. 

"Beyond that…"  Hákon sighed.  "We need more dragons—and riders.  And we need riders from among the locals."

Hiccup winced.  "We can't.  Not with the new law."

Hákon nodded.  "Aye.  But they're not _thinking."_

"Oh, I know!  We need more people, and more riders—and instead they're trying to get me to create things that can do the work instead of people!"

"Which you're doing anyway," Astrid noted.

"Yes, but… argh!" Hiccup said, frustrated.  "They're useful ideas!  And they help people!"  He waved his arms about.  "And every person my creations help is another person who can do another job, a different job—and it's not like we're lacking in those, not with over twenty thousand dragons to feed and take care of!"

Hákon nodded.  "And that's all well and good.  But have you thought about what happens if that law stays as is?"

"Well, we'll only get a score or so of new riders a year—but that's pretty much the idea," Hiccup groused.  "They want to absorb the people here slowly." 

"Aye, that might be the _idea,_ " Hákon said, "but that's not what will happen.  No, what will happen is that we'll recreate the thrall, carl, thane and jarl system again."

Hiccup blinked.  "Say again?"

"Son, you're a genius, but you don't know how people work that well, do you?"

"Uh…"

"I'm not saying it as a criticism, Hiccup.  But, look—the old system is based on the idea that some people are just… _worth_ more.  I respect Heimdall for his sight, but his arrangement… well, I think we've shown that that isn't workable.  No matter how they were when they met Rig, Thrall in the Shack can become a Jarl in the Castle, or the other way around."  He snorted.  "Given that the three of us are descended from thralls that escaped to Berk and became men and women of note in the village, I think that's pretty much a given."

Hiccup nodded; Berk didn't think much of the _Rígsmál,_ and it was the sort of thing that they'd been working out for a few generations.  The rigid caste system instituted by Heimdall in that saga wasn't based on virtue or anything more than luck of birth, as Hákon had pointed out.

Hákon continued.  "But if they're saying that the people of Berk are _worth more_ because of who they were born as… well, then, in ten or twenty years, here's what will happen here in this city—we'll have the jarls and thanes, those who were born in Berk or who are part of Berk's clans—and don't you doubt for a minute that they'll be getting a _lot_ more picky now.  And we'll have the carls, those that were born in Vedrarfjord."  He held up one last finger and gave Hiccup a flat look, "and we'll have the thralls, either in name or in effect, the ones that came here and have no hope or no luck—and no dragon, which is rapidly becoming _the_ point of status and importance and wealth around here."

Inhaling sharply, Hiccup nodded.  "And…"

"Well, you're hardly at any risk of falling down that ladder, son, but I thought that half of the reason you were so passionate about freeing thralls was because you couldn't stand to see a person being treated worse than a dragon, and want to treat everyone with loyalty and respect."

Hiccup just blinked.  He'd been so focused on the manpower and labor aspects of the nativists blocking any efforts at recruiting that he hadn't even considered Hákon's perspective.

Until now at least.

He nodded and gave a little bow to his father-in-law, and said, gratefully, "Thank you so much for that thought.  It hadn't even occurred to me."

"I gathered."  He clapped Hiccup on the shoulder.  "So, what are you going to do about it?"

"Something stupid," Hiccup said with a smirk as Astrid laughed. 

"Oh, aye, you've already done _that,_ " Hákon said with an answering smirk, which made Astrid laugh even harder. 

"Then I guess I have to do something crazy," Hiccup said with a grinning shrug.  His father-in-law had apparently recognized the usual bantering in-joke his son-in-law had with his daughter, and was responding according to the script.

"That's more like it, son."  He gave an answering shrug.  "However, given your past craziness, I think you have a high bar to clear with that claim."

"Oh, don't worry, dad, he'll manage," Astrid said with a sardonic look at Hiccup, her laughter dying.  "This _is_ the same fellow whose solution to seeing an invading fleet was to hop onto his dragon and deal with half of them himself."

Hiccup gave her a exasperated look.  He _still_ had nightmares from that battle that woke all three of them in the middle of the night. 

Giving him an apologetic look in reply, she said, "But if he does that again, I'm going to be right next to him."  She stepped next to him and slipped her hands into his.

"And so will I," Wulfhild said, giving both of them a solemn look and stepping in next to them, putting her arm around Hiccup's waist.

"Well, hopefully it won't come to that," Hákon said bluntly.  "I'm hoping for a slow seduction here, rather than an out-and-out battle.  Hopefully, by the time my grandchildren are of age," he gave Astrid's slightly bulging midsection a significant look, "we'll have a peace that we can build on here.  I'm all for dying with my sword in my hand one day, but honestly, Valhalla can wait."

Hiccup nodded as Wulfhild sighed.  Turning to her, he asked, "What's wrong, Wulf?"

"I just… well, I'm a bit in an odd spot with all of this.  I mean, I know the old sagas, and I know that they're important to you all… but… they're not my way."

Hákon nodded.  "We've been actually having some issues with that, to be honest.  Some of the local Christian priests have been trying very hard to convert us, and it's getting, well, it has _gotten_ more than trifle annoying.  I'm more than willing to let them worship as they see fit.  A man's—or woman's—relationship with the gods is their own private business as far as I'm concerned, and I wish that they'd be willing to _reciprocate_ that _._ "

Wulfhild sighed.  "They can't.  It's complicated, but they… _we_ believe that, if you don't convert, you're damned for eternity."

Hiccup blinked.  "Then…?"

"Why haven't I been trying to convert you two?  Because it's not my place to preach to you, either of you, and we're all young, and I respect you all too much to want to start that kind of strain in our relationships," Wulfhild said, with a note of resignation in her voice.  "I do worry, though.  About both of you."

Astrid patted her on the shoulder, and said, "We appreciate that, but I think that that's a discussion for another time."

Hákon nodded.  "Aye.  So, as we were saying, I'm _hoping_ that we don't, oh, have to face down a united Eire rising up against us for the tyranny of refusing to allow them to own another person.  Right now, from what I've been seeing, it won't come to that, though—we have something that they all want, and they're all trying to ally with us, in greater or lesser extents, if only to keep their rivals from getting the same advantage.  Well, almost all of them.  Donnchadh mac Briain is rattling his sword, but he knows that we could squash him in an afternoon, and  Ímar mac Arailt makes my hands itch for a blade.  But I'm having enough problems bringing Vedrarfjord and Veisafjord up to speed."

"What sort of problems?" Hiccup asked.  "Anything I can help with?"

"I'll think on it, son, but for now, you've got enough on your plate without me handing you more.  Focus on making the tribe at large accept that we need to expand who is allowed to have a dragon of their own."  He shrugged.  "For the moment, who we have here is enough… barely."

Hiccup nodded. 

"Also…" he looked at his daughter and said in a resolute tone, "I want _you_ to take it easy until the baby is born."

"Dad!" Astrid protested.  "I'm not—"

"You're still my daughter, and I get to be protective— _especially_ given that you're my only _surviving_ child."

Astrid blinked and Hiccup felt like his father-in-law's words had hit him in the gut.  "Say again?" he said.

"Oh, aye, you didn't know?" Hákon gave Astrid a level look before speaking back to Hiccup.  "Astrid here and you have something in common—you're both your parents' only _surviving_ children.  I know Valka had at least three miscarriages or stillbirths before you were born, Hiccup, and Gunvor and I lost four, two before Astrid, and two _after_."  He crossed his arms and gave his daughter a _look_ of utter unamusement as Hiccup felt his mind reel at the revelation.  Astrid was also looking a touch staggered, but had apparently heard it before.  "So _you,_ dearest, are going to tamp down on your normal risk-taking until the babe is born."

"Dad—!"

"No, Astrid!  I can tell you horror story after horror story of children lost, or mothers dying, but I'll put it this way: do you know _why_ your husband has the name he does?"

All three of them blinked at the asperity in his voice. 

"I thought that it was tradition in the tribe to name children with silly names to scare off gnomes and trolls," Wulfhild said hesitantly.  "Sometimes people take new ones when they reach adulthood or get married, but sometimes not…"

"Aye, and it is _also_ tradition to name the _runt_ of the litter specifically _Hiccup,"_ Hákon said, patting Hiccup on the shoulder. 

Hiccup frowned.  He knew that one, and he didn't like it too much.  Even if either of the babies was born sickly in five months, they'd get a different name.  _Any_ different name. 

Astrid's father continued, "And I'll put it this way—Astrid, your birthday is a few weeks after Thawfest, and that's when we were expecting you.  Hiccup's birth is not until nearly the summer solstice.  But if he'd been born on time, it wouldn't have been for nearly another month.  He was lucky to survive to see his _first_ birthday _,_ especially since his mother…"  he paused.  "Never mind.  Anyway, my point is, I remember helping Stoick keep Hiccup here alive.  And I'd spare you all that same memory."  He sighed.  "So, please, Astrid… be careful.  I supported you in being the shieldmaiden you became growing up, even though it killed me to risk you.  But… _please._   For the next six months… just… be careful."

"I have been, Dad," she said with her own tone of asperity.  Hiccup managed to keep from rolling his eyes with difficulty.

Hákon sighed.  "I've said my piece.  So, to change the subject, how goes that glassmaker that we sent you?"

Hiccup blinked at the change of subject, and shrugged.  "He's gotten the shop set up, and is starting to make glass.  Mostly small useful things and trade goods—goblets, jars, beads, vials, bowls, that sort of thing.  But the shop we started him off in is too small for him to make a real go of it, so what we're planning on doing is digging out another chamber under the Broodery, and have the heat from his furnaces be used to warm the place, rather than it going to waste."

Hákon nodded appreciatively.  "Very nice.  Well, we have had more craftsmen showing up, and while none of them are glassworkers, we're starting to have a trickle of other skilled crafters appear at our doorstep."  He crossed his arms and gave Hiccup a sanguine look.  "If we wanted, we could become a great exporter of goods with little effort."

Hiccup had an old memory pop into his head.  _But do we have enough bread-making Vikings, or small-home repair Vikings…_ He laughed.  "Sounds good to me.  I'll talk it over with Dad, but given how our talk about glassmaking went, I'm pretty sure he'll have no problems."

"Good, because I might have already started putting the word out there that any craftsman who wants sponsorship can present themselves at our door," his father-in-law said with a smirk. 

Hiccup snorted and Astrid laughed. 

Wulfhild just shook her head.  "I swear, the lot of you are the strangest Vikings I've ever met."  She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture.  "Glassmaking, money-making, crafting Vikings who are bored of fighting."

"Aye, lass," Hákon said with a smirk that turned sad after a moment.  "I've been fighting for over half my life.  I'm near two score years, and, let me tell you, I've seen horrible things, things that haunt my sleep.  I've seen men die screaming for their mothers and wives, and women die screaming for their husbands and children."  His eyes grew dark and hooded for a moment and he sighed.  "Peace is better.  If the way to riches and valor lies in figuring out details on trade agreements and taxation policies, then I will _happily_ hang up my ax and pick up my quill."  He smiled grimly.  "Just as long as everyone doesn't forget that I _do_ know how to use both."

Wulfhild nodded wryly.  "Yeah, this sort of place would be a prime target for raiders."

"I'm not going to tempt the Norns by saying that I'd like to see them try in earnest, but, honestly, miss… any raider that attacks this place is a fool.  Mind you, we had a few attempts by some actual fools this past winter, but they were little jokes, small packs of hungry men and boys."  He smirked.  "Gunvor sat them out on the bay islands to let them cool their heads and think over their misdeeds.  But I doubt we'll see any attacks from a serious raiding party.  We have great riches, yes, but we already fought off the English navy.  That'll weigh heavily on their thinking."

"You're assuming that they're actually _thinking,_ " Astrid said sarcastically to her father. 

"If they're the leaders of any major raiders, aye, dearest, they're thinking, I promise you that," he said.  "The grunts at the bottom?  Yes, the cliche holds.  But anyone worth a damn as a threat at the top?  No, they have brains and know how to use them."  He shrugged.  "I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.  For the moment, I have patrols running around both cities at least five miles out—although they're not as dense as I would like them to be, honestly.  I have too many people on foot and at sea as opposed to in the air.  Which, of course, brings me back to needing more flyers."

Hiccup nodded.  "We'll work on that.  Promise."

"On the good news area, though… as I recall, there was a need for pottery back home, yes?  Especially for Hiccup's little terror weapons, as well as other general use."

Astrid nodded.  "Yeah, we have less than a hundred firecocks in storage at the moment, and _that's_ the sort of thing that we can always use more of.  The glassmaker is making jars and Zipplebubbles, but we don't have anything bigger to put them in aside from pots… and Magnhild is watching hers like a hawk."

Hákon barked a laugh.  "Ha!  Of course she is.  Well, dear, _two_ of those craftsmen that I mentioned before are _potters._   And there's apparently good clay around this city."  He leaned in with a smile.  "So we'll be able to start making pottery for export—and explosions—as soon as they get their kilns up and going.  I'm personally supporting those, as promised."

That made all three of them grin, although Hiccup's was more forced.  "Good," he said.  "We need that, and as soon as we have a large enough stock, hopefully we can make bowls for sale, instead of…" he sighed, "weapons."

"Aye, lad.  The Romans have a saying—if you seek peace, prepare for war.  That's what we're doing here.  If the only things I have to kill for the rest of my life are the fish on my hook and the occasional chicken or duck, I'll be content.  But I'll put that aside if I need to protect this place."  He pointed a thumb at the couple still standing nearby.  "And protect people like them."  He shrugged.  "So, what are your plans for them, anyway, Hiccup?"

"Whatever they want.  They're freedmen, remember?"

"Aye, but the man took oath to you," Hákon reminded him. 

"I know, I know, but I don't know what to do there.  Can you test him to see what skills he has, or can be trained in?" Hiccup said.  "And then give him a job that fits him?"

"Aye, that I can do," Hákon said. "Beyond that, what's next on your plates?"

Astrid shrugged and said to her father, "Well, assuming that it isn't too _risky,_ " she gave him a sardonic look, "we plan on looping down to Francia, investigating some rumors there and checking in on the mail station place in Normandy, and then up to England, and then home.  Then from there, down to the southern sea to get more mail stations set up." She put her hands on her hips and gave her father a look of irritation.  "And because of the 'risk', Wulf and I will be taking skycarts once we can't fly anymore.  And Mom already offered to come along to help."

"Astrid…" Hákon said chidingly, but with a note of acknowledgment.  "I'm sorry; I know that you're an adult now, and married… but you're still my only child.  I'm allowed to be worried, about your health and that of your own child.  But I am sorry for my tone.  Do you accept my apology?"

She looked at him for a moment and then nodded curtly. 

"Thank you.  As for that… it sounds… acceptable.  Just promise me that you'll avoid your usual acrobatics if and when you have to deal with any wild dragons, alright?  For the baby's sake?"

She sighed and looked at Hiccup.  He shot back a look of _don't look at me, this is your issue._

She gave another sigh, looked at her father, and nodded.  "Okay, dad, I promise."

###

**_Jomsborg Longships, The North Sea, Between Norway and Alba_ **

****

Jonna, hopefully now formerly of Jomsborg, looked out across a star-speckled sky, the lapping of the water against the hull of the _knarr_ being the loudest sound.  Sunrise was still an hour or so off, and the waning moon was setting in the west. 

She looked around the little fleet from her spot by the prow and smiled despite the morning chill. 

In many ways, this was her first moment of peace since the _holmgang._   Her passionate argument for leaving had made many consider it… and a smaller number commit to it.  But that smaller number was still over a hundred and fifty, and Jonna had suddenly found herself in charge of the expedition. 

Supplies, properties and baggage, organizing the ships, the ten thousand and one little details… they'd all fallen straight into her lap, and even with their eagerness to see her gone, the men of the Jomsvikings hadn't lifted a finger to help.  So they'd set out well after the _Sigurblót,_ four longboats carrying a hundred and fifty-two people. 

They were daring, and daring greatly, but they were in the service of the gods themselves, going to support their chosen champions.  While failure was still a possibility, Jonna had worked herself to the bone to keep it a distant possibility. 

And now… sitting by the prow of the longboat…

This was the first moment of peace that she could recall in the last three moons that she'd really been able to sit and enjoy. 

A soft murmur came from behind her and she turned to see Reidun, a fur wrapped around her against the cold, work her way forward, gently picking her steps to avoid stepping on any of the sleeping people lying about the deck.

Waiting patiently, she patted the empty spot on the sea chest next to her for her fair-haired wife to sit down. 

Reidun sat down and the two of them leaned against each other, watching as the stars glided overhead and Manni's moon drift down to the horizon.  The eastern sky to their backs was starting to brighten, and they'd be waking everyone up soon enough, having a bare breakfast, and continuing on their way.

Figuring out their position… or, rather, that they were on the right route, on the other hand… well, _that_ was easier than Jonna had anticipated.  Since clearing the Skagerrak Strait a few days earlier, they'd been following the dragons.

At first, it had been only one at a time, and, for all she knew, it was just one flying back and forth, but they'd spotted a dragon in the skies above the North Sea, heading west straight as an arrow shot from a bow. 

Stopping at one of the small port towns to resupply and sleep on solid ground, they'd found out that the dragons were being used to carry mail, and the one that they'd spotted was carrying mail from Berk to Nidaros and back again.

So they'd gamely set sail, and yesterday, she'd seen a small flock of them, heading west and carrying what looked like a large box, filled with people.  That sight had at least confirmed— _vividly_ —that the rumors were not only true, but understated. 

Now she just had to find their homeland.  She knew that Berk was in the Hebrides islands in the north of Alba, but where, exactly, she wasn't quite sure… although she hadn't admitted that to anyone. 

That being said, finding the _one_ island in the entire chain that had a flock of tamed dragons flying around it probably wouldn't be that hard.  Gossip and following the mail dragons home would certainly work. 

And then… well… she would be astounded if this Chieftain Stoick the Vast wouldn't welcome them with open arms, as valiant warriors of deed and song, late of the Jomsvikings, the fabled Viking mercenaries whose name struck dread into the hearts of those who opposed them, having crossed the sea to add their strength of will and might at arms to that of his own people. 

She wanted to meet this man, a leader who possessed such strength and wisdom that he could look at a dragon and see not only a means of destruction, but something useful for an activity as prosaic as carrying letters and passengers. 

Shock and surprise had been her reaction when she'd been told about that mundane use, but after further reflection, she'd come to a deep appreciation of the chief's canniness and wisdom.  She was not sure if the story that a dragon had to eat a drop of gold each week for its health was true or not, but she was certain that they would hardly be cheap to feed.  She rather doubted that they ate hay like horses did.  So putting them to work to make them earn their keep?  Genius.  Pure genius. 

Reidun murmured next to her, "Sun's coming up soon."

"Aye.  It was a nice night, but I'm ready to make way again," she said.  "I want to see this place, this _Berk._ "

"As do I, love," she said with a smile.  "That's why I'm here, remember?"

Jonna gave a light laugh.  "Sorry.  I'm just so excited."

"And you had to sell it to everyone.  I know.  Just another week or so, Jonna.  And then you'll get your wish."

###

**_Vedrarfjord Keep, Vedrarfjord, Eire_ **

 

A few hours after the sun had—reportedly—risen behind the springtime clouds on their first day of freedom, Fintan sat in the small chamber that he and Roisin had been given; Lord Hákon had given them the place of privacy while he helped her come back to herself.  Their daughter was sleeping nearby in a cradle given to them by the Hoffersons, and she was to be examined by Lady Gunvor's midwife soon.  Fintan just… hoped that the midwife would be able to help her.  He didn't know too much about babies, but his daughter… looked far too pale.  But he couldn't pray.  Christ had never heard his prayers for freedom… but… the All-Father or his son might be able to.

Stoick had told him of Thor, protector of thralls and the weak, and… Fintan found his faith appealing.  Not a distant, unknowable God whose will was interpreted by the priests, whose orders you had to obey on pain of eternal damnation, but… a more human, more understandable group, who apparently judged you by your deeds, rather than your thoughts.  Gods who took what joy in life they could. 

But he was not one of the Norse, so he didn't know if their gods would hear his prayers for his daughter.

He didn't even know what words to say.

Or if there were even words _to_ say.  They were gods of action, of deed, after all. 

All he knew was, if his daughter lived… if they judged him worthy of help… he was theirs, just as he was Hiccup's. 

Roisin walked into their chamber from having visited the latrine, still looking like she was in shock.  He stood and embraced her, and she folded into his arms, a place that she had barely left since they had arrived. 

"I can't believe it…"

"Well, yesterday morning you were a thrall.  Now you're a freed woman," he said.  "A bit of surprise… is understandable."

She huffed into his chest.  "You keep using that bard's tongue of yours, Fin.  It got me into your arms in the first place."

He smiled.  "Do you want to stay there?"

She stiffened.  "Are you going to send me away?" 

Fintan suddenly cursed himself for his thoughtlessness and hugged her tightly.  "No, no.  But… I don't want to push you either.  We were thralls before, and you were Tuathel's—"

"What are you saying, Fin?"

He took a deep, deep sigh and then let it out to calm himself. One of them had to stay calm.  "I'm saying that I want you, Sheena.  But only if you want me.  I'm not going to force myself on you or assume that you want to sta—"

She kissed him.

A short while later, lying on the bed, their clothes scattered around the room, she said quietly, "I want you."

"I got that impression," Fintan said with a tired smile. 

"So… now what?" she asked him. 

He smiled at her.  "We wed, we raise our daughter, and we help our friends and lords build the world that they are making."

"Just like that?" she asked.

"Just like that," he said. 

As they slept together in the same bed for the first time in their lives, Fintan said a silent blessing to whichever god or gods were listening, in thanks and gratitude for having unleashed such a man as his lord upon the world. 

 

###

 **_Two Miles Above Mor Bretannek,_ ** **_Near Guernsey and Jersey, North Of Brittany_**

 

At the head of the formation of seven dragons, Hiccup and Toothless flew high above the seas below.  The world was stretched out below them, a beautiful tapestry of blues and greens and whites as they flew towards Francia.  They'd stopped in Kernow and oriented themselves to the distant smudge of land far to the south that was Brittany—Bertaèyn, in the tongue of the natives, according to Heather.  

Part of Hiccup chafed at having taken so long to get here, but the reports of the dragon attacks had been weeks old when he'd received them a month ago.  Oh, sure, he could have rushed here, but when?  Thawfest?  The shedding?  The hatching? 

He glanced off roughly to where Vedrarfjord was to the north and west, and remembered Fintan embracing his lover, and shuddered.  That wouldn't have happened if he'd left Berk immediately.  And who knew what damage that poisoner might have inflicted if Astrid hadn't caught him…

He sighed and lay down on Toothless' back.  Toothless gave a questioning murble, and Hiccup replied, "Just thinking, bud.  How do I do the right thing if I don't know what it is?  If I do one thing, then I can't do other things… which is the one to choose?"

Toothless seemed to consider that for a moment, and then flapped his wings once, breaking them out of the formation.  A moment later, they were flying in between Astrid and Wulfhild on Stormfly and Mistletoe, and Toothless cocked his head enough to make eye contact, and then nodded meaningfully at the two women, who were giving confused looks. 

"Hiccup?  What's going on?" Astrid asked.

"Is there a problem?" Wulfhild asked.

Hiccup glanced down at Toothless, who gave him a knowing smile, and then looked first at Astrid and then at Wulfhild.  "I was just… how do you know what is the right thing to do?"  They looked at him, confused, so he clarified.  "There are so many problems for us to deal with.  How do I know that this is the thing I should be doing right now?  Instead of maybe going off to the southern sea as quickly as I can?  Or going south to check on Snotlout and see if he made it to the Empire safely?  Or going around with Yngvarr like he promised he would to make introductions with all of the royals?"

Astrid and Wulfhild shared one of those Significant Looks.  Then Astrid nodded and Wulfhild spoke up, the dragons moving in close together to allow them to talk.

"You know because it's the best use of your time based on what you know, Hiccup," she said, leaning back slightly in Mistletoe's saddle, the wind only a slight sound as the dragons cruised through the air, only occasionally flapping.  "Going down here to chase a rumor all by itself would have been a terrible use of your time.  But dealing with a bunch of issues in a row?  That's a good use of your time.  You're going to have a lot on your plate for the rest of your life, so you need to figure out what does the most good when you handle with what time you have, and what can be put off for later—like this rumor—and what you can give to other people, like how Fishlegs is handling the ship conversions."

A motion ahead drew Hiccup's eye, and he saw Fritjof on his Zippleback—Nott and Delling—assume the lead in the formation. 

Turning back to Wulfhild, he nodded and ran his hands through his hair.  "And what about those people at Tuathel's ringfort?  We could have freed them sooner."

"Hiccup, he had barely gotten home by the time we arrived.  And given how busy we were, could you really justify giving him a lift home?" Astrid pointed out.

Hiccup grimaced.  "I guess not.  I just…"  He flapped his hands anxiously.  "It's all so big, and so overwhelming and I don't know where to start, and everybody keeps looking at me like I'm some kind of _god,_ and I'm just me and I have no idea of what I'm doing…" he babbled.

Another voice intruded.  "Do what you can.  Be just, be good, be merciful, and just do what you can." 

Hiccup looked back to see Gunvor and Sunflower flying behind them, the pair of them having moved up along the formation when he hadn't been paying attention.  His mother-in-law smiled at him.  "Hiccup.  It is inspiring to see that you want to fix the whole of the world.  But," she glanced upwards in thought, "as I was told when I was younger, overwhelmed and stressed and seeing so much that needed doing, and not knowing where to start… 'The day is short and the work is much.  It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, but neither are you free to absolve yourself from it.'"  She smiled warmly at him.  "Do what you can, guided by your morals and your knowledge, and don't beat yourself up about how you _could_ have done more.  You did what you could, which is more than what most do."

"I… I've heard that saying too," Hiccup said.  "And… and now I get it."

Her smile shifted to a grin.  "Good.  Now, I believe that our destination is getting close?" she said, pointing to the approaching land below them. 

Hiccup nodded and returned to the head of the formation. 

As they approached one of the villages, there were gasps—the buildings had obviously recently suffered from fire.  And, from the spread of the damage, the way it tracked, the scorch marks on the ground…

It had obviously been made by a dragon blasting a line of fire across the village.

The villagers were pointing up at them, and cringing in fear. 

Hiccup sighed.  "Looks like there really was a rogue dragon out here."

Toothless snorted sadly and nodded. 

"Come on, let's land and find out what happened."

They circled and landed off to the side of the village, near a small rise that would let them take off again in a hurry.

An hour or so later, Hiccup was furious as they flew onwards.

"When I catch them…!" he trailed off, his anger choking in his throat.  The village had been attacked all right.  By Dogsbreath and Inga riding Redsnout.  The villagers had been able to describe them in detail, telling how they'd come in the night and set the village on fire to give themselves cover as they looted the fishermen's limited stock of supplies—and killing over a dozen people and injuring twice that many, as the badly-burned village headman, a man named Christophe, had described to Hiccup in detail through Heather.  Hiccup had, of course, offered help with rebuilding, and had been resoundingly rebuffed—not that he could blame them. 

But Christophe had given them directions to his lord's keep, and they were on their way there now to investigate… well, it wasn't rumor any longer.  To investigate how much damage Dogsbreath and Inga had done, for whatever reason. 

They found the keep easily enough, just following the roads…

And the burned-out structures in the interior were a giveaway as well.

They circled once, and landed out of bowshot from the keep—Hiccup had learned his lesson at Cashel. 

A short while later, a party of a dozen armored men on horseback came riding up.  They stopped a short distance away, and the leader dismounted and approached—and Hiccup's eyes went wide in recognition.

Dismounting from Toothless' back, he cupped his hands and called out in Norse, "Sir Henry!  I'd say that it was nice to see you again, but I'd be lying!"

The Francian man's lip curled in a sneer.  "I'd say the same to you, Haddock!  So, if you've come to finish the job, you're too late!"

"What _job?"_

"You set one of your riders on us—I assume for punishment for what I tried, as if I weren't punished enough!"  He raised his right arm, showing the wrapped stump; a small shield was strapped to what was left of his forearm.  "Half of the lords of Brittany are now dead from their flames, but you did not move fast enough to finish your conquest!  My father and I now hold Brittany, and will defend it against conquerors like you!"

Hiccup's jaw dropped.  "I didn't come to conquer here!"

"Then why are you here, with a force of dragons at your back!?" Henry shot back.

"We heard about a rogue dragon in the area and were coming to investigate, that's all!"

Henry snorted.  "'Rogue dragon'.  As if there is such a thing.  As if the attackers weren't riding it and directing it!  They burned almost a dozen keeps!"  Henry waved his left hand towards his sword hilt.  "I'll show you the same mercy that your father showed me—leave, and know that what you came here for is out of your reach!"

Hiccup glared at him.  "You know I'm not a conqueror!"

Henry scoffed.

Hiccup sighed.  "Fine.  Can you at least point me to where they went, so I can bring them to justice?"

"You mean bring them home and give them accolades and honors for their raid?  No.  Why should I help an enemy?" 

Biting his lip, Hiccup turned to the others.  "Let's go."  He looked back to Henry.  "All I want is peace!"

"Well, I have a province to help lead after your 'rogue' slaughtered half of my fellow nobles," Henry said bitingly.  "So go!  Before I arrest _you_ for _their_ crimes!"

Hiccup turned and hopped up on Toothless.  They were airborne shortly, with angry looks shared all around. 

"Where to now?" Wulfhild asked after the keep was well behind them.

Hiccup sighed.  "Normandy, I suppose.  Hopefully Dogsbreath and Inga didn't torch that place too."

Looking contemplative—an unusual expression on his face—Fritjof spoke up.  "Lad.  I know you won't like it… but this goes far beyond theft, hospitality breach and pranking his father."

Hiccup nodded morosely.  "I know."  He slumped and then straightened back up after a moment.  "Gods, I wish we _had_ come earlier.  It's been over a month since they were here!  They could be anywhere by now!  We could have handled them and brought them to justice before the hate had a chance to curdle!  Now…"  he waved aimlessly, encompassing the whole of the region below them, "they'll _never_ trust us."

"Aye.  So you know what you need to do," Fritjof said.  "And it hurts me to say it.  Dog is of my own clan.  But it _needs_ to be done."

Hiccup grimaced, and looked at the evidence below them.  Two attacks—at _least_ , and they'd be looking into the rest of Brittany before they moved on—and less than two days' flight from Berk directly.  It was like they were flaunting their breaking of the law against raiding from last year.  "I know.  And when we get home… I'll inform Dad that… that Dogsbreath Rolfsson is outcast from his clan and banished from the tribe… on charges of treason."

* * *

_**AN:**  My sincerest apologies to everyone for missing last week's update; while I did warn in my prior AN that it was a risk, I still feel shitty about it.  And if it hadn't been for a confluence of factors, (including my wife's birthday, family drama, shitty internet at the place we were staying, and my hands being in terrible shape) I would have made the update.  On the positive side of things, I have an official diagnosis of severe, atypical carpel tunnel in both hands, worse on my left, and surgery scheduled for Sept 20.  So, as a result of the unscheduled hiatus, I will still be posting through to chapter 68, which will be posted on November 4th, and I'll resume posting on December 2nd--so I essentially sliced off a week of my November hiatus and moved it to September.  _

 


	62. A Bringer Of New Things

**Chapter 62: A Bringer Of New Things**

_The Byzantine Theme system (singular:_ thema _) originated during the intense warfare facing the Byzantine Empire during the 600s AD.  The theme system was conceived of and designed to meet the logistical and manpower needs of the diminished Roman-Byzantine Army.  While the system evolved dramatically over the ensuing seven centuries until the final collapse of the Empire in the late 1300s AD, the general structure and concept was simple: each thema was (ideally) a singular district under the (equally ideally) unified military and civilian command of the local governing general (_ Strategos _).  In that district, there were specific lands (_ stratiotika ktemata _) that were under direct military rulership; these lands were used to provide for the upkeep of soldiers in the army._

_This created a group of soldier-farmers, the Strateia, who would work the stratiotika ktemata in time of peace, and join the army in times of war, or offer material and logistical support to the army directly (in contrast with the civilian farmers, the georgoi).  The status of Strateia was hereditary, and was intended to maintain the manpower and logistical needs of the Byzantine military in perpetuity.  Overall, the theme system was flexible and easily expanded; newly (re)captured lands could be granted to pensioners from the army, whose sons would then join military service.  There were other benefits as well to being part of the Strateia—exemption from certain taxes, and pay and state-sponsored material support for taking part in military campaigns and aiding in public works._

_The Theme system arguably reached its height under Emperor Basil II in the early 1000s, providing, provisioning, and manning a force of 110,000 men, the largest the Byzantine Army had reached in over five centuries.  It then quickly cratered, as Basil's land taxes and protectionary laws were undone by his immediate successors under pressure from the Dynatoi, the aristocratic magnate class.  Much of the stratiotika ktemata were acquired by the Dynatoi over the ensuing decades for their large-scale farming estates (_ latifundium _), weakening the theme armies and their support.  By the beginning of the Dragon Era in the AD 1040s, the Byzantine Army could only muster 60,000 soldiers, with over 20% of those being foreign mercenaries._

_—Constantinople: The Child of Rome's Empire, Venice, Italy, 1725_

 

 

**_Estate Near Rouen, Shore Of The Seine River, Normandy, Francia_ **

**_May, AD 1042_ **

 

Viggo looked around the green fields of home in the morning sunlight and smiled.  The city of Rouen was a few miles downriver from the small estate that he had been born in.  John had indeed been right; some of the local lords had been pressing merchant ships into service, but he had declined to have his ship serve their needs. 

Strenuously. 

He rather doubted that the bodies would be found or identified in a timeframe that would prove a hindrance to his plans and orders.  They had gone to considerable lengths to make sure that they'd sink properly, after all.

He took in a deep breath of the air and smiled.  It was glorious to be home…

His eyes looked in the distance across the cloudy early-spring skies, narrowed, and then widened.

Dragons.

There were dragons flying in.

With—he squinted—people riding on their backs.

Well. 

He paused, took a moment to center himself, and gave a stiff nod.  Right.  This was the sort of opportunity that he would be forever angry with himself if he missed it. 

Spinning smartly on his heel, he turned and strode back into the house.  Without shifting from a calm tone of voice, he called out to his brother, cousins and nephews.  "House Grimborn!  It seems that our quarry has come to us!  It would be vastly impolite to decline the opportunity to meet them!"

Within a few moments, his crew had assembled, looking at him.  Most of them were his kinsmen, by blood or wedlock, and they ran or sauntered towards the field by the manor house as their temperaments allowed. 

He simply looked at the half-dozen shapes in the sky, and their gazes followed.

Some of them gasped, still others made grunts of anticipation, while his brother made a huff of approval. 

"To the ship.  We will head to the city with all speed.  We can always come back later and finish our supplying and visits, but we don't know how long they will be here," Viggo said. 

Ryker started to give orders.  "All right!  Here's how we're going to do it.  Old hands, you're going to spread into the city.  Your job is to gather information.  We are not spreading rumors, we are not doing anything other than being _ghosts._   Observe, watch, and report back.  We know the people of the city, which gives us an advantage, but we _also_ run the risk of being identified as dragon hunters to the riders by those same people!  Do nothing to provoke suspicion.  If you _are_ caught out as a dragon hunter or relative of one," he looked at the newly joined members, "you are _not_ there to hunt their pets.  You are there because you are overwhelmed with curiosity at the sight of seeing a tamed dragon."

"Well, that part's true!" one of their cousins said. 

"Good!  Play that up!  Milk it for everything you can!  Keep your eyes and ears open, and your brain working.  Viggo and I will be debriefing you after we're done.  Try to catch as many details as you can, and don't dismiss anything as unimportant.  We'll be the judge of that."  They reached the ship and started boarding, tossing the waiting supplies as they had a chance.  "New hands, you can either stay with the ship, or go in with an old hand that's willing to work with you.  I know that you aren't trained yet, but you'll have a kinsman with you to help."

Viggo hopped in and walked up to the prow of his ship.  Looking into the distance to the north-west, he could see seven dragons, flying in a chevron, heading straight to the city downriver. 

And the lead one was black.

He smiled as Ryker continued to give orders.

"Hello there, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third," he said softly, looking at the dragon and its rider. The two of them were so far away that he could only tell the colors of the dragons, and that barely, but they were closing fast.  "What are you doing here?"

Oh, certainly, it could be someone _else_ that rode a black dragon through the springtime skies, but Viggo thought that that was… well, rather unlikely.

As for why he was here… Well, that was Viggo's own mission, now, wasn't it? 

He had some guesses, mostly centered around the young duke, or the archbishop Mauger, but refused to prejudice himself by tying himself to any guess so quickly. 

He'd find out.

Oh, yes…

As his ship cast off from the moorings and started down the Seine from his home of Oissel, he kept watch on the dragons heading towards the city, his mind turning over the possibilities…

###

**_Rural Farm near Ribe, Denmark_ **

 

Inga ran through the growing fields outside of Jannick's farm, her heart pounding in her chest.  She had to find Dogsbreath, and she had to find him _now._

She ran past the fields where people were hard at work planting, and where Redsnout was helpfully aiding with carrying things about, and reached the main hall.  Entering, she saw a dozen men all talking intently with Dogsbreath.  But they all ignored her—including, to her irritation that cut through her sense of near-panic, Dogsbreath.  Her… her lover—and there was no point in denying _that_ any longer—had grown immensely over the last half-year, but he was still frequently thoughtless about including her on such things, despite admitting that she was the brains of the two of them. 

She pushed her way in and sat down next to him, looking around the group as she did so.  It was mostly Jannick's neighboring carls, many of whom had shipped out with Jannick last year to Berk.  They paused in their discussions as she coolly took her place next to her 'betrothed'. 

"Lady Inga," Jannick said in greetings. 

"Carl Jannick," she replied.  "What brings you all here?"

"More developments with the king," he said.  "A herald from the king came this morning with an offer for the two of you and Redsnout.  He's no longer demanding your arrest."

"Well, that's good," Inga said tartly.  Her fears about the earnestness of the carls had vanished like the morning mists under the summer sun when she'd seen Jannick bellow at King Sweyn's own herald that he would _not_ give up his guests to be arrested, and if Sweyn wanted them, he had best come in force.  "Now what does he want?  Our heads?"

Dogsbreath exhaled tightly.  "No.  He… the king… not Sweyn, but _Harthacnut…_ offered me… _us_ … a place in the Thingmen."

Inga froze, and then shook her head.  "No.  No way.  It's bait."

"How so?" one of the other carls asked pointedly. 

"Simple.  If we went to England and joined the Thingmen, then we'd be oathbound to stay… and if Harthacnut wanted to extort money or concessions from Berk, he could claim that he caught a pair of 'runaways.'"  That was their official excuse to the carls; that they'd left Berk rather than stay and be stifled, and were possibly exiled by now.  Mention of their stupid mistakes in prank-induced hospitality breakage was staying strictly under wraps for the moment.  "We'd be oathbound to follow his orders… and given his reputation, there is _no_ reason to trust him to remain true to his own oath."

That set several heads to bobbing, and Jannick growled.  "Aye, that's the truth there."

"He's already going to be furious with us for giving you shelter," another carl commented. 

"He'll probably claim that we were preparing to rise up against him," said a third.  "Look at those poor fellows from the ships."  He scowled.  "The only difference between us and them is that we were captured and they retreated."

Inga cocked her head and looked to Dogsbreath.  He shrugged, looking baffled.  She turned back to the carl and said, "Excuse me, could you explain?"

"Ah, it's a sad tale, lass, no need to burden your maiden ears with it," he said.

She snorted.  "'Maiden ears'?  Do you know _anything_ about my tribe?  I'm from the Bog Burglars.  We're women sworn to Sif and Freyja, and we _earned_ the alliance of the Hairy Hooligans of Berk—the dragon rider tribe!"  She scowled.  "And I'm _hardly_ a maiden."  She bit her lip and looked at Dogsbreath.  "We're betrothed, after all."

"And traveling together," one of the carls noted with a cheerful smirk that was kissing cousins to an approving leer.  "Surprised that you didn't just claim to be married and skip all of the hassle."

Dogsbreath nodded.  "Believe me, we considered it." 

They all laughed, and Inga smirked.  They had indeed considered it, but she'd convinced him that claiming to be simply betrothed would give their lies of omissions the ring of truth.  That way, they just looked like a pair of young lovers eloping rather than a pair of fugitives from justice, _especially_ since they could say, completely without lying, that his father and her mother had a feud.

She leaned in.  "So, what is this 'sad tale'?"

The carls looked around at each other, and then the one that had dismissed her coughed.  "Well, during the battle against Berk, many of us were sunk outright or captured.  But two out of three of the ships retreated… and Harthacnut claims that half of those fled before Jarl Godwin called for the retreat."  He looked down.  "And he had near on a thousand men—and their families—arrested this past winter for it.  The ones that weren't fast enough to claim the right to a trial lost their heads."

Inga swore.

"Aye.  And the faster ones are all claiming that they're innocent, that they didn't flee until the retreat was called… so rather than bring them to trial, they're rotting in gaol."

"According to rumor, somewhere between a third and half have died already…" another carl offered quietly.  "And what he's having done to their women and children…"

Inga looked around as they all shared significant looks.  "What _is_ he doing?"

"Their lands have been confiscated by the Crown, and…" the carl swallowed, "…and to pay for the upkeep of their fathers and brothers and husbands in gaol, they're being sold as thralls, one by one."

"And that's despite them being Christian, and there being laws against the enthrallment of Christians," Jannick said quietly.

"Aye.  Those that have claimed those laws as their defense have been labeled devil-worshipers, and therefore not Christian."

Inga looked around the room.  "You… you _realize_ that sheltering us is going to end the same way!"

"Aye, probably," Jannick said calmly.

"Then, then… _why!?"_ she demanded.

"Because his people," Jannick nodded towards Dogsbreath, "showed us kindness and hospitality when we came as conquerors.  You came as needy guests in dire straits.  How can we stand to do any less, and still call ourselves men of honor?"

Inga stared at him in shock as they all murmured in agreement, as if what Jannick had just said was the most obvious thing in the world, as opposed to complete insanity.

"So… that's it?  You're just going to lay down and die?" she asked after she recovered.

"Well, Harthacnut has been our king for nearly fifteen years, Inga," Jannick said.  "First as his father's regent, and then in his own stead, and now with his cousin Sweyn as his own regent.  He earned his name through his iron fist.  But now… I feel that perhaps he has squeezed too hard.  He is a tyrant, honorless, without mercy or compassion, for all that he is the king by right and by blood.  So when he comes… we will not go quietly."  He smiled grimly.  "In the end… we are still Norsemen.  And we will show why the Danes are feared throughout the world."

She looked at Dogsbreath, who was already looking at her.  "Excuse us for a moment," she said, and pulled him up and away, and out the door.

As it shut behind them, she hissed, "This is madness!"

Dogsbreath, meanwhile, looked back over her shoulder.  "Gods, what I wouldn't give to stand with them…"

She stared at him, stunned. 

He leaned in towards her.  "Inga, we could make the difference between them surviving, and them being routed!"

She paused… and then looked out at the thriving farm.  A farm whose doom they'd brought down.

She swallowed.  "Dog… I see what you're saying, and I even agree with it… but there's something I have to tell you first."

"What?"

"Before coming here, I…" she swallowed and said, "I was at the bathhouse and Jannick's wife asked a question.  And…" she reached over and grabbed Dogsbreath's hand and put it on her belly.  "Sometime this week or next, I'll know if I'm with child."

Dogsbreath looked at her and she watched as the blood drained from his face and his eyes rolled up into his head. 

With a grunt of effort, she caught him as he fainted, and lowered him to the ground.

A moment later, he blinked up at her.  "You…"

She nodded.  "I missed a cycle last month.  And it's due next week." He started to pant, and she helped him sit up.  "I'm not saying that we don't help… I'm not saying that we leave them.  We got them into this mess… but…"

He nodded.  "I… I think we need to send a message to Berk."

###

**_Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, Francia_ **

 

Alvin and Delilah sat in the offices of the absurdly young archbishop; perhaps twenty-three, the young Mauger was some distant relation to the even _younger_ Duke of Normandy, which explained how he had received the appointment.  It certainly wasn't because of any deep intellect, experience, or insight into the needs of his office or the people who came to petition for his attention.

Delilah, in her persona of Lady Brighid, was enjoying herself by innocently flirting with the young man, and doing so in such an apparently unintentional manner that the young fellow was confused as to how to respond.  It kept him nicely off-balance, uncertain whether she was actually flirting or just being friendly, and whether to chide her or not.

Alvin, for his part, had the fellow fairly well wrapped around his fingers.  They'd presented their papers establishing and confirming their assumed identities , and the young man had brought in a scribe to have them read to him. 

Now, their authenticity unquestioned, they were cementing their needs with him; transport to Rome was already in the cards, and Alvin and Delilah had twisted him into paying for the whole thing.  It was small beer, to be sure, but it paid to be frugal with their coin, after all.

Some noise from outside was rising, but he ignored it, working on the young man.  He had the fellow right where he wanted him, and distractions might ruin the delicate moment and make him actually stop and think about what was being said. 

"…Lord Adalwin, I see why you would wish for this knowledge to reach His Holiness as soon as possible, and I will do what I can to assist—"

The door opened, and they all turned to look in surprise.  Alvin opened his mouth to object to the intrusion.  It had all been going so well, but before he could say anything, the servant by the door blurted, "Father Mauger, there are dragon riders flying towards the city!"

Alvin felt his guts take a visit to the bottoms of his shoes.

How had they known that he was here?  Had they followed him and Delilah? 

And, of course, there was the risk, small but certainly present, that they could blow the cover that he and Delilah had built since they arrived in the city a few days earlier. 

While he dithered, his wife leapt into action and said breathlessly, "Milord Archbishop, you must protect us!  They're undoubtedly here in pursuit of us!  For the sake of the Church, you must hide us from discovery, or our message may never reach His Holiness!"

Mauger, eyes wide, shook his head as if to clear it, and nodded.  Shouting orders to his servants, Alvin and Delilah were packed away in a small room off of the servants quarters, with much apologies made for the accommodations. 

As the door closed, Alvin waited a few moments, and said to her, "Thank you for the save."

"It's my arse on the line too, you lummox," she said brusquely. 

"Well, that's how we work," he said.  "You think on your feet, and I plan."

She nodded and then said quietly, "Why are they here, do you suppose?"

"They're here for us, I'd expect," he said.

She shook her head.  "It makes no sense.  We made a clean break of it, and there hasn't been _time_ since we arrived and presented ourselves as Adalwin and Brighid for news to get back to them."

Alvin considered that for a moment.  "Then why _are_ they here?"

"Could be luck.  Could be politics or something along those lines," she said thoughtfully.  "Rouen is the ducal seat of Normandy; perhaps Stoick is looking to open relations with William the Bastard?"

Alvin grimaced at the thought.  "If he is, then we'll want to lie low until the boy is gone, and undermine him as much as possible before moving on."

Delilah nodded.  "Agreed.  We can't strike at him now… unless…"  she smiled.

"What?"

"Well, if he's here to open relations… then that means that he's under hospitality."  Her smile grew feral.  "And that means we don't need to wait until he leaves to start undermining him…"

Alvin thought it through and gave her an answering smile.

"Oh, yes…"

###

**_Constantinople, Roman Empire_ **

 

Sigurd was putting the stopper in the jar of Nightmare saliva that Hookfang had just drooled out when the courier came striding up. 

"Topoteretes Trondsson," he said, eyeing Hookfang closely and cautiously, "Protospatharios Kekaumenos requires that you and the rest of your squad report to him in the briefing chamber."

Sigurd stood and gave Hookfang a scratch under his chin.  "What does he need?"

"I wasn't told.  Just that you should report there with all haste," the courier said and turned to leave.

Turning to Hookfang, Sigurd said, "I'll be back, all right?"

Hookfang warbled and rolled over to sun himself some more on the stone. 

Sigurd rolled his eyes at his friend—big scaly cat that he was—and went off.  Most of the team's armor had been made by this point, and he'd been wondering when they'd be sent off again.  The Emperor's armor, and that of his personal guard, were likewise just about finished, and Sigurd had been impressed at the sheer amount of gold and jewels that had been added to embellish the Emperor's own suit.

On the way, a call of "Sigurd!" made him turn his head, and he saw Ben jogging up. 

"How goes it?" Sigurd asked as the lanky Dane drew even—and then eyed Benjamin's outfit.  He'd clearly dressed in a hurry.  "Did the summons… _interrupt_ something?"

Benjamin scowled.  "I owe Pelagia an apology when we get back.  A _big_ one."

Sigurd cackled.  "What, the one in your pants isn't big enough?" he teased.

"Uh, _no_ ," Ben said.  "Not when we got interrupted right in the middle…!"

"Ouch!" another voice intruded, sounding amused, and the pair of them looked up to see Gudmund drawing close.  "You want my advice?"

"Yes, _please,_ " Ben said desperately.

"Some nice clothes and perfumes," Gudmund said as they approached the barracks.  "I know that you've been helping out her family, but most of the money has been going to helping her siblings, pay off debts, and the like.  Get her something nice that _she'll_ feel pretty in."

Ben nodded.  "Thanks.  Silks…?"

Sigurd grinned.  "Oh, definitely."

Ben glanced at him.  "Hoy, Sigurd, you know how to sew.  If I got the silk, could you make the robe for her?"  He hesitated and added, "And maybe stitch in a little spell?"

Sigurd rolled his eyes.  "I thought the Romans didn't believe in _seidhr._ "

"Well, they might not, but I do!" Ben said.  "My grandmother's a powerful one."  He held up his right wrist, where there was a woven bracelet made of various colorful strands.  "She spun this for me before I left for here, with blessings of protection and strength and luck in it!"

"Does it work?" Gudmund asked curiously as they entered the barracks where the briefing room was.

Ben grinned.  "Well… I'm one of the first twenty dragon-riders among the Varangians, _and_ I found a lovely lady, _and_ the worst wound I've taken was in training.  So I'd say, yeah, it does!"

They laughed, and climbed the stairs. 

As they went through the halls, Gudmund said, "So, Ben, I've been meaning to ask, but what does Pelagia's family _do?_ "

Ben sighed.  "They _were_ soldier-farmers down in the Anatolikon _thema_ under Basil, apparently—as her father told me at _length—_ until one of the _dynatoi_ acquired their theme's land and replaced the farmers with shepherds.  So they came here when she was a child, and been trying to survive ever since." 

"Ouch," Sigurd said earnestly.

"Yeah.  I've paid the apprenticeship fees for two of her younger brothers to get them started in the trades."

"You… you're serious about her, aren't you?" Gudmund asked as they mounted the last stairs. 

Approaching the briefing hall, Ben nodded and held up a hand.  They paused.  "Yeah.  I am.  Honestly, I plan on staying when my term of service is up and marrying her… but…" he glanced around, "if the Emperor does manage to get us all killed because he sent us off on something too big for us, then I've arranged it that…" he swallowed and said carefully, "my kid inherits everything I've got."

Snotlout felt his jaw drop.  "You… you…"

Gudmund made a choking sound.  "She… she's _pregnant!?_   You _idiot!"_

Ben shrugged sheepishly.  "Yeah, well, she's not completely sure, but apparently she... might be?  I didn't understand it all, but we'll know for sure in the next month or so.  But yeah, I plan on staying here, raise a family…"

Gudmund reached up and swatted Ben on his head.  "You'd _better!_ "

"Ow!"  Rubbing his head, Ben scowled at Gudmund.  "Figures that you'd take it personally."

Gudmund reached at his own head and pulled at a short lock of his dark curly hair.  "You _think!?_ "

"She's pregnant," Snotlout repeatedly hollowly, his mind still stuck on that little detail.  He'd been so… _busy_ with all of the crap that everyone kept shoveling on him—dragon training, rider training, getting the rider squad up and running, armor preparations, learning Greek and Latin, and handling his other duties—that he hadn't even had the chance to _consider_ pursuing a woman.

"I… uh… yeah.  Probably," Ben said.  His eyes darted to the door.  "Shall we?" he asked, and without waiting for further confirmation, he reached over, pulled it open and entered quickly.

Gudmund was muttering something as he followed, and then turned to Snotlout.  "Sigurd, you coming?"

"What?  Oh, right, yeah."  Sno—Sigurd blinked and followed his friends into the briefing room.

As the rest of the riders assembled, Sno… _Sigurd_ kept glancing at Benjamin.  Gods.  He was going… he and Pelagia…

He was planning on staying here with her. 

For the first time in months, Snotlout found himself wondering if Hiccup and Astrid had gone… that far yet.

He shook his head.  No, no way.  Astrid would break him in two, and Hiccup was way too timid to put the moves on her.  Sure, they were _dating,_ but Hiccup was so honorable and the Hoffersons were so touchy… no, maybe they were courting, but they'd be watched like hawks, and—

Kekaumenos entered the room, and called for attention, and Sigurd focused on him with all of the attention he could muster. 

"We're flying out in the morning, back to Italia.  Catapan Maniakes has reported that, with the Lombard leadership gone, the rebellion has coalesced around the Norman mercenaries as the new leaders.  However, the Catapan believes that now, with the dragons as our vanguard, we have a unique opportunity to recapture lost territory across southern Italia, including Sicily, over the upcoming campaigning season.  We can potentially also engage in strikes against the Saracens on the south coast, to allow us the time to consolidate our gains."

As Kekaumenos pointed to the regions on the map pinned to the wall, Sigurd felt a lump form in his throat, and thoughts of Berk and the people he left behind dissipated as the scale of the upcoming campaign became apparent.  This was not a strike—this was a war.

A war in which he and his people would be the tip of the spear.

And spears broke.

###

**_Gates of Rouen, Normandy, Francia_ **

 

Heather talked to the gate guard as she and the rest of Hiccup's party stood at the gate to the city of Rouen.  Rather than land inside the city and start a riot, they'd landed outside and were attempting to enter, like any other visitors with mounts.  That had been a good portion of an hour ago; the gate guards were being stubborn, and it didn't help that the only person in the group who spoke their language well was herself—a woman. 

She tried again.  "We're here to speak with Merchant Humbert.  We are not here to raid the city.  Please just treat the dragons like horses.  We will be responsible for anything that they might do."

The guardsman gave her an incredulous look and replied in fluid _langue d'oil_ , "You are asking us to allow dragons that you _claim_ are tame into a city made of wooden houses and with a population of thousands, after lords' keeps were burned in Brittany.  I think that you think that we are utter fools."  He'd made variations on the same statement six times now. 

She sighed.  "Do you want us to leave the dragons out of the city?"

The two guardsmen looked at each other and spoke far too quickly for her to make out the bulk of it. 

Meanwhile, people were staring at them furtively.  She didn't like being the center of attention like this, but she looked back at them, only for them to look away… mostly.  A few looked at her challengingly.

The deadlock was interrupted as suddenly a man on horseback came charging up from inside the city's gatehouse and called out to the guards, "Hold!"

As the guards pulled back, the horseman turned to the riders and their dragons  and paused in awe.  With the fellow thus frozen, Heather took a moment to assess him.  Possibly not a nobleman himself, by the cut of his dress and the lack of any badge of office, but definitely employed by one, judging by the richness of the fabric and the sword at his belt.  Possibly a member of the duke's household, or a titleless relative.  Twenty years old or so, she'd guess.

He blinked and asked in careful and accented Vulgar Latin, "All of you are the fabled dragon riders of Berk, yes?"

Heather bowed and replied in the same tongue.  "We are.  We are here to see a Merchant Humbert—"

"Never mind that," the man said eagerly.  "The Duke wishes to meet with you all.  He heard of your arrival, and he wishes for an audience with you, and offers you all his hospitality.  I am sure that he will happily call on this merchant to attend upon you after he's spoken with you."  He turned to the gate guards.  "Let them in, them and their dragons.  His Lordship will stand for their good behavior."

The guards exchanged a dubious look and then bowed and nodded. 

The man looked at them and hopped off of his horse, which was eyeing the dragons cautiously.  Bowing, he said in careful Vulgar Latin, "Greetings, sirs and dames dragonriders!  I am William FitzOsbern, kinsman to Duke William of Normandy."

Heather bowed and said back, "Thank you, Sir FitzOsbern.  Unfortunately, I am the only one here who knows _langue d'oil,_ and am the most fluent of us in Latin _._   My name is Heather mac Oswald clan Ingerman.  Do you speak Norse at all?  Otherwise, I will translate."

He paused for a moment, and said, in thickly accented and halting Norse, "My Norse not good very, but I speak little."

She gave a pained smile and said, "I will translate then, unless you have more…?"

He considered and nodded. 

"Well, let me make introductions," she said, and turned to Hiccup. 

He just looked at her a bit helplessly, and gave a sardonic grin.  "Good news, I hope?  Or are we about to get kicked out of the city?  I caught some of that Latin…"

She shook her head and said in Norse, "No, he's from the Duke's household.  The Duke wants to meet with us.  This man's name is William FitzOsbern, and he's one of the Duke's kinsmen."  She very cautiously did not add that his name meant that he was the bastard child of Osbern, whoever that was, _especially_ since the duke himself was known as William the Bastard. 

Hiccup nodded and said, "I don't see a problem with that, so long as we get to meet with Humbert like we came here to do."  The others all nodded as well.

She gave a curt nod and turned back to William.  In _langue d'oil_ , she said, "My lord has no issue with meeting your lord, so long as we can meet the merchant that we came here to meet."

He nodded in acknowledgment. 

"As for introductions, this is…" she paused for a moment, and decided to have a bit of fun with it, "Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Herald and Chief's Heir of Berk, Tamer of Dragons."

Hiccup clearly caught his own name in there and was giving her a long-suffering look as he understood a few of the other words. 

She continued, "His wife and partner, Astrid Hákonsdoittor clan Haddock, Master of the Dragon of Berk, his concubine and adviser Wulfhild Olafsdoittor clan Haddock, Princess of Norway, Gunvor Dugaldsdoitter clan Hofferson, Astrid's mother and regent of Vedrarfjord and Veisafjord, Warrior Fritjof Karlsson clan Jorgenson, and Warrior Horsefeathers clan Ingerman.  And our dragons Toothless, Stormfly, Mistletoe, Sunflower, Nott and Delling, Toast, and Windshear."

He blinked and bowed.  Rising, he turned to Hiccup and said, in thick, heavily accented Norse, "My lord offer hospitality for you and yours.  You accept?"

Hiccup nodded.  "We do."

"Good.  If you'll follow me, I'll conduct you to the Duke," he said, and Heather translated. 

Hiccup nodded, and they followed William through the gate and into the city itself.  It was going to be a bit of a walk; they'd come in at one of the landward entrances, and the fort was far away from the river in the city. 

As they walked, Heather took note of the people around them and the buildings and shops.  This main street was mostly clear, and many of the bystanders were watching them carefully, while others were staring more openly, either with awe or fear, and there were many whispers.  Mothers were hurrying their children out of sight, and she saw that there were more people packed down side-streets.

Then she saw something out of the corner of her eye that made her almost do a double take; instead, she turned as if to talk to Astrid, who was walking alongside her, and said in Norse, "Nice city, isn't it?"

"Very friendly," Astrid said only somewhat sarcastically. 

And there, off down a side street, visible as she had turned, was a shop sign… and it was written in that same script as had been on Fishlegs' great-grandfather's book.  Oh, it was different letters, but the same style, and clearly either from the same language or a related one.

Filing the information away for later, she turned back to watch her step and kept walking. 

But… apparently her lover did have kin here, however distant they might be. 

Windshear was looking around at all of the people distrustfully, and if not for the work that they'd done to help her acclimate to the crowds back around the Thawfest, she was pretty sure that her dragon would have done something… regrettable by now. 

Stormfly, on the other hand, was looking around with interest at everything, and Toothless was being even worse, with Hiccup having to remind his friend not to go charging off after every last little thing that caught his attention. 

Heather stifled a smile as Toothless looked curiously at some masons building a large decorative archway on a house under construction and wandered over to take a look, dragging Hiccup along with him. 

"No, Toothless…!"

The masons shrank back as Toothless walked over, his head tilted in fascination at what they were doing.  "Call him off!" one of them cried out.

"He's not going to hurt you!  He's just wondering what you're doing," Hiccup said, pulling on Toothless' harness.  "C'mon bud, I'll show you masonry work later."

Heather called apologies to the masons as Hiccup managed to get Toothless back in order.  William was looking… intrigued. 

"Is he going to be a problem?" the duke's kinsman asked, nodding towards Toothless.

Heather shrugged.  "Probably not.  He's usually pretty well behaved, but this is his first time in a city this size.  He's curious, nothing more."

They kept walking and reached the stone keep at the top of the hill.  Guardsmen, looking askance at the dragons, stepped aside and let them pass with a nod from their escort.  As they entered the main chamber of the keep itself, Heather looked around.  A boy a few years younger than herself, maybe twelve or thirteen, stood nearby, talking animatedly to another man in his twenties.

They both turned as the group entered, their conversation dying off, and they stared at the dragons, the boy with excitement, and the man with worry. 

William bowed and said their names, embedded in fluid _langue d'oil_ that she could barely follow, and then turned back to her and the other riders.  "Milady Heather of Berk, this is my lord and kinsman, Duke William of Normandy."

###

**_Chief's Hut, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Stoick looked around the room at the gathered Norsemen and smiled.  The Dunbroch clan had decamped nearly a month prior now, to formally notify their king of the upcoming nuptials, and to handle business at home before coming back for the formal negotiations.  But rather than wasting the time needed to sail back, they'd be arriving via skycart within the hour; the patrols had already let him know that they'd been spotted in the distance. 

Meanwhile, Cami and her parents—and grandmother and great-grandparents—were waiting in his hut, along with Bladewit, in her position as senior Lawspeaker.  Stoick fully expected that there would be questions about the relevant laws, after all. 

Rikard was seated between Dagn and Rhonda, while Ingrid was next to the _skorskeinn,_ examining it curiously.  Peigi, Cami's grandmother, was working a spindle of linen thread off in the corner, while Bertha and her husband Naoise were by the table.  Meanwhile, Stoick and Bladewit were seated near the fire, a book of the laws in Bladewit's hands.

Camilla, for her part, was pacing.  Not that Stoick could blame her. 

Bertha watched her daughter go back and forth again and chuckled.  "You're goin' to wear a hole in the floor at this rate, daughter."

Cami paused and scowled, while Rikard laughed.  "I remember a girl who sat in that exact same spot twenty-some years ago and who made me worried that she might just club my grandson over the head and have her wicked way with him."

Naoise and Bertha shared a look and smiled warmly at each other, while Cami made exaggerated gagging noises.  But then Bertha rolled her eyes and said more seriously, "I know I've said it already, but daughter, calm down.  They're on their way.  Your intended isn't goin' to run off and leave you."

"Aye, it's usually the Bog girl who does that," Peigi said sourly. 

Bertha scowled at her mother-in-law.  "I kept him!"

"Aye, but that's how you get half of your new blood," Ingrid said reasonably and then smirked.  "But once you're at Bog, there's not exactly a lot of other places to run off _to!"_

Bertha rolled her eyes.  "Well, Inga seems to have managed that."  She fixed Cami with a look.  "You know, when I sent you off last year with the ship, it was as a test of your abilities as future chieftess.  I was expectin' you to come back with loot… not with a renewed feud and a wife and a dragon!"

"Not that we're complainin'," Naoise said with a grin.  "I'm looking forward to meetin' the girl."

Dagn laughed.  "Oh, she's quite the energetic one.  You'll like her."

Peigi coughed.  "Now, just because I know that they'll ask…"

"Oh, here we go…" Bertha breathed out.

Peigi snorted and continued firmly, "Just because they'll ask… Camilla, do you have any potential sires in mind for heirs?"

Cami paused in her pacing and looked to her grandmother.  "No.  Not yet.  But we're young, and I figured we'd get settled first before we tried to find a guy that we're happy with."

"Well—" Peigi began, but then the horn blew.  They were here.

Cami bolted for the door, and the rest of her family pulled themselves from their seats. 

As they filed towards the door, Stoick turned to Bladewit, still seated nearby.  "So, I did want to ask…"

"Yes?"

"You are here as the Lawspeaker, and that makes you officially impartial on such things… but what is your personal opinion of this match?" he asked as the last of the others left.

Bladewit smiled slightly.  "I think they're adorable.  Mind you, I know that it is our power and backing that are making the Dunbroch girl's parents consider it at all, but that's not a problem either.  We could use more alliances of this nature… but as for the pair themselves?"  Her smile grew wider.  "I remember meeting Frode."  She looked him in the eye and waggled her eyebrows.  "And a certain young chief pining after a Jorgenson girl twenty-ish years ago."

Stoick flushed slightly and smiled.  "Aye, they're handling themselves better than I did."

She snorted.  "Just about anybody handled themselves better than you did."

Stoick opened his mouth to protest… and then shut it.

Bladewit snickered.  "And which memory stayed your hand there?"

Stoick gave her a narrow-eyed glare and a scowl that made her laugh, but only briefly.  Hearing the sounds coming through the open door, she hauled herself out of her seat and said, "We should go greet them—you especially, given that you're the host."

"Aye, aye."

As he stood, Bladewit said in a considering tone, "As for other personal thoughts… if my nephew's family over in Meathead were to form a similar alliance, would we get the same offer of support that the Hoffersons and Thorstons have?"

Stoick took a deep breath and nodded.  "Aye.  Of course."

Bladewit smiled.  "Excellent."

As they exited the hut and greeted Fergus and his family, Stoick had to smile at Camilla and Merida, who had attached themselves firmly to each other in the small crowd.  But Bladewit's words combined with a comment from Hákon's last missive in a way that rattled around in Stoick's head. 

_It is our power and backing making the Dunbroch girl's parents consider it at all…_

_The new law worries me, Stoick.  Before, the clans held all of the power, and while the clanless were not powerless, they were not our equals.  That was how the concubinage worked_, _bringing in someone without clan status and giving it to them as a guarantee against exploitation.  Now the clans voted to keep the power of dragons to themselves?  What guarantee do the clanless from outside the Old Tribe have now to keep themselves from being screwed like an outsider's concubine?_

###

**_Rouen, Normandy, Francia_ **

 

Hiccup and the rest of his party bowed to the young duke.  He remembered Yngvarr having mentioned that this boy was both a bastard and had ruled this place since he was seven or eight… with difficulty.  Rising from his bow, he said politely, "Hello, Duke William.  You asked to meet with us?"

As Heather relayed the message, Hiccup looked at the boy, who was a good three, nearly four years younger than him.  His brown hair was cut in a style close to the scalp, much like his kinsman, and he was wiry and fit, with wide brown eyes.  Hiccup could see those clearly, as he was looking at Hiccup and Toothless with an awed expression that Hiccup had no difficulty recognizing, by virtue of sheer familiarity. 

He spoke, and Heather translated, "Yes, Lord Dragon Tamer.  I've been wishing to meet with you for some time, but matters have prevented me from doing so.  But when I heard that you had come to my city, I had to speak with you."

"Well, I am here.  What did you wish to speak with me about?" he said back, and listened as best he could to Heather's translation.  The local language had a bunch of words from Norse in it already, so he was doing his best to pick it apart and learn it.  He already spoke Eirish, and a bit of Anglo-Saxon, as well as Norse, of course, and there were bits of all of those in this fluid tongue.

Heather listened to the young duke, and then said back to Hiccup, "I am sorry if this is impolite, but I have a few questions."

Hiccup nodded politely.

"Why have you come here?"

"We are here to meet with a Merchant Humbert, an associate of a trader that we in Berk consider to be a good friend, for the purposes of setting up a mail station here in your city," Hiccup said politely. 

Heather repeated it back to William, who was visibly restraining himself from walking up to Toothless and the other dragons, and, through her, replied, "Oh, so you are not here for alliance… or conquest?"

Hiccup smiled warmly at him.  "No, we're not, but if you want a ride on Toothless here," he patted his friend's side, who was looking around curiously, "I'd be happy to give you one later."

"I would like that, thank you," Heather transmitted back, and then coughed.  She turned and addressed the other William, the one who had come and collected them from the gates, and asked for something.  Clearly, it was for a drink, as he walked over to a small table nearby, filled a tankard with ale from a pitcher, and handed it to her. As she took a long pull, the elder William said something in Francian to the duke, who nodded.

"We've been remiss in our manners.  Please, can we get you anything, refreshments?" He said through Heather.

"Thank you," Hiccup said.  "And, yes, please!" 

As they gathered around the table and got drinks and bits of cheese and meat from a tray, the younger William walked up to Toothless, fascinated, grinning broadly. .  Toothless cocked his head and crooned at the younger man, who grinned.  Then he yelped as Toothless gave his head a sloppy and affectionate lick. 

Hiccup laughed, and so did the young duke after a moment where he wiped the slobber out of his eyes. 

"Well, he's friendly," Heather translated with a smile on her face. 

Hiccup chuckled.  "He likes you."

"I'm glad.  So, Lord Dragon Tamer, I heard about the treaty between you and King Magnus.  Is there any chance of myself making a similar alliance with you?"

Hiccup paused, and looked at the young man carefully.  "Why do you ask?  I said that I'm not here to conquer your home.  I want to trade with you and your people."

"Trade… if that is what you want, I can help.  But I need allies most of all," William said through Heather.

Hiccup nodded.  "I understand needing allies, and I'm certainly willing to listen.  But why the urgency?"

"Have you heard of my difficulties here?" William asked.

"I have," Hiccup said.  "At least in summary.  Fighting over your throne since your father's death and the like." Hiccup shrugged and thought of some of the sagas of bloody power struggles that he'd heard since childhood.  "Your people are descended from Norsemen, so… it does not surprise me."

William barked a harsh laugh.  "Yes, that's certainly true."  He looked at Hiccup with a resigned expression.  "I… just need some help, help to put my father's house in order."

Hiccup nodded.  "And you want my help?" 

"Aye.  I have for some time, but I do not have many people that I trust, and the messengers I sent were either taken… or killed."

"Wait, what!?" Horsefeathers blurted when Heather translated that last word.  "What in Hel's name—they attacked heralds!?"

Hiccup shrugged, thinking of Cashal.  "Wouldn't be the first time," he said as Heather translated something to the duke.

"Yes, my messengers were killed," William said.  "Or suborned."  He looked at Hiccup pleadingly.  "Just what have you heard of my problems?"

Hiccup paused.  "Not that much beyond the basics?  I know that your father passed five years ago?  And that all of your vassals are warring with each other."

William looked at Hiccup for a long moment and then sighed and walked away from him and Toothless.  With another long sigh, he said, "Yes.  My father died on pilgrimage and left me here, like a bone to be fought over by hungry dogs.  I have seen my protectors die, one by one.  My kinsman, Osbern, William's father," he nodded to the older man, "died just this past autumn… when assailants attempted to kill me in my sleep.  He died in my arms."

Hiccup blanched, and he heard Horsefeathers make a small wordless cry of protest, as Gunvor said quietly behind him, "Oh, I feel for the boy."

Thinking for a moment, Hiccup sighed and nodded.  "So… umm… look.  William.  I have no problem with the idea."  He gave a slight and sad smile.  "We can talk more on it later, but…"

William, as Heather translated, said, "I understand your hesitance.  I just… I have little to offer you, and you risk much by coming to my aid."

Hiccup shook his head.  "That's not the problem, William.  I mean, it is a _little_ bit, but I don't have any problem with agreeing to help you as best we can."

"You don't?"

Hiccup didn't even need to have Heather translate, the sheer surprise and shock in William's words and voice making his meaning utterly clear.  Well, it was still good to have the confirmation. 

Hiccup looked at the young duke and, after a moment, he held out a hand.  "How about this?  Agree to help us put in that dragon mail station, and if you have any problems, we'll do what we can to help, all right?"

Heather translated, and, eyes wide, William looked around at the other men in the room, all of whom were looking at Hiccup in shock.  Then, after a moment, the younger boy reached out and grasped Hiccup's hand with a firm grip and shook it. 

"Yes."

Hiccup grinned, and then said, "So, I think I promised you a dragon ride…"

The moment was ruined as the door opened and someone walked in, speaking rapidly and agitatedly. 

Hiccup looked at Heather, who shook her head.  "Talking too fast."

After a long moment, William looked up and spoke, his tone _not_ happy.

Heather froze, and Hiccup just looked at her.  After a long moment, she exhaled and said, in a measured tone, "The Archbishop of Normandy is here with his guardsmen to arrest you for your attacks on Christians on the island of Eire."


	63. Gambits

**Chapter 63:** **Gambits**

_The **Normans** are an ethnic group originating in the District of Normandy, originally one of the northern duchies of the Kingdom of Francia.  Emerging initially from contact between the native Franks, Gallo-Romans and Norse Viking settlers in the 800s AD, the Normans gained political recognition and legitimacy under the Viking Rollo, by treaty with the King Charles III of Francia in AD 911, where Rollo was granted the lands settled by the Normans and recognition as a noble lord in exchange for protection against other Viking raiders…  _

_In the centuries after their establishment, the Normans traveled and conquered widely, either as mercenaries in the employ of others or as their own feudal magnates, with conquered territories at the Straits of Jabal Ṭāriq, the Islas Canarias, the Islas Baleares, Cyprus, Southern Anatolia, Sicily, and the Maghreb…_

_…while the militaristic nature of the Norman culture is without question, they were also great patrons of the arts during the feudal era, and continue to have noted artistic contributions since.   In addition, two common themes in Norman-controlled regions were a degree of meritocratic egalitarianism, regardless of ethnic or religious origin, and the integration of local arts, architecture and society.  This emphasis on integration/syncretism created Norman-Arab, Norman-Byzantine, Norman-Moor, and other hybrid societies where they conquered and settled…_

_—Normans. (n.d.)  In Wikikenna. Retrieved August 18, 1885_

**_Rouen, Normandy, Francia_ **

**_May, AD 1042_ **

 

Viggo forced his clenched fists to relax as he looked at the pack of men-at-arms protecting the Archbishop outside of Rouen's keep. His brother was off coordinating the rest of their crew in surrounding the keep to make certain that they had eyes all around, leaving Viggo free to consider all... _this_. 

According to his kinsmen who knew the Archbishop, he was hardly a man of towering intellectual prowess, and had very little moral strength.  While it was certainly _possible_ that he had come up with this fiasco on his own, Viggo rather doubted it, and he was going to _find_ the person responsible for giving him the idea and find out why they'd done this.

Hiccup and the rest of his retinue—and their dragons—were inside the keep, and had been since he'd arrived a short while ago.  Meanwhile, the Archbishop was arguing that he could arrest them on ecclesiastical charges, and the Duke was stonewalling on the grounds that they were his guests. 

As a result, Viggo's chances of being able to observe and gather information had been curtailed rather horribly by whomever's little brainstorm this had been.  So he was going to find them—if for no other reason, then because he wanted to know who else was taking a seat at this game board. 

Fortunately, being a spy for Mother Church had its advantages. 

One of those advantages was in the process of climbing the hill.

Viggo smiled slightly to himself, and then forced his face back to an expression of interest in the ongoing arguments going on at the gate to the duke's keep.  Coming up from the city was the distinctive figure of the Father Confessor for the young archbishop, a distinguished and balding fellow dressed in his vestments, with the expression of a tutor trying to keep his young charge from doing too much damage. 

While he didn't know the man's name, and the rivalry between the Father Confessors and the Church's spies was traditional, if there was one thing he could count on right now, it was the man's assistance.

So he gave the hand signal once the senior priest was in sight.  A quick, wordless interchange ensued between them as they signaled back and forth; Viggo explained the situation, as far as he could given the limited vocabulary of the signals, and promised to fully brief the man shortly.  To be honest to himself, it _had_ been on his to-do list.  He had just planned on doing it on the way out to Berk, but Hiccup's arrival had forced him to move up his schedule. 

With a nod, and a silent demand for that briefing to come sooner rather than later, the Father Confessor walked over the archbishop and spoke quietly into his ear. 

Five minutes later, Viggo watched with solid satisfaction as the guardsmen and their archbishop proceeded back down the hill to the city church.  Viggo, for his part, now that they were out of the way, settled in to wait, like a cat in front of a mouse hole. 

He would brief the Father Confessor as soon as the dragons and their riders left.  But he wasn't planning on passing up an opportunity like this just yet.

###

"So what just happened?" Hiccup asked Heather plaintively. 

Heather shrugged; she and Hiccup had gone up to the fort's battlements to see what was going on.  "I'm not quite sure.  The man who came up and talked with the priest was his confessor, I know that much—that outfit is distinctive.  But what he said or why he backed down, I have no idea."

Hiccup shrugged.  "Is he going to come back?"

"How should I know?" she replied.  "If I had to take a guess, though, I'd say probably not."  She nodded towards the crowd of onlookers.  "He backed down pretty publicly."

William and his men walked back into the keep and waved up at Hiccup and Heather's perch overlooking the courtyard. 

"Guess we should go down," he said to her.

She smirked.  "You _did_ promise him a dragon-flight," she said. 

Hiccup took a deep breath, releasing the tension that she could see in his chest, and laughed.  "Yeah, I did."

They went down from the battlements and rejoined the others from their party, describing what they'd seen as best they could.

William came up to them as they were talking, and said to her, "My kinsman the archbishop has left.  The problem has passed.  If I send for that merchant now, could I have my ride on dragonback while he is coming?"

Heather, smiling, translated that for Hiccup, who grinned.  Hopping onto Toothless' back, he motioned the saddle behind him. 

William turned to his kinsman. "Go get the merchant they need—Humbert, yes?—and bring him here."

The older William bowed and smiled.  "At once, sire."

"Well, not _too_ quickly," William said, eyeing Toothless with glee.  "Take your time."

FitzOsbern chuckled.

That done, William clambered onto Toothless' back.  Hiccup got him harnessed with a minimum of fuss, and up they went in a rush of air.

As the older William went to go fulfill his duke's orders, Heather looked at him and decided that now was the perfect time.  "Excuse me, but can I come with you?  There was something I saw in the city that caught my interest."

"Certainly, Lady Heather," he said. 

She turned to Astrid and Wulfhild.  "Feel like coming along?"

Astrid nodded, but Wulfhild shook her head.  "No, I'm feeling a bit tired again.  I'm going to stay here and rest."

Leaving Wulfhild in Gunvor's care, the two of them and William went out into the city.

A few people were still staring at the keep, and watched them as they went out.

###

Viggo watched, intrigued, as the black dragon and its riders danced in the skies over the city.  He was not the only one so entranced, as many of the city residents were also watching. 

He was so entranced himself that he almost missed the gates opening.  Moving his attention back to them while working to not be obvious about it, he watched carefully. 

A man wearing the duke's livery and riding a warhorse emerged from the gates.  Viggo knew that his mount was war-trained, because right behind it was a pair of dragons carrying riders and the horse was still calm—clearly, the Hooligans were taking no chances about a potential return of the Archbishop's guardsmen.

Viggo studied the riders; one was a blond woman, her hair styled in a manner that indicated that she was married if he recalled correctly, and the other was a black-haired woman, both  slender.  Viggo consulted his memory to identify their dragons, and, after a moment's mental rifling, he identified them as a Razorwhip and a Deadly Nadder.  Both dragons had saddles on their backs, with the Nadder's saddle actually holding a battle-ax in some form of sheath on the dragon's right side, an addition that made Viggo want to roll his eyes. 

_Vikings._

He signaled to his brother, who was standing nearby, to have them followed and report on what they did. 

And with that, he settled in to observe; the black dragon and the riders were wheeling through the sky, flying through clouds and diving to skim along the river.  As they flew about, Viggo noted the dragon's speed, agility, and any other scraps of information that he could pull from their performance.  He would, of course, have to account for the fact that it was carrying two riders, but this still gave at least an inkling of its capabilities in flight.

###

The streets here were narrow, but not so much so that Windshear and Stormfly couldn't walk through them.  The locals, though, tended to head the other way when they saw the dragons approaching.  William had said that he was fairly certain as to where the merchant lived, but not completely, so they were wandering a bit. 

Astrid was looking around as they rode through the twisty streets.  "Nice place.  How many people live here?" she addressed William. 

"Twenty-two thousand, give or take a thousand or two," he said absently.

Astrid whistled, impressed. 

William paused, looking up and down streets, and then frowned.  "I think we have to go this way," he said, and turned down one of the side streets.  "I apologize for the condition of the place, but I believe this is the fastest way."

Heather followed; if she was keeping track of direction right, they were heading for the riverfront.  More or less automatically, she found herself studying the details of her surroundings, and correlating what she saw to what William had said -- as well as his tone of distaste. The area did seem to be a poorer neighborhood, she noted; she wasn't seeing many people about the street, either, and those she did see hurried out of the way as soon as they saw the mounted party approaching. She considered asking William about that.

But then a supreme distraction raised itself, in the form of the script from Fishlegs' book, all over the place.  In windows, on doorposts, on doors, on signs...

On one of the larger buildings, a pair of windows hung open, and singing came from within.

She paused for a moment and listened, her head cocked to the side.  She knew Norse and Gaoidhealg as her mother-tongues, and could speak and read Saxon, Latin, _langue d'oil,_ Hen Gymraeg, and even a bit of Low Franconian; more than half of those were thanks to Alvin's intensive training.

As far as she could tell, what she was hearing was related to none of them.

A single man was chanting, and she could hear him through an open window.  The chant was guttural, but not nearly as harsh as Norse or Franconian, and despite being sung, it was not a part of any musical tradition that she was familiar with.  It sounded… old.  Old and very, very foreign.

The chanter paused, and then a dozen or so other men all spoke as one, and said " _Amen,"_ in an accent that she did not recognize.

She blinked.  Why were they giving a _Christian_ service ending?  Especially as the chanter began his liturgy again. 

As Heather kept pace with William, the chanter and his building fell behind them.  Moving Windshear up next to the imperturbable horse, she leaned over and asked, "What was that just now?"

"What was what?" he asked, puzzled. 

"The singing coming from that building we passed."

William looked taken aback for a moment, and then realization dawned.  "Oh, that's the Jewish school.  Is there a problem, milady?  I can make them stop, if it offends you," he said casually.

She shook her head.  "No, no, I was just curious," she said quickly, as she wracked her brains for anything she could remember regarding Jews. 

It wasn't much.  Nothing, really.

William scowled.  "I don't see why you should concern yourselves with them, milady.  They're vile creatures, and we tolerate them only on sufferance for their crimes."

She blinked at the vehemence in his voice.  "Crimes like what?"

"They were responsible for the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, milady.  Give that you speak our language and Latin so well, I'm surprised that you didn't know that already," William commented curiously.  "Was it not part of your schooling?"

"My schooling was… erratic," she said absently, her thoughts elsewhere, but then dragged herself back to the present and said lightly, "Well, regardless, I have never met any of them before."

"Lady Heather, if I were you, I'd _keep_ it that way," William said firmly.  "When I was a youth, they incited violence against them, and the mob was such that many of them jumped into the river to drown themselves rather than face punishment for their crimes."

Heather managed to tamp down on her desire to recoil, but it was a near thing.  "What did they _do?_ "

William scowled.  "They refused my lord's grandfather's order that they be converted to Christianity, and thus save their souls.  And this was at the order of the King Robert the Pious, so they spat in the eyes of both God and their sovereign in order to hold to their wicked ways!"  He spat off to the side. 

Heather swallowed against the sudden sour taste in her throat, hard, and bit her tongue to keep from saying anything.  _So you tried to force them to convert, and then unleashed the mob on them when they said no?  And you're blaming_ them!? _Eesh, and here I was worried that I was judging Christians too harshly for what_ I _went through!_

Instead of voicing her thoughts, she said instead, "Well, clearly some of them…" _survived,_ "didn't convert.  Why?"

William's scowl deepened, carving lines in his brow.  "Feh.  My lord's grandfather and the Pope took a bribe from one of them.  Seven gold marks and two hundred pounds he paid, and the Pope ordered the saving of souls to be stopped.  It truly shows just how corrupt and vile they are, that they tainted the Church itself!"

Heather nodded and filed the note away.  Apparently the Church was bribeable.  That could be useful.

"So… can we get moving again?" Astrid's voice intruded in Norse, and Heather suddenly realized that she and William had stopped in the middle of the street to have their discussion.

William just looked at her, curious.  She translated, making the man flush and say, embarrassed, "Follow me, this way."

As he moved on, Heather and Windshear fell back to next to Astrid and Stormfly.

"What was that about?" Astrid asked, concerned.

Heather shook her head.  "Tell you later?"

Astrid nodded, still looking at her and William a bit worriedly, and they made light conversation for the remainder of their trip, finding the merchant's home among a row of nice houses near the river docks.

Humbert was a thin man, all nervous energy and stick-like limbs, with pale skin stretched out over his knobbly bones.  He bowed to William and greeted the two women cordially before walking along behind them back to the keep.

As they walked, Heather mused to herself on what to do… and how to tell Fishlegs. 

One thing was for sure, though—she would need to come back later and try to talk to these distant kinsmen of his.  William FitzOsbern was _not_ an unbiased source, and she needed to figure out what she could.

On the positive side, though… they had a school here.  Fishlegs would like that.  A school meant books, and someone that could teach him his great-grandfather's tongue.  He could write in it, a bit, but they'd lost anything but the most basic vocabulary. 

Of course, getting to talk to them as quietly as possible would be challenging to say the least.  They probably wouldn't be staying here too long, which narrowed her window of opportunity.

Also, dealing with the men following her and Astrid would be a challenge.

She'd spotted at least three or four following them so far.  Her best guess was that they were the Archbishop's men, but they could easily be from other groups wanting to keep an eye on the dragon-riders.

And, if she wanted to talk with the Jews without those interested parties knowing that she'd done so… it would be a bit tricky.

###

**_Adriatic Sea Near Bari, Roman Catepanate of Italias, Roman Empire_ **

****

Sigurd and Hookfang cheered tiredly together as Kekaumenos pointed to the half-familiar city on the shore below.  They still had miles to go before landing, but at least the end was in sight.  It was over six hundred miles across the rugged landscape of the Empire between Constantinople and Bari, with the last hundred and fifty of that across the narrow sea of the Adriatic.  At least Italia was hard to miss…

But it had been two days of hard flying, just like last time, and Sigurd was looking forward to landing and resting, and so was Hookfang. 

Gudmund and Gunnar and their dragons were on either side of him in the formation; they'd been swapping off the lead of the V-shape all day.  By now, Sigurd had realized why ducks and geese flew like that—it was _much_ less work for the rest of the birds, or dragons in this case.  And since many of their dragons needed the help for the long journey, Hookfang, as one of their biggest and strongest, had ended up flying at the lead for half of the trip here.  It _didn't_ help that the dragons were carrying two passengers apiece, on the average, in the form of the dragon-armored infantry who were their ground support, and Kekaumenos and the other officers. 

Looking at his two closest friends, Sigurd tried to focus on the glory of the upcoming campaign.  They were the elite warriors of the Roman Empire, the mightiest force the Empire had seen in eleven hundred years of history since the great Caesar had assumed power.  Songs would be sung and books would be written about them, and people would speak of his name in the same way that Thorred had told him of the great Roman generals who had served their Emperors, dating back so far that they made the ancient sagas of Berk's settlement and the beginning of the Viking age look like yesterday's gossip.  _Sigurd Trondsson_ would go down in history next to _Scipio Africanus_ and others who had served the Empire with distinction.  He, and his entire squad, would survive what was coming…

Hookfang snorted, and Sigurd realized that he'd started dozing in the saddle. 

They were on final approach. 

Sigurd took in the sight of Bari.  It was a large city, as such things went, maybe a thousand paces long by half that in width, containing a tangled mess of streets and buildings set on a small headland, one of two bracketing the bay where the harbor was located.  A set of walls protected the landward side of the city. 

As they got closer, the open area in front of the fortress grew visible as halfway packed with soldiers in close formation—and then the huge form of Gyrgir, the Catapan Georgios Maniakes, resolved to Sigurd's eye.  The massive Greek man—as large as Stoick—was dressed in full armor, polished to the point where he gleamed even from a few thousand feet away. 

They landed in good order—albeit tiredly—on the empty field in front of the fort. 

The soldiers in formation cheered and saluted as one. 

Hearing the rush of their voices filled Sigurd will newfound energy, and he, and the other riders, dismounted and saluted Gyrgir with crisp formality.

He returned the salute, and Sigurd and the other riders followed Kekaumenos in formation as he walked up to the Catapan. 

"Greetings!  I'm so glad you're here!  Come, let us get your beasts settled and then we have a feast planned!  Tomorrow, the work begins, but today, the Catapanate of Italia celebrates its august reinforcements!"

###

**_Ducal Fort, Rouen, Normandy, Francia_ **

 

As the sun edged towards setting, Hiccup sat back in his chair, tired but satisfied.  Humbert was going to run the Dragon Mail station here, and Duke William had jumped on it enthusiastically, to the point where the young duke was going to be a full partner in Humbert's business. 

That had alarmed the merchant a bit, but after a while, he'd managed to negotiate matters such that he would be discharging his tax obligations to the duke as part of running the mail station, and everyone had walked away happy.  William, for his part, was looking forward to the fact that there would be riders coming through regularly, and Hiccup was certain that he'd be cadging rides off of them just as regularly. 

They'd be leaving first thing in the morning, but William had offered his hospitality overnight, and given how difficult it would be to navigate in the dark, they'd accepted. 

So now Toothless was curled up around the young duke, who was enjoying giving the silly dragon a thorough rubdown.  Hiccup could hear his friend purring from where he sat, and smiled.

A pat on the shoulder made him look up to see Heather and Astrid standing there. 

"Everything all right?" he asked.

"Dunno.  Heather has something bothering her, but she wants to tell us together.  And bring in Horsefeathers, too," his wife said, glancing at Heather.

"Alright.  Let me go get Wulfhild—" he said, starting to get out of his chair.

Heather whispered sharply, "No, please!  This might upset her!"

Hiccup sagged back into the chair.  " _What_ might upset her?"

"Um…" Heather bit her lip.

Hiccup sighed.  "Heather.  If you're telling me to exclude Wulfhild from something that you apparently see as important, I need to know why."

Astrid nodded.  "You're saying that it'll upset her.  Well, leaving her out will _also_ upset her."

Heather grimaced.  "Fine.  Fine.  I just… I warned you, okay?"

"Noted," Hiccup said, giving her a look.  He liked her well enough, but he wouldn't call his relationship with Heather close.  She and Fishlegs spent most of their time with each other, just like he spent most of his time with Astrid and Wulfhild.  And while she had a clever mind, it was also twisty, and he couldn't always follow her line of thinking... but that was due to her training, so he tried to excuse it. 

With a sigh, he got up and pulled Wulfhild aside as well. 

Leaving Duke William to enjoy playing with the dragons—and the dragons to enjoy being pampered by the grinning young duke—they went off into the side chamber that they'd been given to rest in and sat. 

Heather paced through the room for a long moment, and then said in Norse, "So… um… I don't know where to start…"

"The beginning's a good place," Astrid put in.  "What were you talking about to Herald William?"

"Umm… well, that's not the beginning…" Heather said weakly. 

"So what is?" Horsefeathers asked. 

Heather sighed.  "So… over the winter, Fishlegs told me about his and Horsefeathers' ancestor, Dror ben Ezra."

Hiccup nodded, and said quietly to Wulfhild, who was looking confused, "He was my great-grandfather's best friend and adviser, like how Gobber is to my dad.  He came as a freedman about a hundred or so years ago, settled down and joined the Ingerman clan through marriage."

Horsefeathers smiled.  "And he's got two descendants in the room."

Wulfhild cocked her head.  "Who?"

Astrid pointed to Horsefeathers and herself.  "Great-grandson, great-great-granddaughter."  She shrugged.  "Not that it means anything.  So is Dogsbreath."

Hiccup snorted.  "That's true.  But Dror did a lot for the tribe.  You know how you're amazed that we all know how to read and write?"  Wulfhild nodded.  "Well, he's the one to thank for it."

Heather nodded gratefully to him.  "Exactly.  And Fishlegs has his journal, written in that language he spoke."

With an affirmative grunt, Horsefeathers said, "And he earned it, fair and square.  I could have gotten great-granddad's book, because I'm oldest, but it was so important to him that he showed Auntie Bladewit that he was more worthy.  But what's this got to do with…"  He trailed off, the light dawning in his eyes.  "Wait.  Great-granddad _came_ from here."

Heather nodded.  "And he showed me the journal… and I saw some of that same writing here."

Horsefeathers rocked back on his heels.  "By the gods, you're _kidding_ , right?"  He started to the door.  "Come on, I want to mee—"

"I need to tell you the rest, first," Heather interrupted, looking at Wulfhild, who looked confused. 

Horsefeathers paused by the door, giving Heather a look of anticipation.  "Okay…  so talk.  You're saying that I could have kinsmen here.  Keep going." 

Heather sighed and asked Wulfhild, "Wulfhild, how are Jews treated in Norway?"

Hiccup blinked at the sudden jump in topic, and didn't recognize the name that she used.  And apparently he wasn't the only one. 

Wulfhild seemed befuddled as well.  "There … there aren't any that I'm aware of. I've only ever heard stories about them.  Why?"

"Because," Heather said, with a cautious air, "Unless I miss my guess...  the Ingerman clan's kinsmen here are Jews."

Wulfhild blinked, opened her mouth, and shut it again.

"Apparently he was a Jewish man, taken as a thrall and escaped to Berk," Heather said.  "And there's a community of them here still."

Hiccup grinned.  "Really?  Oh man, come on, I want to meet…  what's the matter?" he asked, as Heather shook her head.

"There's a problem," Heather said, grimacing.  "Argh.  I'm doing a terrible job of this.  Umm… Let me explain.  So, I was keeping an eye out for the writing from Dror's book, and saw some."  Horsefeathers nodded eagerly.  "When we went out earlier to get Humbert, we passed by their school, and I asked Herald William about them… and…"

Astrid inhaled sharply, making Hiccup blink in surprise.  "Was that what you were getting upset about?"

Heather nodded, her brows drawn together in pain.  "Turns out that they hate your kinsmen here," she confessed to Horsefeathers.  "Really, really hate.  As in, there was a mob twenty years ago that chased them into the river to drown."

Hiccup glanced at Horsefeathers, whose eyes were round circles.  "What …?" he breathed.

With another sigh, Heather explained what Herald William had told her.  When she was done, the room was silent. 

Hiccup looked around at the others.  Astrid was looking appalled and furious, while Wulfhild had one hand pressed to her mouth.  Horsefeathers' hands were audibly creaking and popping as he clenched them.

Heather just looked miserable.  "So… I was planning on sneaking out and going to go talk with them a bit, rather than rely on William's biases, but, if they dislike them that much here… I don't know what to do."

Nodding, Hiccup said, "It could throw everything we did today into the midden heap.  Yeah, I see that.  Well, what are you hoping to learn from them?"

"Something.  Anything.  All I know at this point is what Herald William told me," she said.  "Also—making things more complicated, because why not—when we went out before, we were followed.  So I need to be careful this time that I'm not followed…" she looked at Horsefeathers, "because, aside from not wanting to let people know what I'm interested in, I don't want to start another mob."

_That_ made everyone grimace. 

During a long moment of quiet, Hiccup chewed it over in his head. 

Then there was a knock at the door, and his mother-in-law's voice issued through it.  "Are you all all right in there?"

"Fine, Mother!" Astrid called through the door.

And then Hiccup remembered one of hers and her husband's complaints about Vedrarfjord. 

"Come in, we have something to tell you," he called.

As Gunvor entered and closed the door behind her, Hiccup smiled and said, "So… remember how you and Hákon were saying that you needed more teachers?"

Horsefeathers choked while Astrid blinked… and then started to laugh quietly. 

Gunvor nodded, a puzzled expression on her face. 

"Well…"

###

**_Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, Francia_ **

 

Viggo sat in the wooden chair across the table from the irritated Father Confessor, a mug of steaming mulled wine in his hands, warming his fingers. 

The Father Confessor, whose name, Viggo had learned, was Matthew, gave him a flinty look, and Viggo shrugged.

"So the prelates sent you out here to find out more on this _Berk?_ " he asked harshly.  "Feh.  I sent in enough messages already, you would think that they could listen."

Viggo shrugged in acknowledgment.  "Well, those messages did get attention, but you know how they are over there."

Matthew scowled, but nodded in acknowledgment of the point.  "So, what are your orders, specifically?"

"Deep background, mostly.  I'm to observe, watch, gather first-hand accounts of the major pagans and other parties involved, find out what their intentions and plans are, their capabilities and so forth, replace some of the hysteria in those reports you sent on with something of more… substance."  Viggo shrugged.  "And keep Mother Church from being committed to anything until they've decided on a course of action down there in Rome."

Matthew gave a slight sarcastic snort.  "Of course.  Well, I can tell you what I know, so maybe they'll actually _listen_ to you."

Viggo smirked slightly.  "Ah, yes, I know that feeling.  And, in addition to that… who put the idea in the Archbishop's head for that little display this afternoon?"

Father Matthew sat back in his chair, looking at Viggo contemplatively.  _"Officially_ , it was all his idea."

"And unofficially?"

"Well, this isn't under the seal of the confessional, so I can tell you."  He leaned in.  "The deposed King of Vedrarfjord and one of the noble ladies of the place managed to escape from the pagan takeover and made their way here.  They're planning on heading to Rome to give witness to what they've seen, but being penniless from having spent their resources to cross the Channel, they are throwing themselves on the Archbishop's mercy.  Apparently, he took it into his head to act in their defense when the pagans came in pursuit of them."

Viggo nodded.  "I see.  I would like to interview them before I leave, if that is acceptable."

Father Matthew shrugged.  "I don't see why not, but in all likelihood, they'll be in Rome before you, my son."

"That's not my concern," Viggo said, raising an eyebrow.  "I want to know what I'm going to be sailing into."

The other man nodded.  "That makes sense."  He sighed.  "So you wish for me to keep the Archbishop from doing anything hasty until Rome has had a chance to make a decision?"

"That would be useful, yes.  For the moment, though, let's begin with what you know," Viggo said.  "All I have is what I've learned from those reports that were sent in last autumn, and some details from the witnesses that Harthacnut sent along, plus a little gleaned here and there from gossip."

Father Matthew sat back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face.  "Well…"

###

**_Jewish Quarter Synagogue, Rouen, Normandy, Francia_ **

 

"… _asher kid-shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu al sefirat ha'omer.  Hayom yom sh'losha u'sheloshim yom, sheheym arba-a shavuot vachamisha yamim ba-omer,"_ the congregation chanted together at the conclusion to the _Maariv_ evening service. 

With a smile, Rabbi Dovid ben Eliezer looked around the room as the men began to put away their prayerbooks and break up into small knots of conversation before heading out to return home. 

Then there was a knock at the door, and the conversation ceased as if cut by an ax, and everyone froze. 

The knock repeated at the door.  It was quiet, as if trying not to be noticed, not the authoritative pounding of the city militia come to bait the Jews for their entertainment again. 

Gathering his courage, he walked up to the door as the rest of the congregation scattered to hide themselves.  Just in case. 

Checking to make sure that he would be the only one visible, he opened the door.  Two tall women, one dark-haired and slender and around the age of his daughter, the other closer to his own age, with a few blond strands escaping from under a demure covering, and a big blond man were standing there, huddled in cloaks against the springtime chill. 

The slender dark-haired woman asked politely in the Norman tongue, "Can we come in please?"

"What for?" he asked, baffled… and worried. 

"We wish to speak with you," she said, her intonation making it very clear that _langue d'oil_ was not her native tongue, but she was making an effort to speak as clearly as possible.

"Regarding…?"

The woman sighed.  "Please?  I swear that we mean you and your people no harm.  The opposite, actually."

Confused and feeling a bit trapped, Dovid stepped aside and motioned them in.  Both of the women were taller than he was, and the man was a burly thug whom Dovid immediately classified as a bodyguard.  What they were doing in his synagogue, he had no idea.

Closing the door behind them, he said, as clearly as possible to the woman, "If you're in trouble, we can shelter you for only a—"

She smiled at him, and he blinked in surprise.  Out of all of the possible responses, that had _not_ been what he'd been expecting.

"We come to your door mysteriously, and your immediate response is trying to figure out how to help us if we're in trouble?"  Her smile widened and she said something in what sounded like Norse to the other two, both of whom grinned—and then one of them pointed to the inscription of the _Aseret Hadibrot_ above the ark to the other. 

The dark-haired woman, however, shook her head and continued to smile.  Taking no notice of her companions as they both stared at the plaque of the Ten Commandments, seemingly stunned, she said, "We're not in trouble, but thank you.  We're just trying to keep you from _getting_ in trouble."

"How would you coming to us get us in trouble?" Dovid asked, his stomach sinking.

"Well, given that the Duke's own herald apparently dislikes you strongly…" she said carefully.

"Who _are_ you?" he asked, exasperated. 

"My name is Heather nic Oswald clan Ingerman, this is Chieftess Gunvor Dugaldsdoitter clan Hofferson, of Vedrarfjord, and this is Horsefeathers Hensteethsson clan Ingerman," she said formally.  "Unfortunately, unless you speak Eirish or Norse, I'll have to translate for them, because we otherwise have no tongue in common."

Dovid blinked and stared at them, eyes wide. 

"You're the Viking dragon-riders!" he said, backing up a pace instinctively.  He'd heard they were in the city, and had hoped that they'd leave without burning the place to the ground. 

She nodded.  "We are.  But we're not here to hurt you, I promise."

"Then why _are_ you here?"

She grinned at him and then turned to the man and spoke in Norse.   He tore his eyes away from looking around the room, shook his head and then nodded, saying something in a sheepish tone.

Dovid watched in befuddlement as the man walked up to the _bimah_ and produced a quill, a small pot of ink, and a scrap of parchment from a satchel and placed them on the table's surface.  Then the big man, evidently _not_ a bodyguard, started to write, carefully and slowly.

The silence was absolute, except for the scratching of the quill and Dovid's own heartbeat, pounding in his ears.  Finally, the big man—Horsefeathers?—held the parchment out to Dovid, who looked at it and froze.

Crude Hebrew letters were written there in the fresh ink, but, despite the grammar being terrible and the penmanship worse… it was readable. 

_Av av avi, Dror ben Ezra, haya me'anashekha.  Hu Limdanu Kro U Khtov._

_My father's father's father, Dror ben Ezra, was one of your people.  He taught us to read and write._

He looked up at Horsefeathers, eyes wide, and the man nodded, a wide smile on his face, and his eyes shining with what Dovid suddenly realized were unshed tears.

"How…?"

The woman, Heather, said quietly, "He was taken during a thrall raid a century and more ago from Normandy.  He then escaped to Berk and settled down as a freedman.  He worked as a scribe and teacher and became the aide and confidant of the old chief, and now, because of him, everyone on Berk knows how to read and write."

Dovid's mouth flopped open and shut wordlessly for a moment as he tried to think through what he'd just been told.  Gently, Horsefeathers handed him the parchment scrap, the ink still damp on the surface of it, and Dovid held it just as gently, looking over the freshly scribed letters in awe.  _Dror ben Ezra…_

Heather waited for a moment, and then continued, "And now… well… I take it that you've heard about us?"

Dovid nodded.  "A little, yes.  I'm not sure what is true and what is wild rumor, though.  I rather doubt that you have a flock of ten thousand dragons at your beck and call, for example."

"Actually, it's up to about twenty-five thousand at the moment," Heather said casually and smiled as Dovid rocked back on his heels.  "But we have vassalized two Eirish cities, and Gunvor here," she motioned to the other woman, "is looking to help build them up as well."

"But what does that… have… to… _oh_."  His eyes widened as he suddenly understood.

Heather said something in Norse to Gunvor, and she spoke rapidly.  Listening, Heather then translated to Dovid, "I know that this is much to take in right now, but I need teachers in my cities, and _our_ kinsman's history with my tribe speaks much to your skill and knowledge."

"Our?" Dovid asked, surprised, and Heather translated.

Gunvor nodded.  "Dror ben Ezra was my father's father's father.  My grandfather was his eldest, and Horsefeathers comes from his elder middle child's line.  The younger middle child married into another tribe elsewhere.  His youngest is now the head of the Ingerman clan.  He was known as a man of great learning and wisdom in my home, and we think fondly of him, to say the least."

Dovid stared at the two Norse standing before him, both of them clearly holding back tears to greater or lesser success, and felt his heart break.

Gunvor, her voice thick, continued to speak, and Heather translated.  "Now… I heard that here you are mistreated.  So I say to you, as chieftess, as _kin_ … you are _family_ , however distant, and while family does not owe family, my _tribe_ owes him a great debt that we never could repay."  She smiled at him, small tears dripping from her chin, as Heather continued to translate, "While I cannot do more than offer… if you are interested and willing, as kin, as _chieftess_ … I feel that offering as many of your people as wish a safe place in my home would be, in some manner, a way to pay that debt, continue his work… and honor my great-grandfather."

Dovid sat down in a chair, stunned. 

"What would we do?" he asked, his thoughts swirling like two puppies chasing each other's tails.

"What he did.  Teach.  Scribe.  Learn.  Help.  I don't know much of your people, but if Dror was any indication, I am interested in learning about you.  I need those who can help others with learning.  I know that this is a surprise, but I can promise you safety and good pay, if nothing else."  The older woman smiled slightly as Heather translated.  "You may have heard about a ransom paid by the King of England and Denmark?"

Dovid nodded mutely. 

"That is in my coffers now."  She reached into a purse at her belt and pulled out a handful of silver coins.  "This is part of my daughter's bride price from the Hero of Berk, Tamer of Dragons.  He wants to meet you, but could not come tonight."

Dovid blinked, and, after a long moment, asked cautiously, "Am I understanding this clearly? You are offering to take in my people and protect them?"

"Yes."  She smiled at him.  "I don't expect an answer now… but if you and your people make their way to Vedrarfjord or Veisafjord, you will be welcome there.  I promise."

He just looked at them, wordless.

With a smile, Gunvor, reached out with the handful of silver, and then seemed to think twice, returning the coins to her purse…

Which she then untied from her belt and placed gently into his unoccupied hand.  Dovid watched, stunned, as she closed his fingers around the metal-filled leather pouch.  "Here.  Use this, and come.  Please."

He stared at the heavy purse and the parchment in his hands, unable to say anything—and then Heather said something in Norse to her companions, and then to him.  "We can't stay long, but we hope to see you again."

With a bow, they left, and Dovid looked at the scrap of parchment in his shaking hands and started to weep.

The rest of the congregation emerged from the basement and closets and other hiding spots, their eyes wide at what they had overheard. 

"What was that about?" one of his students asked.

He held out the parchment mutely, and the younger man looked at it in shock and wonder. 

Dovid rose, and put the scrap of parchment gently back onto the _bimah,_ the bag of silver making the clink of metal on metal as he placed the coins next to the even-more-precious scrap.  Composing himself, he said to the others, "I… I know that this comes as a shock to all of us.  But… if it is true… and I see no reason why it would not be… then I think we should say _Tehillim_ for this Dror ben Ezra, who lived and died as _Melech HaMelachim_ determined… and who has apparently opened the way to safety for the rest of us."

There was a heartfelt murmur of assent, and the congregation turned to the ark at the east end of the room.  Dovid sang the psalms of thanksgiving to the Almighty with great fervor and felt as if a great weight had been taken from his shoulders, as memories of a shouting mob surfaced behind his eyes.

###

**_Chief's Hut, Isle Of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

"So, what do you think of your daughter's intended, Bertha?" Stoick asked. 

Bertha snorted.  "I've only known her for an afternoon, Stoick.  But from what I've seen, she seems to be a second pea in my daughter's pod."

Naoise snorted.  "Aye, that's one way of puttin' it."  He leaned forward.  "But I have a question for you, Stoick."

Stoick wondered if Gobber was about to win their prior bet, and nodded.  "Aye?"

"Dragons.  For me, Bertha, and my children.  Cami has one, so it's clearly a possibility, but she mentioned that there was a fight on the topic," the Hofferson man asked.

Stoick resolved to tell Gobber that he'd won the bet, and said mildly, "If it were up to me, the Bogs and the Meatheads would all have dragons of their own by next year, along with every man and woman in our fief down in Eire.  But it's not up to me.  My hands are tied with this new law.  And it's 'allied _clans_ only'.  And the Bogs are _not_ an allied clan.  You're an allied _tribe._   Same with the Meatheads."  He leaned back in his chair, tilted his head up to look at the ceiling, and closed his eyes.  Still in the same tone of voice, he said, "Dragons for you and your immediate kin, I can probably manage, and you can come to the training this autumn, but for the rest of your tribe… I don't know."

Bertha _harumph'_ ed.  "A hundred years and more of allyship, and for what?"

Stoick turned and cracked open an eye to look at her.  "I did my best, but between all of the attacks and the like, the clans voted to keep our control over the dragons more tightly held."

She scowled.

"Besides, Bertha, let's be honest," Stoick said.  "You would load up every Bog Burglar you have and go on an epic raid somewhere, coming back bejeweled and decked with gold… and then _my_ tribe would face the backlash, because, as far as the world knows, we're the only ones with dragons."

Bertha huffed, and Naoise snorted.  "He's got you there, love."

"Aye, but now we're going to have a blood tie to _Alba_ , and when things go to shit there, we're going to have to come to you beggin' for aid _anyway,_ Stoick!" Bertha said with a renewed scowl.  "Your backin' is most of the reason why they're considerin' this in the first place!"

"Aye.  I know.  And I'm supporting it because I hope to be able to call on them in return—and having a tie with Alba will be good for both of us."

Bertha huffed out a sigh.  "Aye.  And this'll be good for my tribe as a whole.  I'm just feelin'… _used_."

Stoick snorted.  "I know that feeling.  But I don't have a solution.  I'm sorry."

Bertha scowled.  "Well, we'll just have to do our best."  She seemed to gather herself and plastered a smile on her face.  "But, for the girl… yes.  She makes Cami happy, and comes with a potent alliance.  What more could I ask for?"

"A dragon?" Naoise suggested innocently, and then ducked as Bertha flung a pillow from the chair at him.

###

**_Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, Francia_ **

 

Viggo walked into the small chamber behind Father Matthew where the King of Vedrarfjord and the Lady Brighid were waiting for him and the Father Confessor.  As far as they knew, he was just a scribe.

He examined the pair as he walked in.  The King was the very image of a bandit lord or petty king of the Vikings, tall, scarred, with jet-black hair and brown eyes and a build that proclaimed him to be skilled with the blade.  Perhaps in his early forties, he looked strong and vigorous.  The Lady, conversely, was a petite if not tiny blonde woman, with long hair that Viggo would have bet substantial sums on having been the subject of a lecture on vanity at least once a year.  Her age was more difficult to gauge, but he'd guess that she was somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties. 

The Father Confessor sat and looked at the pair of them while Viggo busied himself with the parchment, quill and ink.  He was going to be writing with his right hand, a fact that irritated him, but he hoped that, between the cowl of his habit and the focus on the Father Confessor, he'd be able to get away with being unrecognized if and when he met these two again in Rome. 

After a long moment, the Father Confessor having asserted his authority over the pair, he spoke. 

"My apologies for not having this interview previously, but I've been preoccupied with other matters since your arrival.  The Archbishop is young and untested, so I apologize if there were any issues stemming from that," he said in Eirish.

The pair nodded.

"Now, I understand that you were both in Vedrarfjord when the pagans came and took it over?"

Adalwin snorted.  "I was the King, thank you, Father.  Of course I was there."

"So how did you escape?"

"Via a back passage I found in the motte of the fortress.  I think it was the well at one point.  I had a boat at the mouth of the culvert and managed to run for a nearby woodcutter's shed that I paid a peasant to maintain for me.  Once things had calmed down a bit, I managed to sneak off to a monastery whose abbot, Father Cináed, is a friend of mine, and he attested that I am who I say I am," the king pointed his chin at the ribboned parchment on the table, "and helped pay for our passage." 

"I see.  That is a very well-planned escape route, I must say, sir king."

The man shrugged.  "All of the Eirish cities get passed around like hot rocks, especially by us Uí Ímair.  It pays to be prepared."

"I see… and you, Lady Brighid?  How did you escape?"

She bowed her head to the senior priest and said, "I took oath with the rest of the nobles of the city to the pagan lord, but when he started his reign of terror over the Faithful, I made haste to leave before he could harm me.  I met up with the king by accident and he took me with him."

"I see.  And what sorts of things is this _Stoick_ doing in Vedrarfjord, milady?"

"Horrible acts of wickedness and persecutions," she said, looking down, her brow furrowed and shoulders hunched distraughtly.  "Declaring that all marriages performed under the Church were null and void, and that our children were illegitimate and unable to inherit, so that he could claim our estates, for starters…"

Viggo listened as she told her tale of woes and wrongs.  Interesting; while most of these acts would hardly be of note if Christians were the ones doing them—taking prisoners as slaves, executions, desecrations, and so forth—Viggo did find the reversal interesting. 

However… he hadn't heard a peep from John or anyone else that he'd spoken with on the topic, and these sorts of lurid tales of persecutions would be repeated with gusto by the gossips, he was certain.  The fact that he _hadn't_ heard any such tales... well, that pointed against support for the Lady's words.  Yes, there were the recent attacks over in Brittany that he'd found out about, but those were clearly from a single rogue, and one playing cat and mouse with the Brittany lord who had kept chasing him off.  But if Berk had wanted to conquer Brittany, they would have.  So this piece, as lurid as it was, didn't fit.

Well, that was why he was going to Berk in the first place. 

The interview continued, and, a short while later, he and the Father Confessor stood up and left.

"Your thoughts?" the older priest asked. 

"First, I think that they're exaggerating, and significantly.  They have every reason to.  On the other hand, that could also be of some use," Viggo said pragmatically.  "Also, if they are not lovers, I'll eat my hat."

"You don't wear a hat," Matthew observed with a chuckle.

"Then I will buy one to eat it, except that I won't have to, because they're clearly lovers.  They are far too comfortable in each other's personal spaces, and they took significant cues from each other without speaking.  I have the distinct feeling that, for all of her claims about having to flee after her husband was killed and children enslaved, she was actually the king's mistress and he got her out of there," Viggo said bluntly. 

"Yes, I noticed much the same," the Father said.  "And my conclusions are similar.  And that could be of use later on as well."

Viggo nodded.  "Well, I'll make a clean copy of these for you, and I plan to sail in the morning."

"Good."

Ryker came walking up at that moment, and the Father Confessor gave him a look with a raised eyebrow. 

"Father Matthew, this is my brother, Ryker Grimborn.  He is also the second-in-command of my Dragon Hunter crew and a lay brother of the Church."

"I see.  A pleasure to meet you," Father Matthew said formally.  "If there is anything else, please, let me know."

"Of course," Viggo said as the senior priest walked off.  Turning to his brother, he asked, "What is it?"

"We managed to follow them around a bit, and found something… interesting."

"Oh?" Viggo said, raising his own eyebrow.

"Aye.  Seems that black-haired girl knows her way around.  She made two of us as shadowing her, and if not for the fact that she had to lug two people around who weren't as skilled, we would have lost her for sure.  As it was, it was close," Ryker said.  "She almost managed to make a clean break of our surveillance.  Used the trick of ducking into a shopkeeper's front and slipped out the back, and was _very_ smooth about it."

Viggo whistled.  "Very nice.  We'll have to keep an eye on her.  What's her name?"

"Heather clan Ingerman.  Nothing more yet, but she's got training, and she's _good._ "

With a widening smile, Viggo said mildly, "Excellent.  We could use a challenge.  Was she doing this for any purpose, or was it just on principle?"

"Well, we did manage to follow her and the other two to the Jewish quarter," Ryker said.  "They went into that prayerhouse and school, talked for a bit, and then left.  We couldn't overhear what they were saying, but the Jews started singing after they left."

"Happy singing, or 'oh, God, help us' singing?" Viggo inquired.

"The first.  I know what they sound like when they're pleading for mercy from God," Ryker said with a sadistic smirk. 

"Interesting… well, that'll be something else to keep an eye on.  Anything else?"

"Minor bits.  Unfortunately, that stupid stunt with the guardsmen earlier seems to have made them keep their noses inside.  They did have some dealings with a merchant, though.  I crossed some palms with coin and found out why."

"And?" 

"They're going to be using the dragons to carry mail, and Rouen is going to be one of the offices," Ryker said. 

Viggo blinked… and then smiled slowly.  "Veeery interesting.  Oh, interesting indeed.  The Church will be very interested in _that…_ and we might have a cover, if necessary."  He looked at his brother.  "If they are truly intending to carry mail… imagine how they'll react back in Rome at the thought."

Ryker grinned.  "Oh, yes. I can imagine."

* * *

 

**_AN:_ ** _Whew.  I wrote the first draft of this chapter over a year and a half ago.  The reveal for Dror ben Ezra has been one of the longest range pieces of foreshadowing in this fic so far: 57 chapters between the first piece of foreshadowing, with Bladewit's patronymic back in chapter 6, and the reveal here. And there are more bits scattered about between those two points._

_Also, in case people are wondering, yes, I'm Jewish.  I know that some have guessed, while this will take others by surprise.  And while I've already gotten some hate mail and antisemitic reviews before now, as a heads up to anyone else that plans on sending me any more, I've already handed out Bingo cards to a number of my friends.  But essentially, much like the poly and LGBT plotlines, if you can't stand seeing Jewish plotlines, here's your chance to stop reading._


	64. Underhanded

**Chapter 64: Underhanded**

_…additionally, much criticism has been levied over the centuries against Heather Ingerman's espionage failures, especially those early in her tenure.  Frequently, such critics find support in her own journals, especially with sufficient cherry-picking to avoid her own cogent analysis of what she did wrong and how to do better in the future.  What many of these critics forget is that Ingerman was a teenaged girl at the time when she was first appointed to the role of spymaster of Berk; while she had been extensively trained as a spy agent, the higher-level skills required by her new elevated position took her some time to develop from first principles.  It was not until later that she found a mentor in the arts of espionage that…_

 

_—Statecraft: The Great Game Of Diplomacy, Espionage & War By Other Means, 1732, Rouen University Press_

**_May, AD 1042_ **

**_Dartmoor Mountains, England_ **

 

With a critical eye, Hiccup looked around the Dartmoor Mountains.  Well, hills with pretensions.  The landscape rolled in a pleasant way, and there were some very nice valleys and peaks, but compared to Berk and the Highlands, it was rumpled clothing.  That being said, it was still a far cry from the flat plains around Rouen where they'd left this morning. 

Astrid said from next to him, "Not much, are they?"

"I was thinking the same," he said, shaking his head.  "And this isn't exactly solid dragon territory.  No real places to hide, and while we're not that far from the ocean…"  Another headshake.  "What are they doing _here?_ "

She shrugged.  "Well, from what we've heard, they _are_ here, so we'll have to look around.  We could poke around a few of the villages and see what we can find out from gossip."

Hiccup nodded as Fritjof and Horsefeathers walked into the clearing, carrying wood for the fire. 

"Any luck?" Hiccup asked. 

Fritjof shook his head.  "No.  If there are dragons about, either they're canny about hiding themselves, or fresh in the area, but there are no signs of dragons that I could see."

Hiccup frowned.  "Alright.  Lunch first?"

"Ayep," Fritjof said, stacking up the firewood.  "So, boy, what's our plan here?"

"We look around, see if we can find dragon-sign, tame the dragons if we can find them, and then go home, stopping to say hello to King Gruffydd for the Dragon Mail stations on the way," Hiccup said. 

"Alright," Fritjof said with a shrug before turning to his Zippleback, Nott and Delling. "Need a light here."

A few moments and a minor explosion later, the fire was burning merrily.  As they built it up so that it would be ready for cooking, Wulfhild came walking up, carrying a brace of rabbits and a few fowl on a stick, her bow slung over her back.

"All hail the mighty hunter!" she said, grinning. 

Hiccup stood and walked over to embrace her, and then gave her a kiss.  "How was the hunting?" he asked, taking the stick with the small game hanging from it. 

"Pretty good, but oh, my joints hurt," Wulfhild said, grimacing as Hiccup went to start working on prepping the meat.  Then she yelped in surprise, making Hiccup turn back.

Astrid had just come up behind Wulfhild and given her a hug.  As he watched, that quickly shifted into a massage of her neck.  As Wulfhild made a semi-controlled collapse to the ground, moaning happily at the kneading of the sore muscles, Hiccup got out his belt knife and started skinning and cleaning the game that she'd hunted.

"You two okay over there?" he asked with a smirk as he worked. Wulfhild was prone on the grass, Astrid giving her a thorough workover on her sore back. 

"Never… better," Wulfhild breathed into the crushed grass.

Astrid gave a chuckle.  "My turn next."

"No… ooooh… problem…"

Fritjof rolled his eyes as he worked at getting the fire ready for cooking.  "Me, I'm half expecting problems while we're here."  He pointed off in the distance.  "We've got four burhs within a few hours walk—Exeter, Halwell, Lydford and Lifton.  Also, I don't doubt we were spotted as we flew in.  We might end up facing a few hundred horsemen tomorrow with a bone to pick with us."

"If they do, we fly away and register a complaint with Harthacnut," Hiccup said bluntly. 

"Aye.  Mayhap.  I still want people on watch tonight," Fritjof said.  "I know that you're trusting, boy, and that's one of your biggest flaws.  If we disappeared here, Harthacnut could plead innocent all he wants, and it's unfair to our friends," he scratched his dragon's heads under their chins, "to make them carry the weight of our safety on their own."

Hiccup nodded as Gunvor and Heather walked back into the clearing, carrying more wood and game.  Gunvor looked at her daughter and Wulfhild and laughed lightly, depositing her firewood by the fire before settling down on the grass to give Astrid similar treatment. 

Heather, grinning, just put the rabbits that she'd managed to pot with her knives onto the pile by Hiccup.

He gave her a sardonic look, and she shrugged innocently.  "I'm going to go with Horsefeathers down to the shore to get fish for the dragons," she said.

"Trade you," Hiccup said, indicating the pile of meat that he was dressing. 

"Thanks, but you seem to have it handled," she said with a light chuckle and a friendly smirk before grabbing the fishing net. 

With a sigh, and a slight smile, Hiccup just got back to work at the domestic task. 

###

The woodsman watched the Vikings in the clearing with an air of anticipation.  They were here, just as he'd been told to expect.

Another of his group moved over to him quietly.  "Three men, four women, seven dragons.  They're never without the dragons, though."

"So we wait until tonight," the leader said softly.  "Pay is no good if you're burned to death before spending it."

"Why not just kill them one at a time?" another man asked in a whisper.  "They keep breaking off from the group anyway.  We could have taken that one girl when she was hunting rabbits."

"Yeah, you could have killed her easy, but it's not the _girl_ who is the threat, no matter how good she is with a bow.  It's the _dragon_ she's got as her hunting dog.  And if we attacked her, it would have attacked us, and then we'd all be toast."  He shook his head.  "We wait until they're asleep and then slit throats in the night.  I don't care how tempting it is when they walk off alone.  They catch a whiff of us, and we're all dead, or worse."

There were nods all around. 

###

**_Roman Fortress, Bari, Roman Catepanate of Italias, Roman Empire_ **

 

Snotlout woke, feeling like he wanted to curl up and die.  His head was pounding, his mouth tasted like a rat with poor hygiene had crapped on his tongue before going to sleep there, and his eyes wanted to pop out of his head and go rolling along the floor. 

At least the room was dark, and he was lying on something soft.  After a moment, though, something about that began to seem … off, even through the fog in his head.

It was _really_ dark.  Almost absolutely dark, with no windows, candles, lanterns or light of any kind beyond a faint gleam coming through under the door.  And he could tell by feel that he wasn't dressed for sleep, but still in his uniform tunic. 

He rolled over and heard the clink of metal on metal.

Wha…?

Blearily, he registered the odd noise, and, slowly and carefully, sat up, to the sound of more clinking.

Even hungover, he was able to find the source of the sound fairly quickly.

Chains.  Ending at a manacle around his ankle, and -- he followed the chain by feel -- secured to the wall. 

What.

Snotlout felt  at the metal cuff holding him prisoner for what was probably a good portion of an hour, not understanding why it was there.

Other noises elsewhere in the room drew his attention.  More chains.

"Oh, my _head…_ " Ben's voice moaned and then there was a sudden sharp _clank_.  "What the…?"

Snotlout blinked slowly, his thoughts still feeling like he was dragging them through liquid mud, and generally finding the prospect of death to be a possibly welcome one.  He hadn't had a hangover this bad since Kyiv, or possibly last summer back in Nidaros. 

"What's going on?" someone else asked, their words slurred with hangover.

"I do not know," Gunnar's voice said blearily from elsewhere in the room.  "I am restrained, though.  Perhaps we acted inappropriately at the feast?"

The rest of the riders woke over the next short while, all of them feeling vile and hungover—and all of them chained.  And only the riders.  None of their officers or support.

And none of them could figure out why.  Slowly, they pieced together the previous night—or at least what they assumed was the previous night. 

They'd feasted with the officers of the local Army contingent… and the drink had been strong…

The door swung open, making all of them flinch at the noise and the light.  A man, beardless and dressed as a servant, came in bearing a tray of cups, followed by a boy carrying a large pitcher and another carrying a lantern. 

"Who are you?  What's going on?" Sn… Sigurd asked blearily, shielding his eyes from the light, but they didn't answer.  Instead, he was handed a cup from the tray—filled with water.

He drank greedily, feeling parched tissues in his mouth spring back, but none of the servants answered their questions.  Instead, they went from bed to bed, handing out cups of water. Thorred tried to grab the wrist of one of them, and succeeded at getting a half-grip on the man's arm. "What... what's going on?"

The servant opened his mouth, and Thorred recoiled.

"Thorred?" Sigurd asked.  "What is it?"

The servant turned to Sigurd and opened his mouth again—and it was Sigurd's turn to recoil.

The man had no tongue.

The rest of the cups were handed out, drained, reclaimed, refilled, handed out again, and finally collected; the servants left, leaving the room in darkness again.

Sigurd's head was still pounding, but…

"Thorred," he said in a half-order, half-groan.

"Yeah?"

"Gygir.  Maniakes.  Tell me about him."

Thorred grimaced.  "Yes, sir," he said, albeit slurred from the hangover, and started to recite the relevant sagas, composed by Harald's skald.  Ten years previously, Maniakes had been on that horrible expedition to the east, where Kristoffer had been so wounded, and helped with the capture of a city—Edessa.  But he had truly begun his rise during a war three years ago, where he'd led the Empire to partial reconquest of an island to the south—Sicily—from the Saracens.  He'd had the Varangians, led by Harald; the Lombards, led by Arduin; and the Normans, led by William 'Iron Arm', for that campaign.

Since then, though, he'd offended Arduin so badly that he'd risen in revolt and taken the Lombards and their Norman mercenaries with him, as well as insulting Admiral Stephen… brother-in-law of both John the Eunuch and Emperor Michael the Fourth.  He'd been swiftly recalled after that.  But then Michael the Fifth had put him back in charge here, apparently on the reasoning that if his uncles were against someone, he was for them.

The door opened, and a trio of soldiers in the Varangian uniform stepped through and assumed parade guard positions by the door.  A moment later, Gygir's massive frame followed them; he looked around the room and scowled. 

"To your feet!" one of the Varangians ordered. 

Sigurd, wincing at the loudness, hauled himself to a wobbly standing position; the sound of the chains' clanking as he stood were like nails driven into his ears.  "Sir."

Maniakes looked at him and nodded.  "Rider."

Sigurd, trying to stand up straight without swaying like a tree in a high wind, did his best to stare the big man in the eye despite being nearly a foot and a half shorter.  "Sir.  Why have we been chained up?"

"Insurance," Maniakes said in accented Greek.  "I want to prevent… hasty actions.  But now you are under my command.  And for the good of the Empire, I will use you to depose Emperor Michael and Empress Zöe.  The Empire needs a competent hand to lead it, and the Macedonian Dynasty has run out!  Michael's sham adoption as the Empress' son is a _farce!_ "  He looked around the room, and Sigurd did the same, even as his insides boiled in shock.  Most of the other riders were looking at him in some degree of similar shock, dismay… or agreement.  "He's nothing more than a petulant child, and I know that he'll turn on me and anyone that shows competence, just like he did Harald!  He'll drag the Empire down with him!  Our only chance to preserve the empire is to cut him down cleanly now, and put the power of the Empire in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing."  He clapped his hands together.  "Someone like myself."

"Be that as it may, Sir," Gunnar said carefully, "our oaths are to the Emperor and Empress.  You are asking us to forswear ourselves."

"Your _oaths_ are to the Office of the Emperor—regardless of the occupant.  I declare myself Emperor and Michael illegitimate.  Follow me, and you will have never broken your oaths!"

Sigurd looked at the Varangians flanking Maniakes.  "Is that why they follow you?"

"It is."  Maniakes looked him over.  "So think on it.  Your force is potent… but not irreplaceable.  And my patience is limited."

"What about our men and officers?" Gudmund asked.

"What about them?" Maniakes asked.  "Consider accepting my offer… and we'll see."

He turned and left, followed by his Varangian traitors. 

Sigurd looked around the room at the others.  "Now what?"

###

**_Nidaros, Norway_ **

 

As Svanhildr and the other healers got out of the skycart in the fortress' courtyard, Ruffnut watched the dragon-grooms, joined by Tuffnut and Yngvarr—the pair of them back from Kyiv only hours earlier—giving the half-dozen Gronckles that had carried the cart handfuls of dragon-nip and drinks of water.  The dragons, for their part, were looking fairly pleased with themselves, but were quite happily taking naps right there after getting their drinks and nip. 

But Ruffnut couldn't join in.  Her brother was sporting a darkening bruise that she'd given him after he'd made mocking bloated motions at her on his return from his trip… and she was irritated at just how _accurate_ it had been.  She _wobbled._  

Still, she made her slow, careful way up to her healers—noting that three were missing—and asked cheerfully, "So, how was the flight?"

Svanhildr gave her a wide-eyed stare.  "Fast, terrifying, and compared to a longboat in high seas, I will choose this… but it is a close choice."

Ruffnut cackled, and Svanhildr gave her a glare with no heat behind it. 

"And how was Berk?"

Svanhildr took a deep breath and let it out slowly as they walked away, followed by the rest of the healers.  "Interesting.  Your mother and father told me to give you their regards, by the way."

"Thanks.  And for that… other matter?"

Svanhildr glanced around carefully and nodded.  "Your healers were… less than pleased, but after an extended debate, that went much more smoothly than the _other_ debate about allowing outsiders to use dragons."

Despite herself, Ruffnut hissed.  "Of all of the stupid, inane, asinine…" she growled, balling her fists.  She was furious about the new law—and the fact that so many of her clanmates had voted for it.  And then she doubled over as a cramp hit her.

Svanhildr was at her side in a heartbeat, supporting her.  "Breathe… breathe…"

"I… argck! I'm _trying!"_ Ruffnut bit out.  Then the spasm passed, and Svanhildr helped her get back to standing straight. 

"You're not due for another week or so," she said observationally.

"I, nrrgh, I know!" Ruffnut said, massaging her lower back with balled fists.  "False labor, I was told."  She snorted.  "Figures that my kid would be pranking me before she's even out of the womb!"

Svanhildr laughed and they continued walking.  Once they were free from the fear of listening ears, Ruffnut turned to her and the others that had been sent to Berk.  "So?"

Svanhildr inhaled sharply and exhaled in a long breath.  "As I said, they were less than pleased, and debated on it for two days, but then we were made to demonstrate our knowledge and we had to give dire oaths.  Once that was done, we were taught about the dragons that we have here, and given some phials of medically useful dragon venoms that they had on hand."  She shook her head.  "Such things they had listed in that book…"

Ruffnut nodded in agreement.  "But they've been milking what dragons they have for what they can."

"Aye, and the excess is what we were given.  And Borghild, Thyra, and Pia stayed behind for further instruction," Svanhildr said.  "What we'll do is… still open for discussion.  I suggested that we train people here at Saint Olaf's, but they were very resistant to the idea.  We might end up starting apprentices here and sending them there for finishing in using dragon medicines."  She sighed.  "At least they were open to the idea of sharing at all.  But I do wish they had more to spare."

One of the others commented, "Aye, we can always use more medicines."

Ruffnut nodded.  "But most of them go bad quickly."

"Aye.  So we'll probably be using what they gave us soon."

Curious, Ruffnut asked, "So, what _did_ they give you?"

Svanhildr took out her rucksack and opened it.  Kneeling, she pulled out various small jars—mostly earthenware, but a few glass, padded with spare garments and packed straw. 

"Scauldron venom, Razorwhip tears, and Snaptrapper venom."  She held up the phials.  "Plenty of all of those, and we have Nadders here for the quills."

Ruffnut nodded and took one of the phials for examination, and then cocked her head.  "That's it?"

"Aye.  I was hoping for some of the more potent medicines that they told us about, but apparently those dragons, despite being known to your people, don't roost on your island."

With a scowl, Ruffnut nodded again, disappointed.  "I was hoping that Hiccup had found some of them by now…"  In particular, she was hoping for melted Nettlewing ice or, even better, Buffalord saliva, the latter being a potent cure for many diseases.

Without thinking, she crouched and handed the phial back to Svanhildr… and then tried to stand again. 

And couldn't.

"Ack!"

The small circle of healers tittered with light laughter, making Ruffnut give them all a mock glare.  "Help!"

Two of them came over and hauled her back to her feet, and Ruffnut grimaced as she came back to her full height.  Her thighs were wet.  She'd wet herself _again…_

Wait.

No.

"Milady?  What's wrong?" Svanhildr asked.

Ruffnut turned to her, feeling the hysterical smile growing on her face.  "Get Magnus and get me back to the fort."

"Milady…?"

Ruffnut, feeling giggles building up inside her and threatening to break loose, said as the first giggle escaped into her otherwise matter-of-fact tone, "My water just broke."

###

**_Broodery Annex, Isle of Berk, Alban Hebrides_ **

 

Fishlegs wiped his arm across his sweaty forehead and considered the newly finished chamber adjacent to the Broodery complex.  He and Oisin had taken the sketched shop layout that Fearghus had put together and built the new glassmaking shop underneath the Broodery.  It had been expensive—wiping out over half of Fishlegs' funds—but it should work, he decided.  High ceilings, supported by the new posts-and-beams system that Hiccup had devised for the Broodery tunnels—with notches that would make it possible for them to slip past each other, keeping them mutually braced.  The spaces between the floor-beams were filled in with sand and gravel, and covered with flagstones, to keep the beams from being a tripping hazard.  Nightmare-spit lamps were mounted on the walls, their flames shielded by milky glass covers. 

The basic idea for putting the new shop down here was simple; rather than just vent the extra heat from the glass furnaces into the air, a small boiler would capture it and channel it into the Broodery and the rest of the complex. 

Right on the other side of the wall was the main boiler and the stokers' room where all of the firewood was stored, and a dedicated crane and shaft had already been built for lowering supplies down to these chambers.  A number of the workers had taken a liking to riding down on the crane's platform rather than walking down the exterior wooden ramp, especially when it was rainy or foggy out.  Before he'd left, Hiccup had added a few additional refinements, like guide-rails for the platform along the sides of the shaft—and his next plan was apparently a way to keep the platform from falling down the shaft if the rope ever broke.

Fearghus was looking around his new workplace with a critical eye as Fishlegs, Oisin and a few other workers carried in the disassembled furnaces, marver, and other glassmaking supplies from the smithy.  He motioned Fishlegs over and said, "The one problem I have is these."  He motioned to the thick vertical beams holding up the roof, each one cut from a whole oak tree over a foot thick.  "They'll get in the way when working with the pipes."

Fishlegs nodded.  "Sorry, but the roof is heavy."  He gave a very small smile.  "Stone, you know."  He'd gotten an appreciation for just how heavy it was, when they'd gone over the Broodery and found cracks in the ceilings.

"I get that.  And I like how you put the furnaces in the middle and spread the beams out so that there can be multiple people working at once—and I can start training apprentices soon.  But I'm worried about hitting the beams with the pipes."

Fishlegs nodded sourly.  "I'll see what I can do.  But for now, it works?"

"Oh, aye, this'll do nicely," Fearghus said.  "And we'll need more marvers and the like, and I liked your suggestion of using the beams as mounts for tool racks."

Fishlegs nodded; he'd gotten the idea from Gobber's use of the central beams in the smithy for the same purpose.  "And I figure that, given the demand for glass, we'll be building another one of these over on Eigg when we get the market village there up and running."  That was going to be his summer project, in preparation for the festival that would almost certainly be marking the next dragon-training class this autumn.

That thought made his mood sour again—and it must have shown on his face, because Fearghus paused and looked him over.  "What's wrong?"

Fishlegs huffed and slouched.  "I was thinking about the next dragon-training class… and how _small_ it's going to be." _Because I failed_ , he couldn't help thinking, but managed not to say out loud.

There was a pause in the work at that, but then Comhghán, one of the laborers, snorted.  "Right, because it's _your_ fault.  You've been arguing for it for _months,_ since before I got here."  He stepped over into Fishlegs' space, reached up and squeezed Fishlegs' shoulder reassuringly.  "And you're in such a hurry!"

Fishlegs blinked.  "What do you mean?"

"I mean, look at the vote," Comhghán said patiently. 

Oisin nodded.  "Aye, and the fact that you lot _vote_ on everything is amazing, rather than the brehorns holding the law to themselves… well, that's something I wasn't expecting when I got here."

Fishlegs quirked an eyebrow.  "All right, now you've really lost me.  What does the vote have to do with 'being in a hurry'?"

Comhghán groaned and scowled for a moment.  "Aye, a bard I'm not, but let me see if I can say this…"

"Take your time," Fishlegs said, feeling a little confused. 

"Well, you're seventeen," Comhghán said.  "I'm nearly twice your age."

Fishlegs nodded; his people—and there was no question that the workers around him were _his_ people by this point—regularly teased him about his youth, and he was wondering if this was the leadup to another friendly joke about his lack of beard. 

"Well, you want this all _now,"_ Comhghán said.

Fishlegs nodded energetically.  "We need the manpower—and the dragonpower!—for the mail, if nothing else.  But—"

Comhghán held up his hand.  "Lad, let me finish."

Fishlegs ground to a halt and nodded.  "Go ahead."

"All right.  Back in Eire, I was an _aithech._   I worked a flock granted to me by my _rí tuaithe,_ and that's what I was, and all I would ever be.  My sons, should I have any, would be the same.  _Maybe_ , if by some chance, I could have started training as one of the _cerdí,_ and passed that down and raised my children's status that way… but unlikely.  And rising up to be one of the _flaith?"_   He snorted.  "If I were lucky, and managed to gain the property needed, it would be my _grandson_ who would be seen as one of them."

Fishlegs blinked.  He'd known that… vaguely… but hadn't considered this situation in that light, of something that would take generations to complete.

Comhghán shrugged, stepped back, and leaned against one of the pillars.  "So it might take a few years.  But I'll _earn_ it.  But you're young, and you have all of these ideas, and all of the eagerness that goes with them.  And, like I said… look at the vote.  The tribe's youth voted with you… and the tribe's elders voted against."

Fishlegs thought about it, and immediately came up with a few dozen exceptions… but Comhghán was mostly right.  He nodded slowly.

Oisin cut in.  "And it was just taking the old law about bringing in new blood and extending it, rather than a whole new law."  He shared a look with Comhghán, who nodded.  "Your idea was a whole new law.  Bonding with the dragon under supervision, a contract—when most people can't read!—for the care and duties to the dragon and to Berk…"  Oisin shrugged.  "It was a whole new law."

Fishlegs waved his head from side to side.  "Well… we based it off of the clan-requirements for administering their titled properties…"

"Oh?" Comhghán asked, sounding intrigued.  Then he paused.  "Wait, there was a point in yours about having to give the dragon up if you couldn't care for it.  Is that…?"

Fishlegs nodded.  "That's how the clans work.  Every clan has a right and a duty to a given property or properties around Berk, held in trust for the whole of the tribe—like the Haddocks had control over the fishing rights around the island, and now have the dragons, too.  And if we don't manage them properly, then we can lose them and the tribe gives them to someone that can."

Fearghus whistled, sounding impressed.  "And how often does that happen?"

"Not often… but it has happened.  Mostly because the clan went extinct, but not always," Fishlegs said slightly defensively. 

Comhghán _hmm'_ ed contemplatively and said, "Well, that's interesting, but I'd say that there's a difference in a law for a _clan_ and a law for a _man._   But they want control."

"Especially given how much everything has changed," Oisin pointed out. 

"Aye, exactly.  But we've wandered off the point.  And the point is that you, lad, are in such a hurry that the idea of having to wait another season to get your ideas going seems impossible."  Comhghán grinned his gap-toothed smile.  "Patience.  It'll come."

"But why wait when we don't have to?" Fishlegs asked plaintively. 

"Something to ask your grand-aunt," Oisin said.  "But come on.  We've been sitting around a bit too long chatting!  Let's get this shop set up!" 

###

**_Roman Fortress, Bari, Roman Catepanate of Italias, Roman Empire_ **

****

As Sigurd was marched down the hallway of the fortress between two of the traitor Varangians, he wondered what was waiting for him at the end of the walk.  Thorred had argued that they were too valuable to harm; the loss of any rider would be enough to take their dragon out of play.  And Sigurd saw the reasoning behind that… but he still worried.

But his images of the torture chambers he'd heard about back in Constantinople weren't what awaited him.  No, what was waiting for him was worse.

A meal.

The two guards escorted him in to a room featuring a table set with a massive spread of food, and two chairs, one on either side of the table.  There were fried eggs, steamed fish, fresh bread, a bowl of creamy bean paste, a small pitcher of _garum_ , watered and spiced wine that gave off wisps of steam into the air, a half-wheel of smoked cheese, a large bowl of crisp salad of fresh greens, and porridge with slices of apples; the smell of it all made Sigurd's stomach rumble with hunger, having not eaten since last night—or, indeed, taken in anything since the small cup of water this morning.

On the other side of the table was Maniakes, his plate piled high. 

Sigurd and his two guards came to a halt near the table—out of reach of the food.  The two traitors saluted.

Sigurd did not.

Maniakes continued to eat, not acknowledging them beyond a nod.  As they stood, Sigurd's stomach was practically clawing at his insides in an effort to get at the meal. 

After the third rumble from Sigurd's stomach, Maniakes put down the bowl of salad and looked up at him.  "Topoteretes Trondsson," he said evenly.

" _Catapan_ Maniakes," Sigurd returned in his best imitation of the same tone, but between the leftover aches from the hangover and his hunger, he was feeling more than a bit sarcastic, and it leaked. 

Maniakes' eyes narrowed.  "Do you speak to all of your senior officers with such belligerence?"

"Only those who are traitors, sir," Sigurd's mouth replied without consulting the rest of him.  His back, in particular, protested, certain that a sword was about to pass through that body part on its way to his heart. 

Maniakes snorted and replied in Latin.  " _Prosperum ac felix scelus Virtus vocatur,_ " he said with an air of quotation.

Sigurd twisted his face in focus as he tried to unravel the Latin phrases as he'd been taught, and said hesitantly, " _Successful and… fortune crime…_ "

As he faltered, Maniakes completed, "'— _is called virtue_.'"  He took a sip of the steaming wine.  "Seneca the Younger, senator of the ancient Empire and tutor of the Emperor Nero.  He lived a thousand years ago.  It's a quote from a play of the hero Heracles; Lycus, the usurper, took the throne of Thebes from Creon, regent to the young king."  He took another sip.  "Unfortunately, he forgot that Creon was Heracles' father-in-law.  The Hero returned from his mission and killed Lycus, restoring the king to his throne."  A small, unfriendly smile played around his lips.  "But his point is valid.  _When_ I succeed, we will be lauded as visionaries, saving the Empire from collapse at the hands of a low-born petulant child, who gives insult as easily as others draw breath."

Sigurd swallowed to try to placate his stomach and said, "Do you have a point?  Because if I wanted a lesson in ancient Greek sagas, I have a tutor back in Constantinople."

A storm raged across Maniakes' face for a moment, but then quieted.  "Yes."  He motioned to the other chair.  "Sit.  Talk.  Eat."

Sigurd was manhandled into the chair by his two guards without another word.  Hesitantly, he reached up and took a piece of bread and a cup of wine.  Without further ceremony, he took a massive bite of the bread and tried to wash it down with the wine. 

As he stuffed his face, Maniakes watched, and then said, "Yes, I have a point.  Unlike Lycus, I plan on having the great and powerful hero on my side.  With Harald's imprisonment, Michael has shown that he cannot be trusted with anyone competent—and when he sent you to Melfi but did not assign you to me, as he should have, he showed that he has no understanding or respect.  Harald's own fate awaits me, without question, as soon as I seem to be a threat.  So I have a choice now—take the Empire away from him now, before he breaks it, and while my troops are as fresh and unbloodied as possible, or wait for later, when more damage will be done, and the men under my command will be blunted and cracked."  He leaned forward, looming over Sigurd.  "And with your forces under my command, we can do it."

Sigurd swallowed the lump of bread and said, "Protospatharios Kekaumenos is the commander of the dragon rider unit."

Maniakes snorted angrily and slammed the table, making the dishes jump.  " _Don't_ insult my intelligence, boy!" he roared.  "Kekaumenos might be in charge by the Army's reckoning, but _you_ are the key!  You are the one who trained them, who assembled them, who _picked_ them!  They are loyal to you!  _You_ are the one who taught them the secrets of dragon-riding!  If you accept, they will follow _you_ , like the barbarians you are!"

Sigurd blinked… and took another bite of his bread.

Maniakes looked away, took a deep breath, clenched and unclenched his fists, and exhaled.  Looking at Sigurd, he said in an even tone, " _You_ are a mercenary.  Michael offers you nothing but death and a pauper's grave.  But I can offer you much more."

As Maniakes listed off his bribes—gold, women, jewels, land…—Sigurd thought. 

He had a point.  Sigurd couldn't deny that.  Michael would see him dead, just for talking back to him that time in the training pit. 

For a moment… just for a moment… he thought about it.  He could say yes.  He could back Maniakes and help make him Emperor; while Michael's personal guard had the other twenty dragons… that would put them at equal numbers.  And Michael wouldn't exactly be a contributor to the fight…

But then a new thought rose up. 

If he did this… he swallowed.  He could hear Thorred's saga.  _Sigurd the Oathbreaker.  Sigurd the Trustless._

That's who he'd be remembered as—his tale would be one of treachery and woe, the traitor, the mutineer, the one who broke his oath—

His eyes suddenly widened as one of Maniakes' own words came back to echo in his mind's ear, and he tried to hide it by grabbing a bowl of porridge and shoving a spoonful of it into his mouth. 

Just as Maniakes knew he couldn't trust Michael because of what he had done to Harald, Maniakes wouldn't be able to trust _Sigurd_ if he sold out.  Because, if he was buyable once… he was buyable twice. 

If he turned traitor and joined Maniakes… then nothing would change.  Aside from exchanging an idiot like Michael for a brute like Maniakes.  But he'd be too much of a threat to the new 'Emperor' to be allowed to live.  Because he was right—Sigurd _did_ command the loyalties of the most powerful unit in the Empire.  If he could be bought… then Maniakes would have no choice once he assumed the throne.  Sigurd would have to go, before someone came up to him with a better offer.

Sigurd looked down at the table as Maniakes continued to list off a fortune—one which he would never have to come through with, after all.  What use was a longboat full of gold to a dead man?

"All right, sir," he said.  "I've decided."

Maniakes paused.  "Ah, good.  So—"

Before he could say anything else, Sigurd reached down, grasped the edge of the table, and _heaved_.

The entirety of the meal sprayed out over Maniakes, and the thunderous clatter of wood, metal and shattering pottery on stone echoed over his surprised roar.  Without missing a beat, Sigurd bolted up from his chair and ran for the door. 

He'd almost reached it when a heavy blow sent him sprawling, and then a body landed on top of him and a hand grabbed his arm.  He tried to twist free, but the grip was too strong—so he settled for punching the other man to try to make him let go.

He heard a sword being drawn, and his blood went cold as he struggled with the guard who had tackled him.

"STOP!" Maniakes' voice roared.

Sigurd looked up to see one of the guards standing above him, the sword ready to plunge into him.  He continued to struggle, but another guard came and joined in.  In a few moments, he was pinned.

As they hauled him to his feet, Sigurd looked at Maniakes, who was wearing about half of the very sumptuous meal.  He looked murderous, his face red—although that might have been the wine—with veins and tendons sticking out visibly against his skin.  "Don't kill him!" he ordered.  "We might need him to train more dragons and riders when the time comes." 

Sigurd sighed as he tried to sag his way out of the grip of the men holding him.  Same thinking as Michael.  Great.  His attempt to deadweight his way out, though, didn't go anywhere, as one of them got him in a joint lock that made him yelp.

Maniakes walked over and scowled at Sigurd.  "Take him to the dungeon and throw him in.  We'll see if he changes his mind later—or if one of his men might know the secret instead."

 

###

**_Dartmoor Mountains, England_ **

 

Astrid rolled out of Hiccup's sleeping grasp with a suppressed sigh, and padded to the tent's flap.  She'd had too much water to drink before bed, and now, with the baby pressing on bits inside of her, she had to deal with the consequences. 

Walking quietly over to where they'd put their latrine, she relieved herself and took a brief walk to stretch her sore legs before returning to the tent. 

Fritjof had watch, and he was a nearby dark shape on the side of the hill in the cloud-dimmed moonlight, the dragons being sleepy lumps around the tents.  As she walked by, he gave a wordless grunt of acknowledgment.  Waving slightly at him, she motioned up the hillside and he gave a curt nod. 

She walked up the hill for a moment and then started to pace.  Looking around the cloud-studded sky, the waning gibbous moon just rising to the east, she considered for a moment. 

They'd looked all afternoon around these 'mountains' for any sign of dragons, and hadn't found anything.  Stops at three of the local villages hadn't turned up anything other than rumors.  Oh, sure, they had heard of dragons being out on the Dartmoor Mountains… but none of them had _seen_ any.  They'd just heard other people talking about having seen dragons.  And _that_ had taken a bunch of discussion and back and forth questions to figure out, as all of the locals said that there were dragons up in the mountains. 

They just hadn't _seen_ any. 

It was enough to make her suspicious. 

But why…

She walked around a tree and suddenly came face to face with a man wearing dark woodsman clothing and holding a knife. 

Which he stabbed at her, his eyes going wide.

Reflexively, she blocked, and grabbed at his wrist.  "ATTACKERS!" she shouted as they struggled over the knife.  "HOOLIGANS, WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

Then there was the sudden hiss of arrows through the air and Astrid hit the ground.

* * *

 _ **AN:** _ *scurries under rock to hide* _So... how about dem cliffhangers?  ;)_

_On a more serious note, my deepest thanks to everyone with their words of support last week.  It means a lot; I've gotten chased out of enough communities, both IRL and online, because of my identity--which is why I kept quiet for so long on it here.  So thank you all._

_Also, early chapter this week, because there's the HTTYD panel at NYCC in a few hours, and I didn't want to get lost in the rush :D_

_There are four more chapters in Book II, and then I go on hiatus for NaNoWriMo; my posting schedule has me post chapter 68 on November 4, and resume posting on December 2._

_And on a final note, the surgery for my left hand was last week; it was a complete success and I get the sutures out tomorrow morning.  Probably around December-ish I'll get my right hand done as well.  Thanks again for all of your support there!_


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